Crelisten Television & Terrorism Implications for Crisis

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Television and terrorism:Implications for crisismanagement andpolicy‐makingRonald D. Crelinsten aa Professor of Criminology, University of Ottawa,CanadaPublished online: 21 Dec 2007.

To cite this article: Ronald D. Crelinsten (1997): Television and terrorism:Implications for crisis management and policy‐making, Terrorism and PoliticalViolence, 9:4, 8-32

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Television and Terrorism: Implications forCrisis Management and Policy-Making

RONALD D. CRELINSTEN

Because few of us experience terrorism firsthand, the media play an important role ininforming us when major incidents occur. Because of its instantaneity and its ability toreach many audiences at once, the electronic media and particularly television canhave a significant impact on the various players who become involved in a particularcrisis. This article examines the kinds of effects that television can have on four setsof actors most commonly involved in terrorist crises or major incidents: politicians,police, the public and the print media. While some of these effects can be negative,others can be positive. As a whole, however, television tends to diminish the qualityof political discourse, with its emphasis on simplification and dramatization. In timeof crisis, this can have serious consequences on decision-makers who depend upon aninformed public to understand the issues at stake and the limits on government action.The article ends by examining briefly how these effects relate to the increasing role ofthe private sector in public safety and security.

The victimization of noncombatants or innocents for the purposes ofgaining public recognition for particular causes or imposing specificdemands on third parties has been a feature of political life at various timesand in various places for centuries, although it has not always been called'terrorism'. In its modern variant, 'terrorism' became a common word inpublic discourse around 1970 when Palestinians turned to hijacking aircraftand Latin American guerrillas turned to kidnapping diplomats. In theensuing two decades and more, we have seen terrorism used by nationalistsseeking new nations or wishing to secede from existing ones, byrevolutionaries seeking to overthrow governments and to establish newregimes, by governments seeking to destabilize other governments orto control their own nationals either at home or abroad and by fanatics andzealots pursuing a variety of social and religious causes. Yet few ofus have experienced this panoply of terrorist events directly. Our knowledgeof these and other world events is mediated by others who processthe information for us, via their network of contacts and sources, usinga variety of skills and technologies, and working within a profession guidedby certain principles and assumptions about what is worthy of attention.It is the mass media that deliver the information to us, in packages called'news'.

Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.9, No.4 (Winter 1997), pp.8-32PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON

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TELEVISION AND TERRORISM 9

The 'terror' in terrorism refers to the impact of this particular mode ofviolence on a particular audience, those who view themselves as possiblefuture victims. The immediate victims of terrorism are simply a vehicle forgenerating this message of terror and delivering it to that audience. Butthere are other possible messages, implicit or explicit, as well as otheraudiences that the terrorist may wish to address. If the audience is theenemy, the message could be one of impunity and power; if the audience isthe enemy's supporters, the message could be demoralization; if their ownsupporters, the message could be pride; if potential recruits, it could beglamour and excitement. For terrorism to have its impact, these specificmessages must reach their intended audience. If a terrorist bomb explodesand no one hears it, did the bomb ever explode? Clearly, the mass media canplay an important role in conveying the terrorist message to its intendedaudience. But it is also clear that other messages can be transmitted to otheraudiences and that the wrong message can go to the wrong audience in theprocess. This is especially true of electronic media, such as radio andtelevision, where the transmission of messages can be instantaneous and canreach multiple audiences at the same time.

Elsewhere, I have argued that broadcast news and especially televisionnews has special characteristics that make the reporting of terrorist incidentsand other crisis situations especially problematic for those who are chargedwith dealing with them.1 In this article, I shall look more closely at theimpact of television coverage on four sets of actors that are most involvedin the evolution of terrorist crises: the politicians and the police, who areinvolved in managing them; the public which is watching the crisis unfoldand whose opinions can have a significant impact on government decision-making and policy choices; and the print media, which plays an importantpart in establishing the public record of what has happened. In examiningthe effects of television on these four sets of actors, I shall attempt to drawlessons for policy-making in the area of crisis management that take intoaccount the particular power of television to shape political discourse in ourincreasingly global village. I shall also comment briefly on the implicationsof these lessons for a new set of actors who are becoming more and moreinvolved in managing terrorist crises - the private sector.

A Multiplicity of Actors, Messages, Audiences and Media Sources

In a crisis situation, many different actors become involved. A terroristincident has a myriad of possible players: the terrorists themselves; thetargets of their threat and violence, i.e. the direct victims; the families andfriends of these victims; the targets of terrorist demands, usuallygovernment officials or politicians who are expected to comply with (or

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10 TERRORISM AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE

refuse) the demands; the law enforcement officials who must deal with thematter within the criminal justice process; those who may identify with thevictims because of a shared ethnicity, nationality, occupation, official statusor role (targets of terror); the constituency of the terrorists, including activemembers, supporters and passive sympathizers; those who may share thepolitical goals or ethnic or national identity of the terrorists but who do notagree with their methods and do not support them; the constituency of thepoliticians and the government in power; the opposition politicians and theirconstituencies; and so on. If an airline or a bank is involved, such as in askyjacking or a hostage-taking, there are also passengers or customers,company executives and employees, disaster response crews and a host ofpeople who may be in charge of operations or security, or who may beinvolved as a victim, witness or bystander.

