Representation of terrorism: dangerous art of mass communication practitioners

Общество. Среда. Развитие № 1’2023

Terrorism has transformed from local acts of a local character into a global problem, becoming one of the global challenges of our time. Moreover, it is the spatial inclusiveness of modern mass media that contributes to this. One of the main goals of a terrorist act is to intimidate the largest possible number of people: “The publicity of a terrorist act is a cardinal moment in the strategy of terrorism. If terror fails to generate a public response, it will mean that it is useless as a weapon of social conflict. The logic of terrorist activity cannot be fully understood without an adequate assessment of the indicative nature of the terrorist act” [14, p. 223]. Therefore, we have witnessed how terrorism in the 21st century uses its own means of mass communication to build up fear among the world community. The methods and means of the mass media have become a form of replicating the aggression of terror, increasing the effectiveness of packaging these intimidating information and demonstration messages. It is the presence of the informing power of the mass media that leads to an increase in the scale and demonstrative cruelty of terrorist acts, which are already committed with the expectation of maximum publicity and taking into account the ability of the media to massively and concentratedly influence public and individual consciousness.

The theatricalization of modern terrorism becomes natural in such a situation: “Terrorism is a theater, terrorist attacks are often carefully orchestrated in order to attract the attention of the electronic media and the international press” [12, p. 31]. The phenomenon of such theatricalization is also due to cultural trends, in particular, the severity of the “aesthetics of the shocking” in contemporary art. We observe the beautiful/shocking dichotomy, the development of which goes back to phenomena that at the time of their inception looked quite culturally appropriate and did not oppose the aesthetics of beauty: “Look what Berlioz, Wagner, even Tchaikovsky did in the Sixth Symphony! Each of them was looking for new means of expression, wanting to surprise the audience. Why shouldn’t we think about it now? By the way, the producers who put on the pop show thought about it for us. First of all, people are now drawn to them” [7, p. 76]. If earlier the beauty was the guide- line of art (associated, in turn, with contemplation, tranquility, a sense of completeness and fullness of being), then gradually it begins to be replaced at first by the entertaining, then by the surprising, exciting, and now by the shocking.

Such a transformation of the values of art is due to the fact that it has become massive, while if the elite preferred the contemplative-beautiful, then the masses prefer spectacle. In spectacles since the Roman era, there have been features not only entertaining, playful, but also emotionally exciting, which includes shocking and shocking: low, obscene, repulsive, disgusting, disgusting, painful, ugly, evil, cruel, terrible [6, p. 486–511]. The predominance of the attitude towards entertainment, which distinguishes the mass media of the era of globalization, naturally led to an increase in the need for information that has shocking characteristics. In this regard, in the modern media reality, violence is in a certain sense a privileged character, since information about it, as a rule, is positioned as a priority in relation to other forms of manifestation of culture, politics, and economics. Accordingly, cruelty and violence began to occupy more and more media space, becoming a pillar for the success of terrorist calculations [4]. As soon as information about manifestations of violence appears anywhere, it immediately receives the predominant right to display on screens in prime time, for which the entire entertainment industry competes, various advertisements for all kinds of goods and services. It is the display or information messages about wars, murders, destruction and other forms of violence that unconditionally capture the attention of the public, keeping people at all information sources: radio, TV screens and computers [1]. This situation indicates crisis tendencies that use the characteristics of globalization, namely, the absence of technical restrictions for obtaining this kind of information. We are witnessing a process where the media make the culture of murder and violence an integral part of the mass consciousness, and information about terrorist acts in this state of affairs becomes not frightening or terrifying for the media, but a desirable object that raises the rating.

