Terrorism and Mass media is pertinent in the facet of the rise of terrorism, ethnic conflict and other forms of violence that had endangered the use of press freedom in Philippines and United States.
Significance of the Study
This research aims that the government and civil society and the academe address and focus the need for an ongoing study of pointers for action research projects for terrorism through media. This would include studies on terrorism from a collective development framework which includes: the social, political, cultural, economic and technological aspects. This proposal would then enable every citizen to participate in planning and monitoring program initiatives in this area. In this type of cooperation and sharing, and analysis of a most threatened institution, the media, I hope this study will help to come up with an answer that would address one of the most persistent problems in our international community- international terrorism.
Introduction
This study will attempt to explain the relationship of media and terrorism and how it affects both sides of the coin such as how press freedom acts as an instrument for the terrorist to send their messages to the public, the press’ advantage in their freedom to report on critical circumstances especially related to terrorism and in contrary the Cons having media as an instrument for a severe violence that brings fear to the whole world and creates a big blockade to international peace and security as well as the involvement of journalists’ safety in their field of work as an acting mechanism of media.
Media is the “oxygen of terrorism” as mentioned by the Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Nacos, 2006), in a frequently stated quote, the relationship between Terrorism and Media is not only a one-way street. And of course terrorism cannot be branded as the oxygen of the media, after all the media would not drastically change or stop existing if terrorism ended today, and yes, the media do benefit from terrorism as well. Perhaps the concept of terrorism in the news seems to be an attractive advantage for media coverage because of its critical updates. This associated relationship between terrorism and the media is the general subject of this paper and how it is related to international terrorism and destabilizes press freedom in most of the countries. But this paper will focus on The Philippines and United states since these countries were on its most level of camaraderie in terms of economic, social, cultural and even in combatting terrorism from Abu Sayaf to Al- Qaeda terrorist groups.
It is important to deeply understanding the relationship between Terrorism and the Media through its history before going to its correlation to Media Freedom. “Terrorism is play,” and terrorist attacks carefully maneuvered plan to draw the attention of the media. Since 1970s Bruce Hoffman Noted that, “the media responds to these overtures with almost unbridled alacrity, proving unable to ignore what has been accurately described as ‘an event fashioned specifically for their needs’,” (Hoffman 2006). This perceived mutually constructive relationship between terrorists and the media is the subject of this chapter. First the primary motives for terrorists to use the media will be deliberated, as well as their methods, illustrated by some examples. “New media” technologies such as the Internet will also be discussed, as well as ways of the “organization of terrorist” to directly show their messages, without intrusion of journalists.
Terrorists via the Media
Terrorism was described as “a war of extermination and genocide against a defenseless civilian population." This exercise in state terror sought "to destroy the people's organizations fighting to defend their fundamental human rights," by Archbishop Oscar Romero . The use of media is their mainstreams to act fiercely just to inform and appraise their deep thoughts of being the “supreme being” in this kind of profession-being a terrorist. The Use of media is so important for al- Qaeda, that many within the organization have said that Bin Laden is “infatuated” with the international media, and that he has “caught the disease of screens, flashes, fans, and applause.” (Schimid, 2005) And he is not the only terrorist to value the media so highly. On an Islamist magazine wrote: “Film everything; this is good advice for all mujahedeen. You should be aware that every frame you take is as good as a missile fired at the Crusader enemy and his puppets.” (Quoted in: Mass-Mediated Terrorism, 2007). And I agree that from their point of view, they seem to be right. On the book Bruce Hoffman’s Inside Terrorism, he argues on terrorist attacks that “without the media’s coverage the act’s impact is arguably wasted, remaining narrowly confined to the immediate victim of the attack, rather than reaching the wider ‘target audience’ at whom the terrorists’ violence is actually aimed.” (Hoffman 1998). I believe that without massive news coverage of the acts of the terrorist, no one will learn of an incident, it would be as if it had not occurred and therefore, they will not create fear that would make them as a “supreme being” in that line of vocation.
As I have been pointing out, the media is suited for the purposes of terrorists and there are several models concerning characteristics or capabilities of the media explain part of this sensation. Two most important media concepts in the perspective of this paper are agenda setting and framing. “Agenda setting is the theory that draws more attention to a media outlet that pays to a certain phenomenon, the more importance the public attributes to such an issue. The theory of framing states that the way a news item is presented can have an influence on how it is interpreted or understood by the audience.” (Owen, D, 2003). Seemingly, radicals like to be on their viewers’ minds, and so they use media to capture the attention of their audiences. Some examples in which these media characteristics can be useful for terrorists will be discussed throughout this section.
Gaining Attention and Awareness
On the first model which is the agenda setting, “Spreading or creating fear and Gaining attention” is intensely connected to this model. As we observe, terrorists wanted to be in the media as frequently and as extensive as possible, in order to become well known to the public. “The Burnham story with the Abu Sayaf” even had a documentary film in the history Channel which shows how these groups attempt to effect media outlets so that they will spread the word on their organization’s existence therefore gaining attention, and people will automatically be responsive of their being, systems, and their targets. In fact terrorists are thus carrying out propaganda by proxy. The strategy to gain attention is meant to an important point: to threaten the audience and the target government. As Hoffman writes: “Only by spreading the terror and outrage to a much larger audience can the terrorists gain the maximum potential leverage that they need to effect fundamental political change.”(Quoted in CRS report). Or in lay man’s term, even the danger of possibly becoming a victim of terrorist violence is sufficient to create fear therefore creating an effect on the policy making process of a state.
