THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA IN THE CRUSADE AGAINST GLOBAL TERRORISM

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

One of the major functions of the mass media is the provision of adequate information about ongoings or current events in the society as a way of serving the public what they need to know.

The news media in particular serve this basic human needs by providing information on WHO? , WHAT? , WHY? , WHERE? And HOW?, Relaying to the public. It is possible to argue that there is no particular time the public is more in need of information from the media than when the safety or even the survival of the public is threatened. In other words, the public is in greater need of more extensive information during a current danger in order to reduce uncertainty about the danger(Schlesinger, et al 1983:14) No wonder that the news media, particularly the broadcast media, become a relaying point of the public when terrorists strike.  

Nevertheless, reporting on terrorism presents a number of “dilemma” and “paradoxes” to journalists whose responsibility is to inform the public “Objectively”; fairly” and “Accurately.

It is however, a dilemma to them because one of the main objectives of terrorist act is to maximize publicity in order to create a “psychological” effect on the public. This leads to some questions concerning the role of the media in reporting terrorism. For example, is the MEDIA acting as an accomplice to the aims of the terrorists by craving cheap publicity for them? Is the media not magnifying the threat and fear in the way they report terrorism instead of allaying the fear? Is the media reports of terrorism encouraging more of such acts as terrorists may be more emboldened by the massive publicity they gain for their terror and intensify the acts of terrorism? Are the media really objective and accurate in the way they report terrorism in their narrative and framing of the terrorist? How best should the media report incidents of terrorist violence? These are the complex questions that this article tries to put into perspective with the aim of providing a personal view point on how the media has been reporting terrorism. The aim of this article is not to provide absolute answers to the questions because I think there are no perfect answers or consensus on the complex issue of how the media reporter should report on terrorism. Rather, it simply argues that any form of political violence that goes unreported or not reported sensationally; it also argues that the simplification of terrorist acts without recourse to historical details and motives of the terrorist by the media has not been helpful in reducing acts of terrorism. If the media go beyond the rhetoric of the official perspective and stop labeling terrorists and defining their acts as evil against good and instead provide a deeper analysis of what motives such acts carry, the media would have gone a long way to resolve the “MENACE” that has deeply taken root in the fabric of our national and international relationship.

It should be noted that the history of terrorism is as old as man dealing with humans willingness to use violence to affect politics. However, global terrorism became a prominent issue in the late 1960’s when hijacking became a favored tactic.