Comprehending the link between media and terrorism, researchers talk about its gradual escalation that has taken place over the past 30 years. The first case when the media were actively involved in showing a terrorist act was the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Even then, the pursuit of sensation did a disservice-journalists filmed the preparation of the police for the attack, and the terrorists watched the location of the attackers on TV. From the point of view of media coverage, this terrorist attack was extremely successful for the Palestinians who organized it - the events in Munich were closely watched by the whole world, and, according to psychologists, an image arose in the mass consciousness, which mixed not only tragedy and shock, but also interest. The terrorists have achieved that, despite the global condemnation of the terrorist attack, they and their problem have been talked about. Thus, the fusion of media with terrorism opens up two facets: firstly, reports about terrorist attacks and related stories multiply the damaging effect of a terrorist attack, and, on the other hand, they arouse interest in terrorists. The turning point, which marked a new stage in the development of terrorism, was September 9, 2001 – it was no longer a terrorist act, but a terrorist attack that opened up qualitatively new characteristics: several objects, these objects are large-scale, the number of victims. The scale of the terrorist action was also consistent with the scale of its coverage in the media: the repeated repetition of the very moment of the attack, the inclusion of analytics plots (by politicians, sociologists, political scientists, psychologists), interviews with survivors, relatives of the victims, with witnesses – all this served, in fact, , the interests of the organizers of terror, on the one hand – making the population horrified, on the other hand – giving information about the terrorists, their goals, objectives, ideology.

As the researcher of terrorism B. Hoffman writes: “The purpose of a terrorist attack is to convey a certain message” [15, p. 190–191], which echoes the statement “Without communication, terrorism cannot exist” by researchers A. Schmid and J. de Graaff [14, p. 225]. Terrorism is presented as a tactic involving the use or threat of use of violence for the purpose of communication. Thus, the meaning of the terrorist attack is the activation of the mass media machine.

As for the features pertaining to the current state of this phenomenon, the most dangerous one is the interpenetration of terrorism with the Internet [5]. This phenomenon has been termed “digital jihad”, or “cyberjihad” [13]. The Internet has opened new opportunities for the terrorists: almost complete absence of censorship by the state, accessibility, a huge audience, communicative anonymity, the speed in the transmission of information, the ability to combine different types of information (audio and video materials, graphics and text). At the same time, specific character of the internet-communication enables to control perception by creating the image, which is the

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most efficient for recruiting this particular audience at this very moment.

Analysis of the various forms of digital terrorism reveals the essence of the phenomenon, with a number of objectives behind it. These include the change of the image of the terrorist by emphasising a religious basis, as well as explicit goals of recruiting new fighters and sympathisers willing to provide monetary support.

In order to achieve these goals, the tactics of the image perception management is used: terrorist websites are modelled on those of le- gitimate organisations, with much attention paid to freedom of speech and the rights of political prisoners. Moreover, a large proportion of information published on these sites is devoted to the history of the Arab world, Islam and Islamic movements [2]. However, the Arabic and European versions of the same terrorist websites differ considerably: the text aimed at fellow Arabs is harsher and more

Общество. Среда. Развитие № 1’2023

aggressive, while the European audience is provided with a much softer version with less emphasis on violence.

Along with the use of the Internet to change the image of terrorist, including suicide bomber, social networks are used to recruit new members of terrorist organisations primarily of the suicide bombers – according to statistics the newly converted members live up to three years [10]. Initially the recruiter seeks for an appropriate candidate – in order to do this the content of the internet-forums, blogs, and communities is analysed to identify the most active members. After that, the target’s personal profile in the social networks is studied to identify their mental state and frame of mind, i.e. the online profile of the individual is determined.

There are specific psychological characteristics of personality, peculiarities of one’s interpersonal relations and of conceptualising of the world, which facilitate the success of recruitment. They are as follows:

– potential clients for the recruitment of suicide bombers are people with low self-esteem and constant, often aggressive, readiness to defend their identity;

– a personal trait of the potential recruits is the sense of social injustice with the tendency to project the reasons for their personal failures onto the relatives or onto the society/ country, in which they live;

– the person is encouraged to get into contact with the recruiters by his or her estrangement (absence of a close circle of friends) or social isolation (the individual has a feeling that he or she is on the sidelines of life and has no vision of life prospects);

– in case of estrangement from the relatives or social isolation the individual has at the same time a strong need for belonging to a meaningful group;

– the people with an active citizenship, seeking justice and criticizing the existing social system in the country are prone to recruitment [8].