“Never in the history of journalism have the news media suffered such a heavy loss of life” a quote from the reporters without borders from GMAnews.tv. Where 12 journalists were killed in Maguindanao province by armed men, including two policemen, which were linked to the province’s governor, more than 30 other people were murdered and Some of the victims were beheaded. This brought tears, and outcry for justice of the relatives of the victims; and the reason that this issue came across the borders of other countries was because of the involvement of international journalist on the scene and obviously, the Media. Another scenario wherein the videos taken by the Abu Sayaf during the Burnham Hostage scenario back in 2002 wherein they group continuously communicating to the public how they killed or will going to kill each one of the hostages if the government does not meet their demands are some of many examples that seem to confirm that gaining attention and awareness through the media are important aspects of terrorist strategy.
I believe that those strategies to get the attention were not happened by coincidental. In detail, those are carefully designed strategies by terrorist like for example, Al-Qaeda-during the hijacking American Airlines Flight 11 that was crashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower, followed by United Airlines Flight 175 which hit the South Tower minutes later. Another group of hijackers flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon and a fourth flight, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. This largest attack generally still receives the greatest attention. Since these kind of incidents received the utmost volume of reporting and media publicity, terrorist will tend to do more blood-stained violence to satisfy media’s craving for shocking news.
Acknowledgement of Intentions
It is not just about terrorists wanting to be known, they also want to try to get their message across through the media. At times this can be achieved merely by resounding out attacks. It is quite ironically to ask why people do such things, particularly, for example, if suicide bombers and hijackers are involved. For many, it is quite disturbing that people would kill themselves in order to kill civilian witnesses. Their motive is for the media to get to know the cause they do this. The effects of this media strategy can be increased by trying to make the media surround the issues in a certain way that it keeps on a continuous process and build issues which are unresolved and cliff hanging for the audience to figure out their true intention and thus lending some recognition to the terrorists. Sometimes groups of terrorist obliging media to publish their impulses, so that people throughout the world will learn and know about it, For instance, TWA airplane in 1976 takeover by Croatian hijackers demanded that brochures and flyers should be dropped over the large cities by high ranking newspapers such as the Washington Post and New York Times print statements made by the terrorists. The newspapers agreed and the statements were printed (Murphy 2006).
Links to Jemaah Islamiah and Al Qaeda
According to Admiral Denis Blair, a commander in chief of the U.S. pacific Command, As was stated in the Wall street journal of 2001 issue, “We’re seeing increasing evidence that there are potential current links between Abu Sayaf and Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist organization.” Counterterrorism Experts from U.S. and Philippines say that Al-Qaeda do operate in the Philippines through regional and local organizations such as the Jemaah Islamiyah and the Abu Sayyaf Groups. According to the CSS Report for Congress by Larry Niksch, Al-Qaeda's presence in the Philippines has had the influence of professionalizing certain local groups and building ties among them so that they can better collaborate in many cases, this cooperation has taken the form of helping obtain armaments and explosives. By the use of media, it is recognized that Abu Sayyaf received funding and support from Al Qaeda in the early 1990s. in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States, Al Qaeda was said to be certain on reconsidering Abu Sayyaf as an associate against the United States. The interconnections of both groups bring Abu Sayyaf towards operations that were more in line with Al Qaeda-JI operations and thus established a stronger basis for cooperation to create a bigger attack that will eventually challenge the target states’ security.
The reason why I stated this issue is because Philippine-US relations cannot be denied in their growing companionship and these circumstances may be the cause of their annoyance of our country’s involvement on the scene having our Muslim people cooperating to the terrorist group that had once destroy their city. And maybe, it could serve as a cooperative measure for the Philippine and U.S. government to be more intact with one another to fight against terrorism and its implication to the countries’ Media freedom.
Conclusion
These events and concepts of the terrorist merely show the act of violence in the era of globalization. The use of media particularly the internet as well as other technological advancement seems to be on the terrorists’ advantage. Philippines and United states have been working on against this transnational crime. But despite these efforts, especially in our country, terrorist activity in the Philippines continues because of limited funds, insufficient salaries, corruption, low morale, limited collaboration between police and prosecutors, and certain problems in law enforcement. According to Stewart, K.B., and Marlin, L.C. (2004), weak rule of law, and poverty, coupled with local resentment among the Muslim minority, also made it especially more difficult for the Philippine government to combat terrorism on its southern and eastern islands. On the other hand, These include need for more official precision in coming up with a universal definition of terrorism, a continuous specialized development program for journalists and educationalists in these areas: preparation of training modules on process-oriented reporting; advancement of existing print and transmission codes of ethics including Internet and photojournalism to include concerns of terrorism reporting, cultural communication which cater to the problems of stereotyping, and factors that split ethnic, social and religious groups; and safety of journalists.
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