Robert J. Art and Louise Richardson (eds), Democracy and Counterterrorism: Lessons from the Past

摘要

In this age of 24/7 saturation coverage of all things terror-related, it is hard to conceive of a book about terrorism that does not touch on the synergistic relationship between terrorists and the media. That is doubly true of a collection marketed as 'a comprehensive study' of the lessons drawn from recent history. Yet Democracy and Counterterrorism manages to avoid the issue almost entirely. Absent from the index to this 640-page tome are the words 'media', 'television', 'newspaper' and 'Internet'. Nowhere in the 14 case studies from Europe, South America, the Middle East and South Asia is there a substantive discussion of media as a tool of terror or a weapon of counterterrorism. 'Terrorism, let's recall, is the deliberate use of violence, more often than not against non-combatants, to induce political change through fear', the editors write in their introduction, paraphrasing Rand expert Bruce Hoffman (p. 8). That definition is repeatedly cited throughout the book. But the editors seem to ignore the implicit fact that, like the tree falling in the woods, the terror act must be communicated to a wider audience if it is to be heard - or, in this case, to create fear. Media is the critical missing piece in this strategic equation. That was recognized as far back as 1979 at the First International Conference on Terrorism, which denounced the 'special relationship' between media and terrorism (Netanyahu, 1986).