Terrorism
Terrorism is a major problem facing our nation and when the media report terrorist actions they just enhance the problem to a larger scale. "If the media were not there to report terrorist acts and to explain their political and social significance... terrorism as such would cease to exist," said John O'Sullivan, an editor of the Times of London (Terrorism 3). This is also the way many other people feel about the recent increase in terrorist activity; they feel that the media is causing it. The media is doing this by fulfilling the terrorists' need for publicity (Terrorism 3). Terrorists need media publicity in order to get their views spread to the public. Because of this need for publicity, terrorists are committing their acts of terrorism in areas where a lot of publicity will be gained, the United States. The bombings of the World Trade Center in New York is a current example of terrorists seeking publicity in the United States. Terrorists' need for publicity has been around for a long time, but new media technologies are causing the problem to grow faster than ever. Terrorism is growing at an impressive rate of 12 to 15 percent per year (Sobel 4). The media cause many problems besides helping terrorists. They inspire more ter
Most countries, including the United States, have government censorship during wars; this is so no confidential information is released to the enemy and so public commotion can be avoided (Leone 141). This caused President Clinton to urge Congress to pass new laws, most of which were not even effective. Throughout all of the problems that the media cause there are not really any good solutions to the problems. This is where the media must decide for themselves if they should report a terrorist event. Even though this solution may work in other countries, it probably would never be accepted in the United States. This is where the public begins to accept terrorism because the media show it to them all of the time. Also, government censorship might cause the terrorists' acts to increase in intensity in order to gain media attention again, it could have similar consequences as the "immunization effect. The media inspire more terrorism to happen, cause terrorist acts to be bigger, cause problems with authorities, and cause ineffective laws to be passed. The bill did nothing but take away rights of normal citizens and stiffen the punishments of the offenders; the bill would not have prevented the bombing in Oklahoma City from occurring (Sobel 42) In a way the media causes more problems then just plain terrorism does. This is because the media industry is very competitive. When the public fear an attack near them, they want the government to step in and quickly solve the problem. He found that a "saturation of media coverage led to public apathy robbing the terrorist act of its publicity effect" (Nicholls 119). Some countries, like Yugoslavia, have government censorship all of the time. Some of the guidelines are: make reports short and to the point; avoid live coverage; avoid troubling the authorities; never help the terrorist; do not show how the act was done; avoid releasing confidential information; and show the punishment more than the act itself (Terrorism 4). As new media technologies have been invented, terrorist groups have been able to publicize their views to a bigger audience than they had ever imagined possible.
Common topics in this essay:
Bill Rights,
United Terrorists',
Robert Bell's,
Oklahoma City,
United Europe,
London Terrorism,
,
Slobodan Milosevic,
Global Terrorism,
Prevention Act,
government censorship,
media cause,
acts terrorism,
media technologies,
terrorism 3,
ineffective laws passed,
terrorist acts,
media report,
laws passed,
ineffective laws,
cause ineffective,
cause ineffective laws,
public fear attack,
terrorism happen cause,
happen cause terrorist,
|
Acceptance Essays
