Lawrence Peter Ampofo
Internet Research on the 11-M Attacks: Spanish Reaction to the Death of Osama Bin Laden
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Internet Research on the 11-M Attacks: Spanish Reaction to the Death of Osama Bin LadenThis empirical research analysed the nature of online Spanish-language discussion about the death of the leader of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden on 02 May 2011, while making reference to the Madrid bombings of 11 March 2004. The analysis enhances the internet research conducted in the previous chapters which interrogated the ways in which online users discussed terrorism and counter-terrorism in relation to the 11-M bombings. The date range of the analysis was established over five days from 01 May to 05 May 2011 and the research was conducted in real-time. The number of relevant online items of content over the five-day period was 137. Data was aggregated from a range of social media sources including weblogs, micromedia103, forums, websites and social networking sites using the methodology described in detail in Chapter Three. Content was accumulated manually in the public domain during the date range to support the content aggregated by the proprietary software. Search engines were employed by the author including Google Blog Search and Group Search, Board Reader, IceRocket, Big Boards and Blogdigger. Online content was aggregated using a range of keywords associated with the death of Osama bin Laden and making reference to the 11 March 2004 terrorist attacks. The subsequent content analysis allowed the data to be segmented into the following categories: Table Seven: Description of Segmentations Used for Empirical Analysis
Source: Lawrence Ampofo
The internet research process revealed that the main volume of content relating to discussion of the death of Osama bin Laden with reference to the 11 March 2004 terrorist attacks occurred on the 02 May 2011, the day that news of his death was announced by mainstream media organisations. Figure Thirty demonstrates that the volume of discussion declined steadily after 02 May 2011 until 04 May 2011, by which time levels of content had fallen to 20 relevant posts. Figure Thirty: Volume of Online Content Over Time Source: Lawrence Ampofo N=137
As this research process was conducted in real-time, the range of key narratives was analysed as they emerged. As outlined in Chapter Three, the process of analysing core narratives as they emerge is a different process to the internet research process used in the previous chapters, in which the key narratives were defined before the research process was undertaken. Conducting a research process in real-time thus required the author to aggregate, categorise and analyse the most salient content immediately. The internet research that was the focus of chapters Four, Five, Six and Seven was conducted retrospectively and, therefore, mandated that the author spend more time identifying which narratives should be analysed. It is significant that online reaction linking the death of Osama bin Laden to the 11 March 2004 attacks was not greater in terms of volume of content. This indicates that Spanish language online users, in general, did not commensurate the two issues in spite of the fact that the issue of the death of Osama bin Laden is so strongly connected with international terrorism. However, the reason for this is unclear. A table of the key narratives is presented below: Table Eight: Key Emergent Narratives on the Death of Osama Bin Laden with Reference to 11-M
Source: Lawrence Ampofo
In spite of the low volume of online discussion relating to the independent variables, Figure Thirty-One demonstrates that the general volume of key narratives emanated from the General Public. Once again, narratives stemming from the Spanish Government ranked considerably lower than those of the General Public, demonstrating that the Spanish Government had still not established a method for attaining prominence amongst online communities for its core narratives. This is noteworthy, as core narratives from other online communities can influence the attitudes and behaviours of many thousands of users online. This phenomenon was supported in the research findings presented in chapters Four, Five, Six and Seven, in which online Government narratives appeared not to resonate with other online communities. Figure Thirty-One: Total Volume of Content by Narrative Source Source: Lawrence Ampofo N=137 The main element responsible for the highest instances of discussion related to the death of Osama bin Laden with reference to the 2004 Madrid bombings, came in the form of numerous responses to comments from the President of the Community of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, a member of the Partido Popular, who claimed that Osama bin Laden was yet to admit responsibility for the Madrid bombings. She claimed that Bin Laden: ‘Never admitted responsibility for Madrid. He admitted responsibility for Indonesia, London, the attack on Casablanca and, of course, the Twin Towers. However, he has never admitted responsibility for Madrid’ (El Plural, 2011: 1)104 The response to Aguirre’s comments are discussed in the following section.
The interactions following Aguirre’s comments, as will be outlined below, were decidedly passionate as online users and communities responded to her comments within their networks. Figure Thirty-Two below details the overall volume of content in relation to the sentiment of discussion amongst online users and communities. Figure Thirty-Two: Sentiment Over Time Source: Lawrence Ampofo N=137 Figure Thirty-Three illustrates that strongly negative coverage was the dominant sentiment amongst online users when discussing the death of Osama Bin Laden with reference to the 2004 Madrid attacks. It is interesting to note at this point that some online users commensurated the two topics, as they believed that Bin Laden’s death was a demonstration of retribution for the Madrid bombings. However, there were other users and online communities who used the topic as an excuse to engage with other terrorism-focused commentators about the Madrid bombings. This will be discussed in greater detail below. As outlined previously, comments from Esperanza Aguirre generated widespread commentary, the majority of which was strongly negative in nature. Some users claimed that Aguirre’s comments were incorrect and insensitive to the memories of the 11 March 2004 victims such as this user on the Ventanas del Falcón blog who stated: ‘It is necessary to state clearly that the attack on 11-M was claimed by Al-Qaeda and was even reported by El Mundo. Here is an article showing that Bin Laden implicitly claimed responsibility for the 11-M attacks in Madrid in a personal interview’105 (Ventanas del Falcón, 2011: 1 emphasis in original). Other sources, such as the influential mainstream news source El País also disagreed with Aguirre’s comments but simultaneously emphasised other elements of Aguirre’s speech, such as her claim that Bin Laden’s death was a positive step in global counter-terrorism: ‘In [contrast] to Aguirre’s opinion, Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the attacks on various occasions, which ended the lives of 192 people in 2004…Aguirre, who has referred to Bin Laden as the “assassin of more than 2,300 innocent people”, commented…“this event reflects a step forward in the fight against terrorism”’106 (El País, 2011: 1). Positive commentary was of a comparatively low level in relation to the dominant levels of negative commentary. However, a selection of commentators expressed happiness that Osama bin Laden had been killed as it meant, in their opinion, that the world was more secure and that justice had been meted out to the victims of the 11 March attacks. One such commentator, the personal blogger David Gerbolés, claimed ‘[t]his Monday, we awoke to the news of the death of Osama Bin Laden, and the [person] most responsible for the terrorist attacks of 11-S and 11-M…I am profoundly happy that this event has occurred’107 (Mi Punto de Vista, 2011).
