Reviews

Media, Terrorism, and Theory: A Reader (2006) edited by Anandam P. Kavoori and Todd Fraley

Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. 208 pages. ISBN: 13: 978-0-7425-3630-2. £$28.95 paperback

In many ways, the current phenomenon of terrorism is a media creation. On the one hand, before the late 1960s, the media rarely employed the language of 'terrorists' and 'terrorism'. Instead, they reported acts of political violence in fairly objective and descriptive terms such as 'assassinations', 'bombings', 'kidnappings', 'hijackings' and the like. From the early 1970s onwards however, this more neutral language is replaced by a growing discourse of 'terrorism', 'terror' and 'terrorists', particularly in the print media. From this perspective, the use of the term 'terrorism' to signify a certain category of political violence is both recent and driven in part by media practices. On the other hand, there is also the well-known symbiotic relationship between 'terrorism' and the media: acts of 'terrorism' only become terror through their communication to audiences by the media, while the media profits directly from the drama and spectacle of such powerfully communicative political violence. These two processes - the discursive construction of 'terrorism' as a media subject and media profiting from coverage of acts of 'terrorism' - have been greatly amplified the post-September 11 period. Today, it is unlikely that a single day goes by where 'terrorism' is not a major subject of media coverage across the English-speaking world. More importantly, it is clear that media representation of 'terrorism' has important effects on, and is embedded within, wider processes of democracy, identity and power.

Given the intimate relationship between 'terrorism' and the media, the central role of the media in modern democratic politics, as well as the sheer volume of media coverage of the subject, there is an unquestionable need for systematic analyses and theorisation of the way in which the media treats the 'terrorism' subject. Media, Terrorism, and Theory is a bold collection of papers that aims to better understand media discourses on 'terrorism' and to analyse some of the larger issues surrounding the media's portrayal of acts of 'terrorism'. In particular, it aims to de-code the modes, frames and wider discursive contexts within which coverage of 'terrorism' takes place, and to theorise these processes within a broader understanding of the role of the media in the constitution of identity, public knowledge, democratic politics and the like.

The volume is divided into three sections. The first section is entitled 'Orientations' and consists of two excellent chapters aimed at providing the reader with a set of conceptual tools for interpreting contemporary media coverage of 'terrorism' and the current 'war on terror'. The first of these chapters argues that television news coverage has a myth-making function which constructs and sustains a particular kind of world view and its accompanying political values, and that a number of powerful myths presently structure media coverage of the 'war on terror', including myths of 'Islamic terrorism', nuclear threat, madness and morality.   The second chapter in this section examines how the 'communicative architecture' of television journalism, or the process of 'mediatisation', functions to shape public perceptions of the war on terrorism, mostly in ways that permit dominant views and perspectives to go largely unchallenged.

The second section of the book, 'Genres and Contexts', has four chapters on different aspects of media coverage of 'terrorism', including an analysis of 'terrorism' in popular film, a comparative study of the Spanish media's coverage of the 9/11 attacks versus its coverage of Basque violence, an essay on how discourses relating to gender and identity are played out in media coverage of war, and a study on 'terrorist' exploitation of the internet and new media. Although there is some interesting and important analysis in these chapters, particularly the case of the Spanish media's treatment of 'terrorism', I did not always find the subject matter to be directly relevant to the stated focus and aims of the book.

The final section of the volume, 'Frames and Contexts', contains four excellent chapters which seek to further theorise and reflect upon the global media context, its potentialities and limitations in relation to democratic and progressive politics, and its relation to other areas of social theory. The first chapter in this section examines the possibilities of 'critical media consciousness' for organising democratic communication outside of the dominant corporate paradigm. This is followed by a trenchant analysis of public relations, public diplomacy and propaganda, and the provision of a nuanced set of criteria for evaluating contemporary media messages. The third chapter reflects upon the impact of 9/11 on some dominant social theories, and explores the potentialities for theorising a global democratic movement that is grounded in cosmopolitanism, human rights and ecology. The final chapter of the book examines questions of media and 'terrorism' through the prism of post-colonial theory, in part by critiquing the embedded assumptions about culture and identity within the semantic field of international media communication about 'terrorism'.

As with most edited collections, Media, Terrorism, and Theory is a little uneven at times and some chapters make a much stronger contribution than others. However, on balance this is an excellent book with more really useful and interesting chapters than bad ones. A number of features of the volume stand out. In the first place, with one or two exceptions, all the contributors take an appropriately critical view of the mainstream media's coverage of 'terrorism' and provide a series of useful theoretical perspectives and tools for interpreting and deconstructing media messages, and assessing the impact of media practices on democratic politics and identity. Second, taken as a whole, the volume has a clear normative agenda, namely, to promote democratic engagement by providing readers with the 'critical vocabulary' that is needed for discussing issues of media, 'terrorism' and theory. Third, unlike some commentaries on the media which take a descriptive approach, this volume contains a strong theoretical element that should provide the basis for further critical theorising and rigorous empirical research. Finally, with a logical organisation and a series of helpful discussion questions at the end of each section, the volume attempts to provide readers with a sound basis for engaging in dialogue about the issues raised; that is, it has a clear praxiological intention. In short, I recommend this book to students, teachers and members of the public interested in engaging with critical issues of media, its treatment of 'terrorism' in the 'war on terror', and the potentialities of democratic politics in a media age.