Lawrence Peter Ampofo

Conclusion

Understandings of immigration, technology and terrorism in Spain are inherently complex in nature. The impact of Francoism on understandings of these independent variables in Spain should not be underestimated. Spain’s transition from a dictatorship to becoming a constitutional democracy in 1978 encouraged widespread hope that the cultural homogeneity, which characterised Francoist Spain, would change to permit the blossoming of hitherto prohibited national cultures such as Catalan, Basque and Galician. In addition, it was hoped that Spain’s political elite would enshrine this notion of diversity in policy, as was seen in the adoption of the Ley Orgánica Extranjería, and the country’s accession to the European Community in 1985.

Chapter Five: Influence, Technology, Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Spain: An Overview of Understandings, 2004-2010

Introduction

Terrorism is, above all, a communicative act, with the aim of delivering core messages and narratives to specialist target audiences. Terrorist and counter-terrorist strategies in Spain are, therefore, shaped by the contest for attitudes and behaviours. Ayman Al-Zawarhiri exemplified this by arguing in 2009 that “[w]e believe that the battle of the pen is no less important than the battle of the sword” (cited in SITE Intelligence Group, 2009: 1).

This chapter explores in greater detail the extent to which optimal delivery of core narratives impacts upon understandings of technology, terrorism and counter-terrorism in Spain. It investigates relationships between the media, technology and terrorism and, in particular, examines the various ways key narratives from Government actors and terrorist organisations are interpreted by the general public. In addition, it uses the theoretical frameworks introduced previously to examine the nature of the communication of core narratives online. It is intended that this analysis will contribute to discussions on recommendations for the amelioration of general communications strategies that focus on counter-terrorism in Spain.
This chapter will take as its starting point the assumption advanced within the central hypothesis outlined in Chapter One of this thesis, that the availability of new technologies increases the capacities of terrorist and counter-terrorist agencies to achieve their communication objectives. As a result, the analytical process set out in this chapter tests the precept that as the sophistication of internet and Web technologies develop, terrorist organisations cultivate relationships with the general public, thereby increasing the public’s understandings of the relationships between the independent variables.
As outlined in detail in Chapter Two, the thesis focuses extensively on the theses by Bobbitt and Barnett. In his book ‘Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century’, Bobbitt argues in support of the centrality of the internet and the Web in empowering market terrorist organisations to achieve their strategic objectives. Bobbitt claims that internet and Web technologies are an enabler for market state terrorists, helping them to augment their reach and influence in ways that they were not able to accomplish until the latter part of the 20th century. He argued:
‘Doctrine and strategy are debated in online discussion groups and chat rooms…the internet is responsible for 80 percent of the recruitment of youths for the jihad [in Saudi Arabia]. Photographs are shared – the Abu Ghraib prison pictures were instantaneously provided worldwide – and responsibility for attacks may be claimed. Most of all, perhaps, the diverse rage of many hundreds of thousands is channelled rather than dissipated. Often overlooked is the participatory dimension of the Web; it’s not just that the internet allows remote leaders to reach thousands or hundreds of thousands of otherwise inaccessible persons, it’s that it allows these alienated, often isolated people to speak back, to receive encouragement and reassurance as they separate themselves from society…it is the internet that allows Al Qaeda to communicate its strategy even while its leaders are in hiding, and despite the loss of its territorial base, which once would have meant defeat and marginalization but is now easily overcome’ (Bobbitt, 2008: 56).
Bobbitt’s above assertion illustrates his focus on the internet and the Web as tools that fulfil the strategic objectives of international terrorist organisations and help them, amongst other things, communicate with communities of people across national borders, even when their leaders are in hiding. In this way, Bobbitt’s argument champions the causal relationship between technology, terrorism and counter-terrorism and that access to these technologies results in their increased capabilities to fulfil their strategic objectives. This argument is, therefore, representative of a technological determinist assertion that technology itself has direct agency over human contexts.
Similarities can also be perceived between the theoretical framework propounded by Bobbitt and that provided by Barnett (2005) in The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century. In this work, Barnett argues that disconnectedness from the globalising systems created and maintained by countries within the Functioning Core, would inevitably encourage the development of threats to these countries such as international terrorism. The solution to this, he claims, is to “connect” the countries that reside in the non-Integrating Gap to those in the Functioning Core by using technologies such as the internet and the Web:
