terrorism and the media
The twentieth century all but gave birth to the concept and idea of terrorism, at least towards America. Why was the twentieth century such a prime century to host the breeding of terrorism towards the United States? The book Terrorism and the Media, by Brigitte L. Nacos shows exactly why how how terrorism plays on our society. Our country is the leading nation in the world, this is precisely what acts of terrorism play on. There are different types of terrorism, Nacos tells us, as well as different types of perpetrators. Nacos focuses on innocent Americans not in high positions. A major point that Nacos reminds us of, is the fact that it is generally not the grievances of the perpetrators that the public is against, it is the means they use. This book was intended to show the relationship of terrorism to the media and how it thrives on it. Nacos begins with the example of the World Trade Center Bombing in 1993, the largest terrorist attack on American soil up to that point. This attack dispelled the myth that large terrorist attacks could not be staged on U.S. soil. Nacos continues, however, with numerous examples of incidents abroad involving Americans: the killing of 258 Americans at the Embassy in Beirut, the murder
of a navy diver in the hijacking of TWA flight 847, the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 and the subsequent killing of 270 passengers aboard, and many more. Nacos uses all these examples to show that in adding up the damages, costs, and number of victims, terrorism ends up being merely a nuisance numerically when one considers the number of deaths occurring in the U.S. Yet the significance, says Nacos, “ does not lie in the number of lives taken or in the amount of destruction inflicted; it lies in the number of lives threatened and in the amount of fear and terror generated” (3). This is where the media comes into play according to Nacos; The way the media, the public, and decision-makers react to violence determines the power terrorists have to “ advance their objectives”. Nacos argues that terrorism is most effective when the violence is staged outside of the target country. The goals of terrorists can be classified into three categories: tactical or short term, strategic or long term, and universal or overlapping. Tactical being specific to one certain incident, strategic are unique to certain types of groups, and universal simply satisfies both of the preceding. As the times have changed and the coverage of the media has grown more shocking and more perverse, so have th
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Approximate Word count = 883
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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