Negative spaces: Terrorist attempts to erase cultural history and the critical media coverage

Abstract

The recent annihilation of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud by ISIS represents a disturbing trend in how some terrorist groups are trying to erase historical sites for the cultures they communicate. This study explores how one of these devastated spaces is still expressed in the media years after its destruction by examining another act of iconoclasm that occurred in 2001 when the Taliban annihilated the 1,500-year-old Buddhas of Bamiyan statues. The research explores the conception of negative spaces in communication and the means by which they are created through warfare and terrorism. A frame and critical analysis of popular magazines then assesses how the Bamiyan Buddhas’ identity has been transformed over time, and some of the journalistic practices that have enabled these renderings. The results reveal how the Buddhas have gradually become journalism’s touchstone for modern cultural terrorism, while in 70 percent of the coverage the site’s actual history has been replaced by the narrative of its destruction.