When a serious terrorist incident develops, and it becomes news, all ofthese actors constitute a pool of potential sources for media coverage. Someof them, such as the terrorists, the victims' families, terrorist sympathizersand various politicians or public interest groups, might welcome suchcoverage, so as to raise a specific issue or promote a particular personal orpolitical agenda.2 The primary purpose underlying most terrorist events orviolent political protests is to send messages to different audiences,designed to alter or reinforce individual perceptions and attitudes. Mediacoverage in this case can be an important link in this communicativeprocess. Yet others might not welcome such coverage or be ambivalent toit, particularly police and other law enforcement officials and crisismanagers.

Government and law enforcement officials can usually act asgatekeepers by means of formal information management since theyconstitute primary sources for the media to provide the official perspectiveon what is happening and what is being done in a crisis situation. As such,while they are expected to provide information to the media and thereby riskthe consequences of possible distortions and manipulations, they also wieldconsiderable power over what can be reported and when, since they knowthat they are valued sources. Many broadcast reporters actually do very littleresearch on their own, but rely on 'source hand-outs' such as press releasesor scheduled news conferences since their time and material resources areso limited.3 The result is that other sources, such as opposition politicians,find it much harder to get television coverage except, in the words of aninformation officer for an opposition party, being 'tacked on as a postscriptto a government announcement, which often just looks like carping andnegativism'.4

Which particular source is favoured by a television reporter depends toa great extent on the purpose to which a particular interview is to be put.

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Richard Ericson and his colleagues5 identify five kinds of knowledge thatcan be conveyed by the media: primary or factual knowledge (whathappened?); secondary or explanatory knowledge (why did this happen?);tertiary, emotional or empathetic knowledge (what did it feel like to beinvolved in what happened?); evaluative or moral knowledge (was whathappened good or bad?); and prescriptive knowledge or recommendations(what should be done about what happened?). If official information on thelatest developments is required (factual knowledge), then a police officer ora government official would be sought. If human interest is needed (tertiaryknowledge), then a relative of a victim or, if possible, a victim (such as areleased hostage) would be interviewed, or perhaps an eyewitness or abystander at the event itself.

Television news favours tertiary knowledge, often using emotional,empathetic understanding to provide moral or evaluative knowledge - waswhat happened good or bad.6 Television discourages secondary knowledgeor explanation, using experts and scholars more to provide opposing viewsto official sources or to legitimate the news coverage by lending an aura ofexpertise to the news angle chosen. Expert sources are often asked to sit intheir offices when on camera so that the visual image lends credence to theirofficial or expert status. Human interest is often sought with 'man-on-the-street' interviews, where the visual and auditory background attest to theordinariness of the source. As for primary or factual knowledge, these areused on television to keep the story moving. Here is what a broadcastwriters' manual says about what to do after a preliminary report on adisaster is made:

Now that you've made your first preliminary report, don't think yourjob is over — it is just starting. Now comes the difficult task of digging,searching for more detail, more background, more explanation....Asyou gather new information keep reporting back to your newsroom.As word of the disaster spreads through your area, more and morelisteners will want to know the latest details. As you prepare each ofyour new reports (up-dates), emphasize the new developments....Itisn't too difficult to develop stories featuring new angles. The majorpoint to remember is to report the latest developments. You don't wantto keep beating the same facts, at least not in the sameway... .Generally it can be said that as long as new developments keepcropping up, an event will continue to be of interest to your audience.But when you feel yourself straining for the new angle, it is probablytime to drop the item until something else happens.7

Here we see how the reporter is trained to push for new developments,new angles, new ways to present old facts. In broadcast journalism, the

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news is designed to be entertaining so as to maintain the viewers' interest.So the television reporter needs interviews and visuals to feed these newangles, these new developments. The favourite source in a crisis such asinterests us here is the public official or the police or whatever institutionalperson can lend authority to the factual update. However, the main purposeof such 'factual' interviews is not to present reality, as it happens. It is topresent an image of reality.8 If a particular news angle (usually dramatic andconflictual) goes against the facts of the case as presented in an interview,the interview will be edited, even eliminated, or doctored by appropriatevisuals from other 'realities'. This means that there is an inherent tensionbetween the needs of the sources and the needs of the television reporter. Inmany cases, each needs the other as much as the other needs them and theproblem is how to work out an arrangement that satisfies both sides. In thesections which follow, I shall examine in turn the impact of television oneach of the four sets of actors outlined previously: the politicians, the police,the public and the print media.

Impact on Politicians

[I would rather have] 30 seconds in an evening news program thancoverage in every newspaper in the world.

Robert Kennedy (1966)'

The familiarity fostered by electronic media all too easily breedscontempt.

