Terrorism and Media – an Interactive Modelling of a Message: the Research Framework

Abstract

The report presents theoretical framework of relationships between terrorist organisations and media, and it describes them as an interactive modelling of a message. It introduces the concept of mediatisation of terrorism, and it offers a definition of this process. Moreover, the report develops it with six theoretical hypotheses related to: influence of media on selection of terrorists’ targets, adaptation of an act of terror to the ‘logic of media communication’, personalisation of terrorism and celebritisation of terrorists, creation of biased and oversimplified stereotypes, transformation of terrorist objectives into catch-phrases, as well as a role of political violence in agenda-setting of main news broadcasts. The presented concept will be verified in the ongoing comprehensive, quantitative-and-qualitative study on mediatisation of terrorism in American television, that will investigate the process between September 11, 2001 and the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013.