Explore the Relationships Between Technology, 'Terrorism' and Media.

Explore the relationships between technology, 'terrorism' and media.Student Number: 11032901

Module Code: SC5050

Explore the relationships between technology, 'terrorism' and media.

“U.S. Attacked!” was the heading of The New York Times the day after 9/11 (The New York Times, 2001). Attacked, by whom? After the second tower was hijacked jet, there was no doubt: it was a terrorist attack. The majesty, the symmetry, the twin-ness of the Twin Towers and their representing the nerve-centre of the banking and finance system of the United States, the nightmare and together the fantasy of their destruction joining everyone in an anxious state of mind to the point that they almost wished for it to happen, became true (Baudrillard, 2002).

Terror, mass media and technology, three key essential elements needed for the realisation of what has been defined by the Daily Mail as the “Apocalypse” (Daily Mail, 2001). Thus, with reference to the 9/11 terrorist attack, the phenomenon of terrorism will be examined in relation to its two double-edged weapons: mass media and technology.

Among all definitions of terrorism available, Hoffman (2003) offers the one that applies the most to the end of this paper: terrorism as a violent act that is conceived specifically to attract attention and then, through the publicity it generated, to communicate a message (Peresin, 2007).

It is arguable that the attractiveness of the act can to certain extents strengthen the message it is supposed to communicate. The communicative strategy adopted by the mastermind behind 9/11 terrorist attack can be inferred from various features of the attack itself (Hoffman, 2006).

On the one hand, the strategy consisted of four simultaneous hijackings. Even though this was not an innovative strategy, it was adopted to communicate the skill and the determination of the attackers: the plotters, in fact, sincerely believed that they could politicize and radicalize the Islamic masses by utilizing the...