Joshua Meyrowitz (1985)'°

According to Richard Ericson and his colleagues, 'politicians are trained tolook for newspaper coverage to deal with major issues, whereas televisionis the medium of "recognition"'." Not surprisingly, they find that elites whoare regular sources for the media tend to favour the quality newspaper forauthoritative information, while they favour television as a means ofexpressing their own authority.12 Television is valued for its large and wide-ranging audience and for its visual impact - the recognition factor.Politicians and their officials are trained how to deal with television,knowing full well that it is not what you say that will be remembered butthe fact that your image was televised. Dress, posture, comportment are allrecognized as important aspects of the overall appearance. Politicians andministry officials are trained for television appearances and how to masterthe twenty-second clip.13 They learn how to make use of the criteria ofnewsworthiness favoured by the electronic media: dramatization andpersonalization; simplification and conflict.14 'Media stars', those politicians

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who are favoured most by the media, combine certain specific attributes:'their elevated position in the official hierarchy [e.g. leaders and cabinetministers], their own personalities, their ability to offer quotable quotes, andtheir skill in translating issues into news stories through their own publicpersonalities'.15 As television news is more expressive than discursive, morepresentational than explanatory, these 'stars' learn to use the medium and theforce of their own personalities to 'represent' and 'express' (visually) theirofficialdom and their political agenda. The gain is recognition by a large anddiverse audience and a legitimation of the official perspective by means ofpreferred coverage. Government politicians are also favoured by broadcastnews because of its action-orientation and dramatization. Televisionnaturally seeks out those responsible for new government initiatives andrelegates opposition politicians to providing some dramatic - or dramatized- conflicting view. Television therefore forces politicians on opposing sidesto engage in verbal wars which look good on air (as in a parliamentaryQuestion Period, for example), while the true political work of committeesand compromise never gets aired because it does not suit the medium. Theend result usually benefits the powers that be.

But there is of course a trade-off, since on television it is not possible todeal with complex issues or abstract concepts or generalizations. One mustalways deal in concrete, simple terms that can be condensed into a briefvideo clip. Any hesitation or pause for reflection can be seen as a sign ofindecisiveness or weakness." Close-ups can make even the slightest gestureof the head seem like a startled response to a question or an attempt atevasion. Politicians who do try to deal with complex issues come acrosspoorly. Image, once again, replaces substance. In the 1972 US democraticpresidential primaries, for example, Ed Muskie dealt with many differentissues in depth, and came across on television as diffuse and unfocused.17

Politicians have learned to select a few issues and discuss them repeatedlyin very simple terms. The combination of simplification and repetition givesthem the image of being strongly issue-oriented because it is well adaptedto the television medium. In addition, because of the ability to editvideotapes of successive interviews and splice them together to revealcontradictions, many sources now try to avoid specifics altogether,preferring to speak in 'safe' generalities, platitudes or folksy metaphors. Bysticking to the same message over and over again, the danger ofcontradiction is thereby reduced. This is also related to the homogenizationof diverse audiences that, before the electronic age, could be addressedseparately, and differently, according to the particular message the speakerwanted to convey. With television, this is no longer possible and thepolitician must take care not to offend one constituency while addressingthe concerns of another. In Canada, where there are two linguistic

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audiences, even the linguistic divide can be bridged by the media. Duringthe 1970 October Crisis, during which Quebec terrorists kidnapped a Britishtrade commissioner and a Quebec Cabinet Minister, the Prime Minister atthe time, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, used slightly different texts in English andin French for his televised address to the nation on 16 October. This wasimmediately picked up and commented upon by the media.

This last point highlights the loss of control by politicians over thedirection and sequence of information flow in an electronic age. While it istrue that officials constitute a primary and favoured source for many media,television reaches out to other sources either to provide differentperspectives or to oppose the official view in dramatic frames and angles.As such, there is what Meyrowitz calls 'a flattening of political status',18

whereby television and other electronic media, such as the radio and thetelephone, allow outsiders to circumvent old boys' networks and go directlyto the people. In a crisis situation, such as a terrorist incident, many of theactors described at the beginning of this article can gain access to televisionbecause of their availability or the way in which they, as sources, fit intonews angles and frames. Public relations has become 'more and more anattempt to restrict information or to counteract information that is alreadyavailable'." 'Spin doctors' and 'damage limitation' have become part ofinformation management in the electronic age.

While electronic news-gathering has widened the range of news sources,the instantaneous nature of television broadcast and the increasing ease ofinformation gathering has also reduced the time it takes for the media toreact to fast-breaking events. The increased portability of cameras andsound equipment has permitted electronic reporters to arrive on the scene inthe very early stages of a developing situation, often before the police havehad a chance to respond. As media reaction time has decreased, there hasbeen a parallel decrease in expected reaction time of politicians: 'Before theinvention of the telegraph...a President never needed to be awakened in themiddle of the night to respond to a crisis. A few hours delay meant little'.20