In spite of the fact that discussion on the topics was polarised in terms of sentiment, the internet research also revealed a wide range of narratives that formed the focus of discussion online. The chart below demonstrates the most prominent narratives to emerge from analysis of online discussion by sentiment. Figure Thirty-Three: Most Frequent Narratives by Sentiment Source: Lawrence Ampofo N=137 Figure Thirty-Three emphasises the prominence of the narrative ‘Government lies about 11m’. The prominence of this narrative is similar to that evinced in the retrospective internet research findings in chapters Four, Five, Six and Seven. It can be inferred that the death of Osama Bin Laden provoked or renewed negative sentiments within a large proportion of users that the Spanish Government had still not revealed the truth about the 11 March attacks, which they believe they had a right to know. Such statements included conspiracy theories. One such example of this came from the activist blog Escolar which claimed that the death of bin Laden had ‘opened up the debate over…the conspiracy of 11M’. According to one commentator: ‘Did Aznar organise [11-M] to attribute it to ETA in order to win, by absolute majority, the General Election that he was going to lose?’108 (Escolar, 2011) In addition to the previous quotation, the content of Figure Thirty-Three underscores the sentiment of some users regarding the Government’s perceived continued inability to influence the nature of discussion concerning the 11 March attacks and the subsequent public investigation. Such analysis of online behaviour may have offered the Spanish Government at least some opportunity to exert greater influence over the ways in which core narratives are perceived by the general public. That said, it had a credibility problem given the widespread understanding that it failed to offer an adequate explanation of the events surrounding 11-M. This is indicative of the ways in which narratives can become entrenched and hard to shift. Furthermore, there was a strong undercurrent of fear in discussions amongst online users that the death of Osama bin Laden would provoke other terrorist organisations, or those inspired by al-Qaeda, to perpetrate more attacks against the Spanish populace. An example of such commentary appeared on the blog La Crónica de Aragón in which it was reported that the Government had raised the national alert level to Two as a result of the fear of reprisals following the death of Osama bin Laden.109 Another example of the expression of fear amongst online users and communities is demonstrated in a post to the Una Trobadora del Segle XXI blog in which the commentator argued that other al-Qaeda members were capable of continuing operations and fulfilling the strategic objectives of the organisation without Osama bin Laden. It is for this reason, they argued, that the death of Bin Laden should not be celebrated but, rather, should be greeted with trepidation lest his followers in retaliation perpetrate subsequent attacks.110 Such a statement indicates an understanding that al-Qaeda continues to be capable of attacks in Spain.
Figure Thirty-Four shows the extant relationships inherent within discussions of the death of Osama bin Laden with reference to the Madrid terrorist attacks of 11 March 2004. A detailed description of the methodology for network analysis can be found in Chapter Three. Figure Thirty-Four: Network Analysis of Communities Involved in Discussion of the Death of Osama Bin Laden with Reference to 11-M 
Source: Lawrence Ampofo N=137 The network analysis from 02 May 2011 to 05 May 2011 demonstrates that online communities had fractured into eminently discernible clusters that were indelibly linked to one another. The NGO cluster of sources is positioned on the fringes of online discussion, and was tenuously linked to government sources of information. This indicates the lack of activity by NGOs during the period of analysis, with only six sources cited as part of the analysis, but also the link between NGOs and Government sources of information for engagement within this issue. The reason for NGOs’ tendency to link to government sources related to a series of articles from El Economista in which comments from the Asociación de las Victimas de Terrorismo supporting the government’s position on the death of Osama bin Laden were recorded (El Economista, 2011: 1). The cluster of Government narratives was strongly linked to those of the General Public, in contrast to that of the Government to the NGO cluster, via mainstream media publications which published narratives in articles from both communities. However, it is noticeable that the General Public community did not link at this time with the NGO community in discussions on this topic. While the reason for this is unclear, it suggests that the General Public may not be picking up narratives from NGOs. It is also noticeable that Government narratives are central to all discourse online concerning the death of Osama bin Laden with reference to the terrorist attacks of 11 March 2004. However, when interpreted in tandem with a sentiment analysis of the narratives, both statistically and over time, it is clear that these narratives were not interpreted positively. This crucial finding underscores the importance of attaining influence online in order to manage the perception of narratives in a way that supports strategic objectives. It also underscores that online communication, in particular the delivery of key narratives, is not a top-down phenomenon. Rather, it is a multi-directional phenomenon in which online users are exposed to a variety of viewpoints at any one time, as the public connected to Government narratives but did not accept them. 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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