Media and Terrorism
...and technology has changed also creates problems. As our world has become smaller due to satellite trans-mission reporting and the World Wide Web, terrorists are able to gather an audience, sympathizers, and advocates for their causes. In the December of 1996 the Tupac Amaru guerrilla group took over a Japanese ambassadors’ compound in Peru. Little information was known of the group until members and supporters of the group littered the Internet with information soon after. Terrorist groups are also able to communicate (through encrypted messages), enlist (through websites), advertise, and frighten their opposition (by use of propaganda). With an act of political violence these groups use the media as a doorway for individuals, supporters, and foes alike to peek interest and hopefully motivate people to read and spread information about their cause (out of fear or support). Media, with an appetite for horrific and deadly incidents over-cover these situations and cause hysteria and fear for the public it serves. Without such coverage it would be “ a proverbial tree falling in the forest”. Margaret Thatcher calls it the “oxygen” of terrorism. Speculation and ill-informed analysis of information adds to the hysteria of the situation. So was the cause of Jose Padilla, who was arrested for a foiled dirty-bomb mission. Even though there was a slim to none chance he could have gone thru with the mission, the manner in which administration (for the U.S....