Terrorism is dependent on the value of *terror*, which can be communicated only in the media
I had never thought of it like that before. To be sure, I have often mused on various things I think are wrong with the media, but I have never before considered the enormity of its contribution to the affects of terrorism. Consider for a moment what terrorism would accomplish in...say...the 18th century. Let's just give the terrorists the benefit of the doubt and assume that they still had powerful explosives like we have today. So, imagine they blow up some large building with lots of people. About all they would acheive in the 18th century would be a destroyed building and some dead people. The widespread publicity of the terrorists' cause would not be accomplished because news of the attack would not spread quickly.
When you look at it this way, terrorism could only be a recent phenomenon, made possible by mass-communication technology. Does this change the media's responsibilities when it comes to terrorism? I'm not about to advocate censorship here, but voluntary suppression of terrorism stories on the part of media organizations has the potential to make it much more difficult for terrorism to accomplish it's intended goal. But is that right? Does the media have a moral obligation to report everything?
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