Briefing Paper

Thinking about the Symbiotic Relationship between the Media and Terrorism

In terms of counter-terrorism, mass media coverage of terrorist acts created a situation where a symbiotic relationship is established between the media and terrorism. To elaborate, both of these parties rely on each other to further strengthen their presence, which is disadvantageous towards counter-terrorism efforts, but simultaneously beneficial for both terrorist and media organizations. The media has become a platform for terrorist communication in some respects, while
unintentionally being the influence for copycat terrorism, as seen with the increase in lone actor terrorist acts in recent times. The nature of this relationship is often underplayed and understated by policy-makers and this brief attempts to instigate a re-evaluation of counter-media approaches to terrorism.