‘[E]xpanding the connectivity of globalisation, we increase peace and prosperity planet-wide…Simply put, when we see countries moving toward the acceptance of globalisation’s economic rule sets, we should expect to see commensurate acceptance of an emerging global security rule set – in effect, the agreement on why, and under what conditions, war makes sense. Where this global security rule set spreads and finds mass acceptance, the threat – by definition – will diminish.’ (Barnett, 2005: 26).
Barnett’s thesis closely resembles that espoused by Bobbitt. Barnett posits a close relationship between technology, terrorism and counter-terrorism, claiming it is global communications high technology that connects states in the non-Integrating Gap to those in the Functioning Core that will diminish international threats. In this way, Barnett argues that the internet and the Web are tools with which to promote peaceful coexistence between states.
Understandings of the internet and the Web as tools that promote the achievement of the strategic objectives of terrorist organisations are widespread in academic literature from internet and terrorism scholars. Gabriel Wiemann claimed that ‘Islamist, Marxist, nationalist, separatist, racist [groups] have learned many of the same lessons about how to make the most of the Internet. The great virtues of the Internet—ease of access, lack of regulation, vast potential audiences, fast flow of information, and so forth—have been turned to the advantage of groups committed to terrorizing societies to achieve their goals’ (Wiemann, 2004: 11). He added that terrorist organisations principally use the internet as a tool for data mining, propaganda, recruitment, fundraising, planning and coordination, sharing information, networking and psychological warfare. This conclusion is shared by a number of other academic authors on the topic (Thomas, 2003, Conway, 2005, Kaldor, 2007, Wilton Park, 2011).
This chapter will analyse the extent to which terrorist organisations focus more towards the employment of specialist communication skills to engage in relationship-building at the micro, macro and supranational level. As a result of the internet research findings developed in the previous chapter, it is anticipated that core Government narratives will not be interpreted or perceived well by their target audiences. There is also concern that those of terrorist organisations will be. The argument persists that governments are losing the war of ideas precisely because the decentralised market state terrorist organisations that Bobbitt described are manifestly more skilled at building strong relationships with a wide range of target audiences using both the traditional media and other communications technologies. The scholar Felix Arteaga of the Real Instituto Elcano epitomised this argument when he underscored the importance of narratives in counter-terrorism strategies, as he claims that the Spanish Government is being strategically outmanoeuvred by contemporary terrorist organisations:
“[Terrorism is] more about perception and this perception is shaped by the internet, by the message, by the way in which terrorists present their intentions, their goals and their narratives. I really do agree with Manuel Torres and others who say that we are losing the war of narratives because they are presenting their own war of Jihad or the terrorist actions in a better way than we do, we are just starting to learn how we counter these propaganda techniques, we have learned very much from the Afghanistan war and many other terrorist actions and this is something very difficult for us because they can prepare the message because they don’t have any moral or legal rules and they can present the story they want because they know how they are going to attack, for example how public opinion reacts to the information they give and this gives them a good advantage in their fight…we have to go to a more proactive mode somehow we have to create a state in which those potential readers and watchers of the messages have a previous filter and this is what we don’t have at the moment.”⁴¹
One of the effects of the increasing adroitness exhibited by terrorist organisations in the realm of communications presented by both Bobbitt and Arteaga could be, according to the scholar Manuel Torres Soriano (2006), that “in the future, [the terrorists’] capacity to continue perpetrating terrorist acts could be greatly increased due to the perception of insecurity by the populace by the intelligent use of communication” (Soriano, 2010: 5).⁴² Soriano concludes, therefore, that the narratives of terrorist organisations could succeed if the general public becomes convinced of the possibility of future attacks, in effect becoming terrorised.
In this context, the chapter also analyses the use of digital public diplomacy in Spain to convey certain counter-terrorism narratives. The analysis of online behaviour and discussions related to the terrorist attacks contained within this chapter will be carried out using the context of the Madrid terrorist attacks on 11 March 2004. The online discussions and behaviour of communities generated as a result of this event will be used to analyse the extent to which bottom-up narratives from localised publics were more effective than top-down processes in conveying core narratives.

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files -> Impact case study (ref3b)
files -> Ethics and Factual Television: a short history
files -> P. O. Box 27, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland tel. 358-9-191 58080 / 22216; fax 358-9-191 58096 / 23008
files -> The impact of a pledge campaign and the promise of publicity: a randomized controlled trial of charitable donations
files -> Diversity and Voice: the Political Participation of Young People in the European Union
files -> Chapter 15 a voice in Decision Making: young children in Denmark Stig Broström Introduction

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