Lawrence Peter Ampofo
Terrorism in Spain and the Traditional Media
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Terrorism in Spain and the Traditional MediaTerrorism is a tactic that is necessarily communicative in nature, designed to convey a range of messages to target audiences. The terrorism scholar Brian Jenkins argued in the mid-1970s that the act of terrorism is an example of “choreographed violence”. In his paper investigating new forms of terrorism, he argued that: ‘Terrorism aims at creating an atmosphere of fear and alarm – of terror…Terrorist attacks are often carefully choreographed to attract the attention of the electronic media and the international press. Holding hostages increases the drama…Terrorism is aimed at the people watching, not at the actual victims. Terrorism is theatre’ (Jenkins, 1974: 6). The conception of acts of terrorism as communication or theatre led Jenkins to assert that terrorists, therefore, want a lot of people watching and not necessarily a lot of people dead (Jenkins, 1975). Traditional media channels have historically played a pivotal role in the strategic objectives of terrorist organisations globally, and especially so in Spain. In fact, the late terrorism scholar Paul Wilkinson strongly supported the pre-eminence of the media in analyses of contemporary terrorism, claiming that the media is largely responsible for the development and continued prevalence of terrorism: ‘It would be foolish to deny that many modern terrorists and certain sections of the mass media can appear to become locked in a relationship of considerable mutual benefit. The former want to appear on prime time TV to obtain not only massive, possibly world-wide, publicity but also the aura of legitimisation that such media attention gains for them in the eyes of their own followers and sympathisers. For the mass media organisations the coverage of terrorism, especially prolonged incidents such as hijackings and hostage situations, provides an endless source of sensational and visually compelling news stories capable of boosting audience/readership figures’ (Wilkinson, 1997: 2). The term ‘traditional media channel’ is an umbrella term that defines a wide range of media formats. Broadly speaking, the term refers to the class of media used predominantly before the introduction of the Web in 1990 and includes formats such as television, radio, newspapers, magazines and pamphlets. Media, therefore, not classified as traditional media for the purpose of this thesis include Web-based and internet-based media such as online videos, weblogs, discussion forums and voice-over-internet-protocol services, amongst others. The author is aware, however, that this definition is problematic given that the traditional media channels previously mentioned have their digital equivalents such as radio programmes, which are available online as well as television programmes. However, for the purpose of this thesis, the demarcation will suffice. This phenomenon is similar to the concept of renewal of old media outlined by Andrew Hoskins and Ben O’Loughlin in which old media forms come to develop digital equivalents (Hoskins & O’Loughlin, 2009). It is important at this stage to elucidate further on the definition and contextualisation of the term Mainstream Media as it is used throughout the internet research. Mainstream Media refers to the category of media publications and other sources which have a nationwide remit. Such media organisations within this category can include newspapers such as El País, La Vanguardia and El Mundo, national television channels such as TV5 and newswires such as the Associated Press and Reuters. However, media organisations that have a distinctly local or regional remit are not classified in this thesis as mainstream media. Media organisations included in this category include local radio stations and local newspapers such as Diario Independiente de Asturias. In addition, the term mainstream media narrative refers to specific narratives emanating from these sources. However, that while a fuller justification for the reasons as to the focus on the internet research was provided in Chapter Three, the conduct of a comparative study with the inclusion of other media formats, such as television or radio, was beyond the scope of work in this thesis. The phenomenon of traditional or mainstream media content manifesting itself with a digital equivalent is termed as media renewal. The scholars Hoskins and O’Loughlin elucidated further on the concept of renewal in their research on the extent to which Jihadist media was subject to a process of “gatekeeping” or curation for Western news audiences, or the ‘“remediation”, translation and “trans-editing” by mainstream news organizations of the translation of often long, complex and highly multimodal texts initially published online by jihadists or Islamic extremists’ (Hoskins and O’Loughlin, 2010: 7). They argue that ‘mainstream media organisations have adapted to renew their models of news production and dissemination, harnessing user-generated content for instance’ (Hoskins and O’Loughlin, 2010: 6). In this sense, it is useful to conceptualise the transformation or renewal of media formats for the purpose of this thesis, as publications such as El País are present in the aggregated data set of social media content from 2004 to 2011. However, it is also extremely problematic to term content from El País as a digital newspaper, if we accept the concept of renewal. This is due to the fact that representations of these media forms on websites, for example, are very different to their physical format. The physical format of El País for instance does not accept comments in real-time from its audience, whereas the website version does have this utility. It was, therefore, decided that, for this particular work, it was prudent to focus on digital media and to incorporate other media channels such as television, in a separate study. ETA, one of the preponderant domestic terrorist organisations in Spain, initially relied on print media to disseminate news of specific attacks, and their key political objectives, to the Spanish public. These communiqués took the form of pamphlets, such as Insurrection in the Basque Country in 1964, which were published in the Basque Country and disseminated within southern France and northern Spain. The content of these pamphlets detailed the motives for Basque independence, which claimed that the region was similar to a Spanish colony and used a range of metaphors to describe itself, such as the title of the book from Martiniquais Marxist author Franz Fanon; The Wretched of the Earth (Douglass & Zulaika, 1990: 8). The content of these pamphlets was reported by prominent national mainstream newspapers such as El Mundo, El