Measuring media oriented terrorism

    Authors

    R. Surette; K. Hansen;G. Noble

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    J. Crim. Justice

    Keywords

    EARTH LIBERATION FRONT; COUNTER-TERRORISM; Criminology & Penology

    Abstract

    Although long established, media oriented terrorist events have not been conceptualized or measured in a coherent manner. To forward the empirical study of media oriented terrorism, a measure that can be applied to terrorist events or to terrorist groups was developed and employed to compare terrorist activity for twenty terrorist groups and two hundred terrorist events. The media orientation measure taps into five factors of media orientation and successfully differentiates high from low media orientated events and active and inactive media oriented terrorist groups. The single most important factor regarding any group's individual media orientation level was their base of operation. Terrorist groups that were engaged in regional struggles were found to be less media oriented. Despite the news value of death and injury, the terrorist group with the highest fatality and injury averages ranked ninth in its media orientation score indicating that death and injury was not a necessary indicator of media orientation. Scores further suggest that media savvy well-known terrorist groups did not pursue media oriented activity as a constant strategy. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

    Journal Title

    Journal of Criminal Justice

    Volume

    37

    Issue/Number

    4

    Publication Date

    1-1-2009

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    360

    Last Page

    370

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000268760700006

    ISSN

    0047-2352

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