In the electronic age, the absence of political leaders in time of crisis isnewsworthy. When Ronald Reagan was allowed to sleep through theshooting down of a Libyan plane, the media speculated about his capacityto govern. George Bush was criticized for 'delaying' his visit to LosAngeles in the wake of the 1992 riots, while then Democratic presidentialcandidate, Bill Clinton, was seen to be making political capital out of hisbeing the first to visit. During the Oka Crisis of 1990 in Canada, whennative people set up armed barricades around a municipal golf course andfired on provincial police who came to disperse them, federal politiciansremained silent during the early stages of the crisis and opened themselvesto opposition charges of not performing their duties. By contrast, during the

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October Crisis of 1970, Prime Minister Trudeau appeared on televisionseveral times to address the nation. When the death of the kidnappedCabinet Minister was announced after midnight, in the early hours ofSunday, 18 October, he made a televised statement (around 3 am) eventhough he had addressed the nation (in prime time) the previous evening (16October). Obviously, the pressure to respond, and to respond immediatelyto fast-breaking events, can be problematic, especially when televisedclose-ups can magnify any nervous tic, sign of fatigue or stress, or makecalm appear like detachment or anger appear like a loss of self-control.

Politicians not only have to respond - and respond quickly - to actualincidents as they develop. Because of the speed and range of televisionbroadcasts, they now have to respond to other people's reactions as well. Infast-breaking situations, politicians have to watch televised reports of whatis happening along with everyone else and they are often asked to respondin an environment where theirs is no longer the only or even the mostauthoritative voice being broadcast. In hostage situations, relatives of thevictim can make televised appeals to negotiate even while - or before - agovernment official enunciates a no-negotiations policy. A viewer whocontrasts the emotional appeal of the relative with the firm declaration of theofficial - perhaps sequenced in that order - can easily see the official ascold-hearted and uncaring. During the time that hostages of differentnationalities were held in Lebanon, hostage family networks developed intostrong public interest groups that lobbied politicians by granting interviewsto the media. The result was strong pressure on hard-line governments tonegotiate in secret.21 In the electronic age, a no-negotiations policy is veryhard to maintain in the face of television stories on the plight of hostages,victims and their families. In addition, when a crisis forces governmentofficials to put certain groups' political demands on the agenda, othergroups can often stage public events that attract the media, thereby placingconflicting pressure on the government. In the Oka Crisis, residents ofChateauguay, a Montreal suburb whose direct access to Montreal wasblocked by the native barricades, succeeded in gaining television coverageof their situation through mass demonstrations and violence directed atnatives. The agenda-setting function of the media then begins to influencethe agenda of political decision-makers.

A final impact of television on politicians relates to the televisedinterview. In an interview for print, there is a distinction between thereporter-politician interaction and the public-politician interaction. Theformer can include material that is 'off the record', while the latterconstitutes the official record of the interview. In television, this distinctionbreaks down and the result is 'a new behavioral style that is neither privateconversation nor public proclamation'.22 This 'intimate' look at political

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leaders ultimately functions to bring them into our homes, our living rooms,and in so doing to demystify them. This highlights one of the most ineffableeffects of television on politicians. While they gain wide recognitionthrough television, they also become ordinary people in the process. To beperceived as a great leader, one needs distance and a sense of mystery.Television does not make leaders appear larger than life; it makes themappear like any one of us. Backroom behaviour, such as slips of the tongue,swearing, bursts of anger, slips or falls, illness, fatigue or drunkenness, canall be captured by the camera that incessantly follows our political leaders.This is perhaps why public opinion of politicians is so low. The electronicage makes it difficult to be a 'great' leader.23

In exceptional cases, politicians can turn the tables on an interviewer anddeliberately use the opportunity to push their own agenda. During thedouble kidnapping in Montreal in October 1970, then Prime Minister PierreTrudeau engaged a television reporter in a heated debate about the status ofthe imprisoned colleagues of the kidnappers, whose release was one of theircentral demands. The impromptu interview, which was videotaped, tookplace on the steps of Parliament as Trudeau was entering the building.Trudeau took the opportunity to criticize the media for calling theimprisoned terrorists 'political prisoners', the term used in the kidnappers'communiques and reproduced verbatim in both media reports andcommentary. Instead, Trudeau called them 'bandits'. This interviewinstantly became a major news item in coverage of the incident over thenext twenty-four hours, being replayed on television and radio andreproduced in all the papers the next day. The interview took place at a timewhen legitimation of the terrorists was at its peak, both in public discourseand in the way in which the media, particularly the French-speaking media,were covering the event. Trudeau's comments were a direct attempt tocounter this legitimating effect of media coverage.24

Impact on Police

The most obvious impact of television coverage on police work during aterrorist incident or crisis situation is the possibility that such coveragemight interfere either with operations at the scene or with policeinvestigations during a protracted incident. Television cameras can revealthe positioning of armed personnel, such as happened in the 1985 TurkishEmbassy siege in Ottawa, when Armenian terrorists took over the embassy,or the physical layout of the scene outside a barricaded hostage situation.Their mere presence can provoke crowd reactions or simply obstruct orhinder crowd control. During the October Crisis, media and policepersonnel were continually crossing paths as the one sought out leads for

