Media Influence On Terrorism

In contemporary times, the media has had more influence on political debate and war on terrorism than any other era due to the increase in technology and the unlimited resources to information. Technology has allowed terrorist more access to the world resulting in an increased amount of attacks and recruitment. The media has been redesigned to increase the focus on what is happening in the world negatively more than topics of a positive nature. There are thousands of media outlets that are giving out exaggerated information creating more fear and the trend of fake news, decreasing the validity of the media. This article will discuss the relationship between the media and the government and whether information-control regulations should be adopted,

They also face difficulty creating policies that will be accepted by the public if the media has an input on the matter (pp. 292). This influence the media has may have caused animosity between the government and the public. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the topic of terrorism has been a constant go to subject for the media. A study was conducted on how factual the information on terrorism was that was being put out by the media. The results indicated that there was a higher percent of factual news about terrorism being put out immediately after the attacks with the percent decreasing as time passed. After the 9/11 attacks, the earliest days of coverage consisted of only 25% of opinion, analysis and speculation and 75% facts. The media steered to avoid interpretation with at least 2,496 stories covering the attacks via television, newspaper and magazines (Return, 2002). This may have been the new start to how the media takes information and present it to the

An example of this would be during elections if certain networks are more for a candidate than the other. This will most likely influence the audience and draw them in favor to the candidate who is discussed more positively on that source of media. However, events like the attacks of 9/11 can create a new era of topics also referred to as “new icons” which can leave many uncertain and vulnerable in opinion. Whether a person of event, a connection to the government or power structure and the media can be placed in a three stage phase. In W. Lance Bennett and Regina Lawrence’s article News Icons and the Mainstreaming of Social Change cited in Lee, Li and Lee (2011), these stages consist of “(a) an image appears in a news story as a dramatic scene or event; (b) an image captures societal imagination; and (c) journalists use the news icon in narratives of other or subsequent stories” (pp. 337). These examples and influences should why the government should increase the restrictions on the media. Certain topics including terrorism can draw the public to react defensively of stereotypes, target innocent people and if improper information influences the public can resulting protest and