Crime: Terrorism and Fear
The article “Sociology of Terrorism” by Austin Turk, presents some key points regarding the fundamentals of terrorism from the social construction of it to the social control. I will focus on the the communication and social control aspect as I feel this is where my personal experiences and opinions lie.
In the discussion of the Social Control of Terrorism, the article seemingly concludes “the politically dominant approach is to persuade the general public to accept the necessity of militizing and delegalizing the effort to counter terrorism.” In regards to the USA PATRIOT ACT
(and similarly, but closer to home, the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act), it seeks to support intelligence gathering and surveillance powers to help control terrorism. However, in order to this, countries must convince the people it is necessary and this is done through fear. From the above quote from the article it is possible to suggest that governing officials of targeted and likely democratic societies intend to create fear of terrorism to legitimize the actions the governing bodies deem necessary. Whether these actions are right or wrong remains to be debated, but the point to consider here is that this is arguably the means they use to control terrorism.
The media plays a huge role in the proliferation of terrorism as well the societal response. In the discussion of censoring media coverage of terrorist events, points are given in support and against censorship actions. When reviewing the reasons for both, it is clear that the decision to censor or not had an impact on the structure, views and responses of society and therefore the opinions of what a country should do to control it.
One of the reasons for censorship of terrorism is that an acute goal or terrorism is to achieve a level or psychological impact on the target society; widely broadcasting coverage of such terrorism helps increase this desired psychological impact. This can be seen with the example of the United States and even Canada, because of its proximity and sharing of media channels. If the goal is to create fear then terrorists have achieved it. As the media presses images, ideas, security, action and responses on all channels – magazines, newspapers, television – it only further instilling the impact of the initial attack, on a mass scale.
Censorship is a way of using the communication of terrorism to control terrorism. However, within the methods of controlling terrorism exists other options. As mentioned earlier, governing bodies will use media as means of control, by utilizing it create a level of fear and to convince society that forgoing certain securities and privacy rights is better for society. These are only some objectives, but it may be argued that the media could convince the public of most anything the governing body needs in order gain support for the actions they feel necessary. However, this raises an interesting question.
If one accepts a common definition, that terrorism which involves carrying out actions intended to create fear to achieve an ideological goal, then it is possible to argue to an extent that they (the governing bodies) are using terrorism. (The idea is that that the governing body will use media to create fear to achieve the ideological goal for support)This would suggest that in order to control and combat terrorism, it itself must be used to a certain degree. Sociologically, this means that the structure of the society must be based upon education from media sources such that the message of fear can be portrayed and instilled in the minds of the people so the government or body combating terrorism can justify the actions it believes important to achieve its goals.