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stories, while the latter looked for leads in their criminal investigations. Onepossible impact of such intense media investigation is the damaging ofphysical evidence useful to the police. Official strategies and tactics can bepublicized, thereby giving tactical advantage to perpetrators, tipping offsuspects or precipitating reactions that endanger and sometimes cost lives.Such information can be transmitted visually by cameras panning thesurrounding area of a siege, for instance, or through live interviews or newsreports that cite official sources who revealed information in earlierinterviews. For example, in a 1986 incident in Ottawa, where a gunmantook a hostage in the Bahamian High Commission, the hostage-takerbecame agitated when he heard a radio news report that police werepreparing an assault.25 In several international hijackings, evidence existsthat media reports on operational tactics led to the execution of hostages.26

In the 1980 seizure of the Iranian Embassy in London by anti-Khomeinimilitants, a camera team from the British station, Independent T.V. News(ITN), defied the police cordon and filmed the SAS rescue team rappellingdown the walls of the Embassy.27 If the pictures had been transmitted live,the whole operation could have been jeopardized.

Sometimes police hold press conferences to show that theirinvestigations have been successful. To provide visuals for television, suchpress conferences often display evidence or parade suspects before thecameras. The resulting broadcasts can then influence accounts of witnessesor, by focusing on the evidence and the identity of the accused, open up theprosecution to charges of unfair pre-trial publicity. In the months leading upto the 1984 trial of the five members of a Canadian terrorist group, DirectAction, dubbed by the media as the Squamish Five because of where theywere arrested, the issue of pre-trial publicity arose in the wake of a localtelevision broadcast in which police displayed a weapons cache andshopping list seized at the home of one of the suspects. The BritishColumbia Superior Court judge hearing the case allowed the defenselawyers to question potential jurors about prejudice and impartiality andforbid the media from using stigmatizing words such as 'terrorists' or'anarchists' during the jury selection process.28

A more indirect example of the impact of television coverage concernsthe negative depiction of the police's inability to divulge information when,for example, a case is before the courts or is politically sensitive, as in acrisis situation. A police spokesperson who says 'I can't answer that' canappear evasive or suspicious on television. In other cases, police feel thatwhen they do impart information to the media, they lose control over theway that information is then used or whether it will even be used at all. Theparticular news frame or angle determines how or if it is used, not theintentions of the police. In one case, the media decided to frame a series of

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murders of women as a crime wave, even though police told reporters thatthe number of attacks on women had not increased over the previous year,releasing statistics to back up their point. The result was that the police weredepicted as unsympathetic to the fears of women and incapable of solvingthe particular crimes, which only increased political pressure on the force.29

During the Oka Crisis, the prevailing frame in the English media was thatthe Surete du Quebec (the Quebec provincial police force) was the mostviolent police force in Canada and this coloured every interview with atleast one expert.30 In a case where a Toronto television station depicted aToronto robbery using footage from a Montreal one, a police officer wasinterviewed for the same story and told the reporter that Montreal-stylerobberies, which tend to be more violent, did not occur in Toronto. Hisinterview was not used, since it contradicted the chosen frame of violenceand danger. This dramatic angle was maintained through the use of a visualfake instead.31

There is also the indirect effect of media publicity amplifying theworkload of policing by triggering public anxiety. As one police respondentnoted: 'Anytime the public generally displays a fear of anything, we end upgetting that fear. People start phoning in with suspicions, everyone'ssuspicious.'32 During the October Crisis, police stations were inundated withcalls from the public for protection or to report suspicious packages thatmight be bombs. There was such an explosion of false bomb alerts thatauthorities feared this was part of the terrorist strategy, to have sympathizerstie up the police with a barrage of crank calls. Dramatic and sensationalisticcoverage can therefore impede police work by inflaming public fear andanxiety, by increasing public pressure or by portraying the police asincapable, inefficient or out of control, increasing political pressure.

Television can also have a more positive impact on police work.Particularly in crisis or emergency situations, the instantaneous nature oftelevision can help to mobilize general public awareness of dangers, threatsor emergencies and recommended precautions.33 It may also help to keep thecurious away from the scene of an incident by transmitting images of thescene to people in their homes, although in the October Crisis, initial reportsof the second kidnapping drew crowds of onlookers to the hostage'sresidence, making the work of police more difficult. Ironically, because ofits ability to be there in the first moments of confusion typical of a crisis,television can pick up every detail of the initial response, thereby conveyingan image of police incompetence or, at the very least, showing that they areno different from the rest of us when faced with an emergency situation.Television images of the initial police response to the 1989 MontrealMassacre, when a gunman shot and killed 14 women at the University ofMontreal, showed policemen unwilling to enter the building where the

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shootings had occurred for fear that the gunman was still shooting. Incontrast to prime time cop shows, these policemen looked very ordinaryindeed.

