Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 The terrorism–torture link: when evil begets evil
- 2 Torture, terrorism, and the moral prohibition on killing non-combatants
- 3 The equivalent logic of torture and terrorism: the legal regulation of moral monstrosity
- 4 War versus criminal justice in response to terrorism: the losing logic of torture
- 5 Reducing the opportunities for terrorism: applying the principles of situational crime prevention
- 6 From the terrorists' point of view: toward a better understanding of the staircase to terrorism
- 7 If they're not crazy, then what? The implications of social psychological approaches to terrorism for conflict management
- 8 The cycle of righteous destruction: a Terror Management Theory perspective on terrorist and counter-terrorist violence
- 9 Misinformation and the “War on Terror”: when memory turns fiction into fact
- 10 Icons of fear: terrorism, torture, and the media
- 11 What explains torture coverage during war-time? A search for realistic answers
- 12 Reversed negatives: how the news media respond to “our” atrocities
- 13 Terrorism and TV news coverage of the 2001 Australian election
- 14 Terrorism, anxiety, and war
- 15 I'm right, you're dead: speculations about the roots of fanaticism
- 16 Reducing terrorist risk: integrating jurisdictional and opportunity approaches
- Index
- References
13 - Terrorism and TV news coverage of the 2001 Australian election
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 September 2009
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 The terrorism–torture link: when evil begets evil
- 2 Torture, terrorism, and the moral prohibition on killing non-combatants
- 3 The equivalent logic of torture and terrorism: the legal regulation of moral monstrosity
- 4 War versus criminal justice in response to terrorism: the losing logic of torture
- 5 Reducing the opportunities for terrorism: applying the principles of situational crime prevention
- 6 From the terrorists' point of view: toward a better understanding of the staircase to terrorism
- 7 If they're not crazy, then what? The implications of social psychological approaches to terrorism for conflict management
- 8 The cycle of righteous destruction: a Terror Management Theory perspective on terrorist and counter-terrorist violence
- 9 Misinformation and the “War on Terror”: when memory turns fiction into fact
- 10 Icons of fear: terrorism, torture, and the media
- 11 What explains torture coverage during war-time? A search for realistic answers
- 12 Reversed negatives: how the news media respond to “our” atrocities
- 13 Terrorism and TV news coverage of the 2001 Australian election
- 14 Terrorism, anxiety, and war
- 15 I'm right, you're dead: speculations about the roots of fanaticism
- 16 Reducing terrorist risk: integrating jurisdictional and opportunity approaches
- Index
- References
Summary
The terrorist attacks of September 11 and the ensuing War on Terror both reflect an essential role for the mass media as the conduit of information through which the public at large evaluate the politics of terror. On the one hand, it seems clear that terrorists routinely utilize the mass media to convey their agendas to a worldwide audience – a “symbiotic relationship” in which the media's publicity represents the “oxygen of terrorism” (Carruthers, 2000, p. 168). But equally, on the other hand, the War on Terror, perhaps the highest-profile military policy in a generation, has depended on media news coverage as its informational vehicle to the public and to voters charged with judging the efficacy of governments and their policies. Both, then, reflect the adage that “politics is increasingly conducted via the mass media” and war, as Clausewitz argued long ago, is merely an extension of politics (in Brown, 2003, p. 43). This chapter, relying on several of my research studies into these dynamics, examines voters' utilization of mass media coverage of terrorism and national security issues in their issue and vote choice evaluations during the 2001 Australian federal election. Called on October 5, just six weeks after an asylum-seeker incident in the waters off of Australia, and three weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, this election affords a unique opportunity to explore voters' reliance on media cues in their assessment of the War on Terror and a government whose electoral fortunes rested on the issues of terrorism and national security.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Terrorism and TortureAn Interdisciplinary Perspective, pp. 265 - 289Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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