País and La Vanguardia and the content analysed in great detail in the form of numerous articles and opinion pieces dedicated to them. ETA also targeted television as a means of disseminating their messages to reach wider audiences. Increasingly, as noted by Jenkins (1974), the organisation designed their attacks to be theatrical, public spectacles to be broadcast to both Spanish and global audiences. One of the first ETA events to attract a national television audience was the organisation’s assassination of the Prime Minister Admiral Luís Carrero Blanco on 20 December 1973. The Naval Admiral Carrero Blanco was the person expected to be identified by General Francisco Franco as his successor. ETA carried out the assassination, which was codenamed Operation Ogre (Operación Ogro) in which a powerful car bomb was detonated in the street Claudio Coello in Madrid. Carrero Blanco was considered, more than any Government member in the Franco Administration, to be the epitome of Francoism and one of the main architects of the maintenance of the equilibrium of Francoism within the Government. The assassination, which was the most high-profile act carried out by the group in the Franco era, was reported by all of the major Spanish television channels. However, most importantly for the organisation, details of ETA’s manifesto, which justified the attack, were also broadcast. According to Douglass & Zulaika (1990), the attack was perceived by large sections of the general public in a positive manner as a result of its media coverage ‘not only across much of the Basque political spectrum but also within certain sectors of Spanish and even international public opinion’ (Douglass & Zulaika, 1990: 15). While traditional media did much to disseminate news of ETA’s action in a positive fashion, the following example highlights how blanket coverage of ETA’s actions generated negative sentiments towards the organisation. The kidnapping and eventual assassination of the politician Miguel Ángel Blanco on 13 July 1997 was widely broadcast by all of Spain’s national television channels. Members of ETA kidnapped Blanco, a 29-year-old Councillor for the PP in Ermua, a town located in the Basque Country, on 11 July. The members of the group demanded a ransom from the Government, the transfer of ETA prisoners to other less secure prisons located in the Basque Country within 48 hours, a demand to which the Government refused. Within 48 hours, ETA group members had executed Ángel Blanco. In response, more than two million (Nash, 1997) Spanish citizens took to the streets in protest at ETA’s continued violence, which was in turn captured on national television and other traditional media channels. Television stations were instrumental in broadcasting the grief of the public and that of the family and, according to the scholars Sabucedo et al. (2000), the wider Spanish public in near real-time: ‘The public followed minute by minute the reactions of the rest of Spain and the rest of the world. The action by ETA is practically the only topic of discussion in informative announcements and citizen discussion. Through these announcements, the notion that ETA’s acts were inhuman were consolidated and reinforced, as well as solidarity with the victim, the need to do something to stop the assassination and the public indignation against those responsible’ (Sabucedo, Rodríguez & López, 2000: 11). This supports the point made by Garcia et al. (2009) that the widespread television coverage of the Blanco assassination and the subsequent public demonstrations did much to erode ailing public support for the organisation (Garcia et al. 2009). ETA, however, is not the only Spain-based terrorist organisation to have targeted television and other traditional media as a means of achieving their stated aims. al-Qaeda too has made prominent use of the medium to publicise their acts in reference to Spain, most notably in the form of the 11 March 2004 bombings of the mainline train services in Madrid. As outlined in detail in Chapter Four, the days subsequent to the attacks saw extensive coverage afforded to the event including interviews with eyewitnesses, victims, survivors and the subsequent court proceedings of the suspects. In addition, the point made in Chapter Four should also be reiterated, that much of the output from traditional media 24 hours subsequent to the detonation of the bombs was inaccurate as the PP Government announced that ETA was responsible for the 2004 Madrid attacks. The inaccuracy of reporting, it was argued by Michavila (2005), was beneficial to the PP because it supported their previous policies on counter-terrorism. However, when traditional media channels began reporting that the attacks had been committed by al-Qaeda, they were instrumental in causing much of the Spanish electorate to vote for the PSOE and change of government (Michavila, 2005, Garcia, Rueda & Ruiz, 2009, Selway, 2006). In this sense, we can see how, in a reversal of Chomsky and Herman’s (1994) manufacturing consent thesis, which will be presented in detail later in this chapter, the Spanish Government, in this case, is perceived to have actively manufactured dissent by engaging directly with the mainstream media. A body of academic research investigating television coverage of the 11 March attacks has explored whether certain channels displayed biases towards particular political candidates, framing their coverage accordingly (Blanco et al. Date Unknown, Baena, 2005, Galera & Pascal, 2005, Muñoz, 2005, Avendaño, 2010). In their study of the issue, Curto et al. (2007) concluded that TeleMadrid, known for its support of the PP, focused its broadcasts on the assertion that ETA was responsible for the attacks and not, as was being advanced by Government security staff when the information became more widely known, that they were perpetrated by an international terrorist group originating from Morocco. They argue that the 11-M bombings are a good example of the ideological narrative established by the channel which, according to Alfonso García, the Director of Broadcasting at Telemadrid, all programmes susceptible to manipulation are manipulated (Curto et al., 2007). Traditional media represents one method of transmitting core narratives related to terrorism and counter-terrorism. However, the internet and the Web, as mentioned by both Bobbitt and Barnett previously, represent new technologies that connect billions of people. This chapter will now examine how the internet and the Web have been used to influence the general public of key narratives and strategic objectives. Directory: portal -> files -> 4733003 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 Download 1.29 Mb. Share with your friends:
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