Television can also help with police investigations by identifyingsuspects, as in the October Crisis, when television stations broadcastphotographs of two of the terrorist suspects after the murder of one of thehostages. The publication of these photos led to the discovery of the housewhere the murdered hostage had been held, when a neighbour recognizedone of the men and called police. Media have helped police in criminalinvestigations by providing video and voice recordings to police to identifycitizens they wished to contact, to identify trouble-makers atdemonstrations, to identify suspects at funerals linked to criminalinvestigations, to identify possible witnesses and to review their ownprocedures that were recorded by media at demonstrations.34

In cases where the media have refused to hand over videotapes to thepolice, jurisprudence both in the United States and in Canada has tended toside with the police, arguing that the media have no special constitutionallydefined status or immunities from search warrants.35 The Canadian cases do,however, lay down certain conditions which should be taken intoconsideration in issuing a search warrant for media premises. One of theseconditions is that the police 'should disclose whether there are alternativesources, and if reasonable and alternative sources exist, whether thosesources have been investigated and all reasonable efforts to obtain theinformation have been exhausted',36 but this condition is not constitutionallyrequired. Another states that 'dissemination of the information by the mediain whole or in part will be a factor favouring the issuance of the searchwarrant'.37 In the wake of this decision, police have now begun not only toask for video material that was actually broadcast, but also 'outtakes', ormaterial that was filmed but edited out.

Other ways in which the police have made use of the media is to ask forcooperation in news blackouts during delicate phases in hostagenegotiations. In the 1977 South Moluccan train incident in The Netherlands,where a second group of hostage-takers had access to electronic media at asecond site in Amsterdam, the media agreed to black out live coverage ofthe final assault on the train in order to minimize risk to the hostages inAmsterdam. The police allowed them to videotape the assault and tobroadcast it after the incident was resolved. Under the guidelinesestablished by former Commissioner of Scotland Yard, Sir Robert Mark, theBritish media and the police maintain regular contact so that, in times ofcrisis, police-media cooperation is smoother. We have seen how sucharrangements can still break down when one reporter has the chance for alive scoop, as in the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege described previously. One

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key to cooperation during incidents is the use by police of media liaisonofficers who provide regular updates during incidents so that the media getthe information and images that they need. During a high-profile case ofmysterious deaths of children in Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, thepolice held a press conference in order simply to read a press release sincethe television media requested a visual. At the conference, the police officercould not and repeatedly would not answer any questions: 'Sensitive to thevisual imperative of television, he was willing to put in an appearance, butnothing more'.38

Television coverage of police actions can sometimes perform a deterrentfunction, showing the police at work, or broadcasting the arrest of suspects.Such broadcasts can also boost morale of the police themselves, when theysee images of themselves in action. The police also use the electronic mediafor a variety of self-serving purposes, such as using the media to lobby theadministration for reforms, using television coverage to plead on air formore material resources or influencing public opinion about the police insometimes very subtle ways. For example, one police force, in making apublic service announcement about a seizure of contaminated food, used ablack officer and a female officer in different broadcasts to project ademographic constitution that was belied by actual recruitment statistics.39

The importance of visual imagery cannot be understated. A picture canindeed be worth a thousand words. This can be true for the army as muchas for the police. For example, the British Army decided to allow any of itstroops stationed in Northern Ireland to give interviews to televisionreporters. When images of the soldiers came into British homes viatelevision, British public support increased tremendously.40 Similarly,during the Oka crisis, televised images of soldiers standing up to thebarricaded natives increased public support for the Army: requests forinformation at recruitment offices across the country increased significantlyduring the crisis. For the natives, 'the staredowns were a public-relationsfiasco. They allowed the soldiers to appear courageous and unflinching intheir defiance of the warriors - an image that soon embedded itself in theconsciousness of millions of Canadian television viewers'.41 This leads to aconsideration of the public.

Impact on the Public

The phrase 'the public' implies a uniformity in the mass of people 'outthere' who watch television. As we have seen in the introduction, nothingcan be further from the truth. The number of different audiences that mightbe interested in a terrorist incident or political crisis can be quite large.Hewitt42 makes a distinction between the type of public (constituencies of

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terrorist groups, enemies of terrorist groups and bystanders) and the degreeof knowledge that any particular public has of a particular terrorist group(sophisticated awareness, some knowledge and ignorance) to arrive at sixdifferent possibilities in the case of public attitudes towards terrorism. Headmits that two of these possibilities - bystanders with sophisticatedawareness, and constituencies that are ignorant - are highly unlikely. Theimportant point is that the effects of the media are quite different for eachof the publics he identifies.

There is very little effect on constituencies who already have asophisticated awareness of the political goals and ideology of the terrorists.This is particularly true where indigenous terrorism has persisted for a longtime, such as in Northern Ireland, the Basque provinces of Spain, and Israeland the occupied territories. Public attitudes and values are usually formed bysocialization processes at home, school and church, while the media merelyreflect and reinforce them. In the case of strongly held opinions, mediacoverage can sometimes strengthen them further, but even the worst mediadepictions of violence will usually not change the opinions of constituencies.

