Terroredia: Exchanging Terrorism Oxygen for Media Airwaves

Abstract

Terrorism and the media have a unique relationship that has been long evident in history and academia. Due to modern advancements in communication and information technologies, the relationship has grown strong and widely influential. Mutual interaction, dependency, and inseparability have characterized the co-existence of terrorists and media personnel. Looking into the various dynamics, discussions, and descriptions of this relationship, this chapter offers a conceptualization of this relationship by introducing and defining a new term. Terroredia is the interactive, codependent, and inseparable relationship between terrorism and the media, in which acts of terrorism and their media coverage are essentially exchanged to achieve the ultimate aims of both parties—exchanging terrorism's wide-ranging publicity and public attention (i.e., oxygen) for media's wide-ranging reach and influence (e.g., airwaves).