This book introduces a constructivist approach to the study of terrorism and shows how language in the media affects our perceptions of 'terrorists' and how particular constructions of 'terrorist' automatically make certain counter-terrorism policies possible, logical and seemingly appropriate.

This book analyzes the methods, effects, and mechanisms by which international relations reach the US citizen. Deftly dissecting the interrelationships of national identity formation, corporate ‘news and opinion’ dissemination, and the quasi-academic apparatus of war justification - focusing on the Bush administration's exploitation of the fear and insecurity caused by 9/11 and how this has manifested itself in the US media (especially the tabloid populist media). Debrix explains how all serve to defend and produce state power and develops a model of tabloidized international relations, where responses are both organized by, and supportive of, a strong centralized US government. The field of International Relations sorely needs such analytics, in so far as it explains how people in their everyday lives relate to transnational issues. Tabloid Terror critically covers a wide variety of US popular culture from the Internet to Fox News; analyzes diverse authors as Julia Kristeva, J.G. Ballard and Robert Kaplan and takes into account renowned international relations interlocutors as Don Imus, Bill O’Reilly, and Tommy Franks.

Debrix develops a model of tabloidized international relations, where responses are organized by and supportive of a strong centralized US government - focusing on the exploitation of insecurities caused by 9/11 manifested in the US tabloid media.

In 1970, the Red Army Faction declared war on West Germany. The militants failed to bring down the state, but this book argues that the decade-long debate they inspired helped shape a new era. After 1945, West Germans answered long-standing doubts about democracy's viability and fears of authoritarian state power with a 'militant democracy' empowered against its enemies and a popular commitment to anti-fascist resistance. In the 1970s, these postwar solutions brought Germans into open conflict, fighting to protect democracy from both terrorism and state overreaction. Drawing on diverse sources, Karrin Hanshew shows how Germans, faced with a state of emergency and haunted by their own history, managed to learn from the past and defuse this adversarial dynamic. This negotiation of terror helped them to accept the Federal Republic of Germany as a stable, reformable polity and to reconceive of democracy's defence as part of everyday politics.

Graham Johnson was a fresh-faced journalist with an ambition to break the big news stories and make his name as a star reporter when an offer came in to work at a leading tabloid… he couldn't say no. Instantly, he found himself drawn into a world of sleaze, spin and corruption - where bending the law was justifiable in the hunt for the big-selling story and bending the truth was the norm. Against his better judgement, Graham found his niche in this new world and, what's more, he found that he was good at it. In his time at first the News of the Worldthen the Sunday Mirror, he made a name for himself as a man who could deliver the story, no matter what - a kind of tabloid terrorist who rifled through celebrity's rubbish bins, staked out politicians' hotel rooms, and paid-up page three girls to seduce Premiership footballers, all in the name of scoring a front-page story. Hackis a compelling and intoxicating story of one man's time in the tabloid jungle - a world that in its heady mix of sex, drugs and casual immorality is reminiscent of the City - and how he ultimately saved himself.

In the years since the September 11th 2001 attacks, the al-Qaeda phenomenon has become one of the most written about, yet crucially misunderstood, threats of the 21st century. But despite the sheer volume of literature produced during the ‘war on terror’ period, few studies have sought to consider the way this entity has been represented within the news media. The BBC, the War on Terror and the Discursive Construction of Al-Qaeda addresses this significant gap in knowledge by providing an original and much needed assessment of the various strategies used to depict ‘al-Qaeda’, and thus make it meaningful for British television audiences. Drawing on the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault, and focusing on Britain’s most watched and trusted news programme, the BBC’s flagship ‘News at Ten’ bulletin, the book provides insight into both the visual and verbal nature of these representations and the way they have shifted over the course of a ten-year period, while also shedding light upon the broader political and social consequences of the BBC’s portrayals. In doing so, the book not only helps to develop a deeper understanding of the complexity of the BBC’s representations, and their various shifts and transformations, but also details the process through which ‘al-Qaeda’ has been pieced together from a range of cultural parts. And how, ultimately, the dominant mode of representation used to portray this entity is one that closely resembles Britain’s own, diverse multicultural ‘self’.

The editorial cartoon, perhaps one the most enduring features of the African newspaper, carries perception of a less cerebral form of journalism consigned to laughter and flippancy. However, editorial cartoons' effectiveness goes beyond laughter. This book not only responds to the call for a broader debate on media and terrorism, but also examines how editorial cartoons in Kenya, between 1998 and 2008, contributed to the discursive construction of terrorism and the so-called war on terror. Drawing from events surrounding major terror attacks at the high noon of 'al-Qaida terrorism', this book highlights how editorial cartoons in Kenya provided insights into the vicissitudes that characterized terrorism and its war. Dissertation. (Series: Contributions to African Research / Beitrage zur Afrikaforschung, Vol. 67) [Subject: Politics, Media Studies, African Studies]

Starting in 2001, much of the world media used the image of Osama bin Laden as a shorthand for terrorism. Bin Laden himself considered media manipulation on a par with military, political, and ideological tools, and intentionally used interviews, taped speeches, and distributed statements to further al-Qaida's ends. In Covering Bin Laden, editors Susan Jeffords and Fahed Yahya Al-Sumait collect perspectives from global scholars exploring a startling premise: that media depictions of Bin Laden not only diverge but often contradict each other, depending on the media provider and format, the place in which the depiction is presented, and the viewer's political and cultural background. The contributors analyze the representations of the many Bin Ladens, ranging from Al Jazeera broadcasts to video games. They examine the media's dominant role in shaping our understanding of terrorists and why/how they should be feared, and they engage with the ways the mosaic of Bin Laden images and narratives have influenced policies and actions around the world. Contributors include Fahed Al-Sumait, Saranaz Barforoush, Aditi Bhatia, Purnima Bose, Ryan Croken, Simon Ferrari, Andrew Hill, Richard Jackson, Susan Jeffords, Joanna Margueritte-Giecewicz, Noha Mellor, Susan Moeller, Brigitte Nacos, Courtney C. Radsch, and Alexander Spencer.

This volume is a timely contribution to the current debates and potential efforts to study and counter the phenomena of extreme right violence in a period when the rise of right-wing extremism is being witnessed across the globe. Against this backdrop, the violent radicalisation and extremism of individuals and groups belonging to the extreme right threaten to undermine and destabilize societies and democratic orders, leaving a research gap that has only started to be filled in recent years, but that is still quite wide when it comes to counter-terrorism approaches to extreme right violence. Learning from the past, and trying to avoid similar mistakes, this volume creates a much-needed space for open, honest, and ethical debate around countering extreme right violence, answering social and political calls to debate how to counter this kind of violence. This volume brings together a group of interdisciplinary scholars to contribute to national and international, academic and policy debates about countering extreme right violence from a critical perspective. Volume I focuses particularly on exploring how extreme right violence has been approached, narrated and made sense of in different spatial and temporal contexts, examining how political actors such as media and politicians portray the threat of and actual violence perpetrated by the extreme right, deconstructing current counter-terrorism approaches, and formulating a critical approach to researching extreme right violence. It will be of great interest to all students of terrorism studies, security studies, international relations, and political science in general. The chapters in this book were originally published in Critical Studies on Terrorism.