Media effects are greatest when the public has very little knowledgeabout the terrorist cause or the political issues involved and little directexperience with terrorism or political violence.43 In Hewitt's classification,this would include bystanders and enemies, except perhaps when the enemyof a terrorist group is also within another group's constituency, such as inNorthern Ireland, where opposing groups maintain their own constituencies.Media depictions of terrorist violence tend to create negative views amongpublics that are targeted by the violence or the political rhetoric of theterrorist, for example British views of the IRA or American views ofdomestic groups or foreign groups that target Americans abroad.

The best predictor of who views nationalist terrorists favourably orapproves of political violence is ethnicity: 'few non-Basques supportBasque independence or hold a favourable view of ETA. Only a handful ofProtestants want a united Ireland, and a minority see the IRA as patriots.Israeli Jews have a very hostile image of the PLO, and almost none wish tolive in a Palestinian state'.44 The most crucial factor determining whethermembers of an ethnic constituency will support national terrorists andpolitical violence is political socialization, whereby 'people are taught to bemilitant nationalists'.45 Nationalist violence is legitimated via thetransmission within the community of a militant nationalist ideology.Although nationalist terrorists kill more people than revolutionary terrorists,they target primarily the military and security forces. Even when they killinnocents, support within their constituencies does not wane.

As for revolutionary terrorists, public perceptions are generally lessfavourable than those for nationalist terrorists and their constituencies are

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less well-defined.46 While most use some variant of Marxist ideology, classis not a good predictor of favourable perceptions or support for revolution.Workers often identify more with the victims of terrorism, while those whosympathize with revolutionary terrorists often come from highersocioeconomic brackets. Demographic factors such as gender and age aremore important in predicting public perceptions: 'with men somewhat moresympathetic than women, and the young noticeably more so than the old'.47

The university-educated and, in particular, university students appear to bethe only group for whom 'millennial movements have a strong appeal'.48

Turning to public attitudes toward official responses to terrorism, inparticular repressive responses, again there are differences between thenationalist and the revolutionary situation. According to Hewitt, 'the crucialdeterminant of public attitudes toward government security policies seemsto be who is affected by them'.49 In the nationalist situation, the majorimpact of repressive policies is on the ethnic communities from which theterrorists draw their support. The result of this is a widespread alienationthroughout the ethnic community, even those nationalists who do not viewthe terrorists favourably nor approve of political violence. This leads, inturn, to a polarization of attitudes toward security policy between the ethniccommunity and the rest of the nation and this polarization maintains supportfor the terrorists. Hewitt suggests that, in the Quebec case, ethnicpolarization and support for the FLQ were minimized, since 'the victims ofFLQ terrorism were predominantly French Canadians, the securitymeasures were enacted by a French Canadian premier, and the securityforces deployed were French Canadian'.50 This view is supported by the factthat, after one hostage was murdered (the Quebec Cabinet Minister, PierreLaporte), public support for the emergency regulations invoked under theWar Measures Act was high among both French and English Canadians.

In the case of revolutionary terrorism, security measures usually affectthe general public temporarily, during clearly defined crisis situations, andthe more extreme measures are usually restricted to the terrorists themselvesor to political groups that support them. In the case of Uruguay, publicsupport for antiterrorist measures was less than that in Germany or Italy, butHewitt points out5' that the general public was more widely affected by theemergency measures, including massive, city-wide searches and theextensive and routine use of torture.52

Let us now turn to the role of the media in all this and the impact oftelevision in particular. Much has been written about the way in whichmedia coverage legitimizes terrorism and how it would diminish drastically,if not disappear altogether, if terrorists were simply denied 'the oxygen ofpublicity', to use Margaret Thatcher's oft-quoted phrase. The data presentedabove suggest otherwise. In fact, most media coverage de-legitimizes

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terrorism by focusing exclusively on the violence and victimization andignoring the espoused political goals of the terrorists. Televised images ofthe dead or wounded serve to emphasize the barbaric and criminal nature ofthe action, while the absence of commentary on the political goalsobliterates its political nature. By contrast, the official perspectivepromulgated by government and law enforcement sources is emphasized,thereby reinforcing and legitimating the powers that be." The reliance onofficial sources to provide information for 'up-dates' simply reinforces theofficial perspective. Televised images of law enforcement officials - policeor soldiers - at work, guarding buildings, manning the perimeter of ahostage siege, arresting suspects or conducting house searches, allemphasize the official response to the crisis. Taken together, government-related and victim-related reports are the two major themes that consistentlydominate media coverage of terrorism. Since government officials often usevictimization as a theme to delegitimize the terrorist anyway, thecombination of the two themes simply accentuates the delegitimatingeffects of media focus on victimization.

Terrorists and other political actors who use violence or engage in law-breaking for political purposes usually aim for three things: attention,recognition and legitimacy. Those who are selected by the media forcoverage often gain attention and recognition, but they rarely gainlegitimacy, except in the eyes of constituencies who already think theircause is legitimate, regardless of coverage. In some cases, a degree oflegitimacy can be achieved, as in the October Crisis, where a transientdegree of legitimacy was apparent in media coverage that tried for a time tobalance the official perspective with sources that favoured negotiations andshared the political goals of the terrorists."

