Introduction
Terrorism , derived from the Latin term terrere, to frighten, refers to the strategic use of intentionally perpetrated violence through lethal instruments of warfare with the ostensible goal of creating fear and panic to achieve predetermined political, religious, and ethnically oriented goals. Its typical method is the unleashing of violence against vulnerable or soft targets, although military posts have not been spared, as was the case with the Beirut 1983 bombing that claimed the lives of 241 US and 58 French soldiers who were peacekeepers. The primary goal of terrorism is to attract public attention by the violent acts as well as media pronouncements that precede or come after the attacks. Terrorism is primarily a communication of an unusual nature because there is always a sender or messenger, a message, a target audience, and some feedback. Schmid and de Graaf (1982) are convinced that terrorism is not only an act of communication but that for the terrorist, what matters the most is the message, not the victims.
Because terrorists care more about the message they transmit through their attacks, and how the public or groups interpret this message, they pay considerable attention to the dramatic and visual impacts of their attacks. Many terrorist attacks are staged to achieve a high visual effect and command full attention from the public. Alex Schmid (2005) averred that terrorism is fundamentally a communicative act whereby the victims of the violence serve as a channel for the message. Terrorist communicators perceive that the louder and more impactful the news, the more successful the attack. Victims are usually people, as such within the context of communication they can be considered as message or messenger (channel). According to Argomaniz and Lynch (2018, p. 491), the victims of terrorism are the messengers for the violent act even if they are rarely the focus of our investigative efforts. When Boko Haram terrorists attacked a Nigerian high school and kidnapped 220 female students, these victims were messengers, also a message from the terrorists who were preaching that Western education is āharamā (evil) with life and death consequences for young people going to school.
Whether victims of terrorist attacks are messengers or messages, the goals are usually fear, intimidation, anxiety, and insecurity. There is always a clear strategy on how to maximize the impact of the message through the messenger for Crenshaw (1998) has explained that terrorists do not communicate nonsensically. Terrorists are strategic and careful in their plans and actions, even when the end may be suicidal. Communication has an intrinsic value for terrorists whose aim, according to Bocksette (2008, p. 8) āis to exploit the media to achieve maximum attainable publicity as an amplifying force multiplier to influence the targeted audiences.ā The mission of terrorists is to influence target audiences through their attacks on the victims. Addressing their mission through communication qualifies terrorists as strategic communicators. If we accept strategic communication as the āpurposeful use of communication by an organization to fulfill its missionsā (Hallahan et al. 2007), it is easy to agree with Rothenberger (2015, p. 487) that strategic communication can be applied to terrorism discourse. Terrorist attacks portend significant communication messages not only in the terrorist act itself but also in āthe continued communication about it, (and) the interpretations and explanations (that) are important issues for terrorist groups.ā In attaching meaning to terrorist acts, these acts become symbols laden with powerful messages for specific members of the target audience. The discourse of terrorism as strategic communication touches on many aspects of the phenomenon, and not surprisingly, it continues to attract interdisciplinary attention worldwide.
Context
Terrorism is so widely perceived by different groups that it defies consensual definitions. It is perpetrated by actors without any ideologies, suicide groups without clear directions, well-organized global networks of highly trained professionals, and occasionally by sovereign states that want to teach their enemies lessons of life and death. A common effect of many terrorist attacks is the crisis that ensues from attacks and resulting discussions and interpretations by the media and influencers. Terrorists rely on violent attacks to communicate fear, intimidation, and insecurity. As the cumulative evidence from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) has shown, terrorist violence remains extraordinarily high compared to historical trends. Ending or curtailing terrorism will require more communication than military intervention, hence the need to understand terrorism as strategic communication.
Terrorism is a complex phenomenon to unravel, and its discourse deserves more attention than researchers, governments and the media have accorded so far. It is an age-old problem which continues to evolve even in disciplines such as political science, security studies, and communication. The wide-ranging definitions, explanations, and exemplars of terrorism are commonly encountered in many subjects.
The complexity of the concept of terrorism underlines some of the current discussions of āthe complex relationship between radicalization, narratives of victimhood, and political violenceā (Argomaniz and Lynch 2018, p. 491). Terrorism is not a monopoly of non-state actors, and thus we need to pay closer attention to āstate targeting of combatants ā for states can act as terrorists just as non-state actors canā (Taylor 2018, p. 591). As a complex phenomenon, terrorism takes on different features, and it continues to evolve depending on the driving motives of perpetrators, some of who are local individuals, lone attackers, or members of international networks. Although ever-growing and changing, it still has some robust features. The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START 2018) reported three consecutive years (2015ā2017) of declining numbers of attacks and deaths worldwide since terrorist violence reached its peak of nearly 17,000 attacks and 45,000 total deaths in 2014. The scenario of incidents was complicated by the deadliest terrorist incident in 2017 that took place in Mogadishu, Somalia and claimed more than 580 lives and wounded 300 people. Since 1970, more than 180,000 terrorist attacks have been recorded since 9/11 (START 2018). Despite concerted efforts by some countries and global coalitions to prevent and counteract terrorism through military and public diplomacy operations, the results are not inspiring. Overall, terrorist attacks remain extraordinarily high when compared to historical trends dating back to the decade before the 9/11 attack in the United States.
An essential justification for examining terrorism as strategic communication is the reality that terrorist attacks have become part of our contemporary political, sociocultural, and communication landscape. We cannot undermine terror-based violence because it represents the assailantās āaspirationsā even if these are warped. Barlow (2016) has shown that even when there seems to be a military victory over terrorist groups, it is often temporary, as they usually regroup, rebrand, take on new names, transform themselves, and become even more dangerous. Understanding terrorism as strategic communication prepares us to employ more communication strategies as counteractive measures and think beyond military tactics. To this end, Barlow (2016, p. 20) recommends that successful counter-terrorist strategies must include methods and means which are āpolitical and economical in nature, as you cannot kill an aspirationā with mere physical force.
Overview of Recent Global Terrorist Acts
There is an undeniable religious favor as well as a geographical dimension to recent terrorist attacks. The data from the Global Terrorism Database (START 2018) show that there are ab...