The Psychology of Mass-Mediated Terrorism

Bibliographic Data

ID3758520
AuthorsG Weimann (0000-0002-5491-9210, University of Haifa, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume52
Issue1
Pages69-86
Publication date2008-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Behavioral Scientist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7642 • E-ISSN: 1552-3381
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0002764208321342
OpenAlexW1976733194
LanguageEN
Citations received21
References cited14

The growing use and manipulation of modern communications by terrorist organizations have led communication and terrorism scholars to reconceptualize modern terrorism within the framework of symbolic communication theory. Some applied the theater-of-terror metaphor to examine modern terrorism as an attempt to communicate messages through the use of orchestrated violence. This article examines the psychological importance of the mass media for modern terrorism, the media tactics of terrorists, and the challenges they present to media organizations and governments. Special attention is given to the use of the Internet by modern terrorists and the rhetoric of terrorist Web sites based on 8-year-long monitoring of terrorist presence on the Internet and the analysis of more than 5,000 terrorist Web sites. Finally, the article concludes with various responses of modern democratic societies to the challenge poised by media-oriented and media-savvy terrorists

Criminology · Democracy · Mass media · Media studies · Metaphor · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Rhetoric · Sociology · Symbolic communication · Terrorism · The Internet · World Wide Web · Computer Science · History · Law · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

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