Having identified a potential candidate, the recruiter starts to act: at first he or she likes the posts, then subscribes as a friend and after that initiates the communication. “I have read your post on… I totally agree with you. I have been thinking on this topic for a long time…”, this is how the first contact is established.

In general, the main traps that people fall into are ideology, vanity, release from loneliness and acquisition of authoritative support, financial issues or embarrassing material. In other words, in the course of recruitment individual approach is used: those seeking justice are shown how this justice can be restored; the heroism of the fight against the enemy is depicted to the vain; the solitary will be given positive feedback with the emphasis on their significance, legends about the solidarity of new friends and their friendship; the person faced with acute financial problems will be told about the injustice of the fact that some people own everything while others – nothing, and promised financial support (which may be really provided). Having obtained the embarrassing material on the person, however, the recruiter changes persuasion into threats and starts to blackmail the victim. As for the young women, one more subject of conversation with them is a tale about the authority of the militants and how highly respected their wives are [3, pp. 182–184].

After spending some time on correspondence with the potential candidate, the recruiter suggests communicating in Skype where the person is guided towards the discussion of the “hot-button” topics (justice, money, the opportunity to show one’s worth etc.). Next comes the stage of the person’s self-education in the necessary direction: particular literature and websites are recommended for reading. The recruiter tells the potential candidate the legend of his or her life which draws many parallels with the candidate’s personal characteristics, for instance: the same job, disappointment with life (at the same time the recruiter claims that he or she has already found the way out). Quite often, some time later the conversation starts in the format of Skype-con-ference, i.e. recruiter’s “friends” join the discussion. This form of communication increases the influence on the person.

The first step that a person is offered to make is just to become a sympathiser who shares some views. This is followed by a number of small, seemingly harmless, errands (to deliver a parcel, to meet a friend), later - ideologically charged tasks on the digital level (participation in a couple of online events) are given. At the next stage, they start talking about the uniqueness, significance, chosenness of the person and suggest going somewhere abroad because all of a sudden a rare opportunity occurred to meet some very important authoritative person, and this opportunity is highly unlikely to present itself ever again. All of this happens in a hurry, so that a person should not have time to think or may be stopped by his or her relatives. Within a couple of days, the person is provided with the ticket and leaves the country under the supervision of one of “new” friends. Afterwards, the “cornered” person is brought under intense group and individual pressure and ends up swearing fealty to ISIS and joining the ranks of militants.

This course of action is standard and includes three distinctive stages: the first one is the identification of the potential victim and collection of information about him or her; the second one is the establishment and development of direct contact, which includes a number of verification tasks; the third stage is the involvement of the person in the organisation and the transition to real activity in a new status. As it can be seen, the Internet resources are efficiently employed in the process and their potential is widely used for the recruitment of suicide bombers [9].

Thus, we can state the following: in different periods of history and in various cultural environments heterogeneous constituents of terrorism, including the suicidal one, have been activated. In the current situation we observe the simultaneous presence of all these constituent parts supplemented with the new ones, which have been either absent or not strongly manifested. All these factors increase the relevance of combining efforts to elaborate an effective strategy for combating this new and extremely dangerous hybrid form of terrorism.

So, we see three dominant tactics of using the media, three areas where terrorism intersects with it: 1) exploitation of media resources to intimidate, intimidate the population; 2) using the Internet to create a new image of a terrorist – as a fighter for faith and freedom. 3) the use of social networks to recruit new terrorists. All these directions that have arisen in the era of globalization are fraught with danger and actualize the need to find means for confrontation.