Terrorism

The study of communication is directly relevant to the study of terrorism and terrorist groups. While the definition of terrorism is itself extremely controversial, and by no means settled, as a working definition, the definition used by the U.S. Department of State: as defined in USC Title 22 Section 2656, can be adopted: “Terrorism is premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” Contemporary research on the relationship between communication and terrorism generally falls into one of three categories: (1) understanding terrorist attacks as themselves fundamentally communicative acts, and studying them from that perspective; (2) studying the way the professional press covers terrorism and terrorists; and (3) studying the way terrorists and terrorist groups are making use of their ...