Given the dramatic and personalized nature of television coverage ofcrisis situations, the primary effect on the unknowledgeable anduncommitted public (Hewitt's bystanders and enemies) is to create fear andanxiety about the possibility of future victimization. In the wake of the May1992 riots in Los Angeles, for example, there was a marked increase inpublic demands for guns and the necessary training on how to use them,even by people who had previously been against private ownership ofhandguns. Gun-shop owners and shooting instructors interviewed by themedia stated that many of these new gun owners - usually white - told themthat they were influenced by videotapes of the riot, especially the viciousbeating of a white truck driver by angry blacks.55 By focusing on victimsand the anguish of their loved ones, by depicting scenes of grieving, mostnotably funerals or the return of bodies from abroad, the media use terroristvictimization as a means to reduce the complexity of a terrorist event into apersonal narrative that everyone can identify with. The victim becomes a

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metaphor for everyman or everywoman and allows the targets of attention,the mass media audience, to identify with the victim.

We have seen that media coverage can also fuel public pressure on thepolice to solve a particular case or on politicians to resolve a crisis quickly.In protracted hostage situations, media focus on the fate of the hostages orthe plight of their families can increase public demands to negotiate, ashappened in the October Crisis in 1970. This can seriously limit the rangeof options open to crisis managers and policy makers as it did both in theIranian hostage crisis of 1979-80 and the TWA hostage crisis of 1985.While it is difficult to assess the direct link between media coverage andpublic pressure without opinion polling on the issue, it is generally acceptedthat the media perform an agenda-setting function by drawing the public'sattention to whatever they decide are the important issues.56 In addition, thefostering of public identification with the victim and the creation of publicanxiety and fear can also lead to pressure for a quick resolution. Anotherelement contributing to public anxiety and pressure on the authorities is thepromulgation and diffusion of rumours that is typical in any crisis situation.A proliferation of calls to police or a sharp increase in requests for policeprotection can overwhelm police forces during a crisis situation, drainingmanpower resources and hindering police investigations or crisismanagement. Because of its instantaneity, it is the electronic media,particularly radio and, when broadcasting live as in the Los Angeles riots,television, that can most easily contribute to the spread of rumours byreporting them as fact, without any attempt at verification. The emphasis onthe dramatic and the personal (using 'little people' as sources can lead tobroadcasting their gossip and hearsay live, without any substantiation) andthe severe time constraints imposed on fact-gathering that are typical oftelevision can facilitate the spread of rumours and gossip enormously.

A related effect of media coverage is the promotion of public outrageand anger directed at terrorists and violent political actors. We have seenhow this is most prevalent in those communities that feel most threatened ina nationalist conflict (enemies) and the majority of the general public in thecase of revolutionary terrorism. Here again, televised images ofvictimization and family grief and mourning, such as at funerals, performthis function through personalization and dramatization. Private grief isthereby transformed into public ritual, whereby politicians and governmentofficials are seen to take part in the mourning process. Media coverage ofterrorist victimization can also create public support for harshcountermeasures, such as special legislation, enhanced police powers ormilitary retaliation. The visual depiction of horror and suffering and the useof gruesome images of bodies strewn around in the wake of bombings or ofcorpses of slain hostages or assassinated officials can increase the shock

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effect desired by the terrorist, but it can also help to portray the terrorist ascriminal and trigger retributive feelings in the general public. Of course, nocausal connection can be inferred here, yet it does seem safe to concludethat media focus on victimization and carnage does serve in some way todraw public attention away from the political nature of the incident and tohighlight the extranormal violence.

This selective focus on victims is reinforced by inclusion of officialreactions to events, which often depict the terrorists as murderers orcriminals and eulogize the victims as national symbols of innocence andheroism whose victimization must be avenged. It is difficult to say whetherthis confluence of imagery is instrumental in affecting public opinion,increasing support for retaliation or revenge, or whether it merely reflectsan already formed public opinion, an outraged call for revenge thatresonates across a wide spectrum of discourse both outside and within themedia. Yet Hewitt" does provide evidence that terrorism generated a publicbacklash in several countries, with increased support for tough law-and-order measures. In Uruguay, where the government censored news aboutterrorist attacks, public support for tough government measures was lessthan in other countries, such as Germany or Italy. He suggests that 'perhapsthe lack of media coverage explains why public attitudes toward theTupamaros remained favourable even after they began to kill policemen'.58

Without the depictions of victimization necessary to justify the repression,coupled with the heavy-handed and brutal nature of the repression, publicopinion did not turn as dramatically against the terrorists as it might have ifmedia coverage had been permitted.

There is, of course, a darker side to the potential for promotion of publicoutrage and revenge by the dramatic and sensational reporting of terroristvictimization. This is the danger of vigilantism, whereby members of thepublic take it upon themselves to attack those perceived to be members of aterrorist constituency, and the related problem of scapegoating, wherebyenraged publics lash out at particular groups who may share the goals of theterrorists, if not the methods, or merely possess the same demographic orethnic features of the perpetrators. The problem is exacerbated by the speedof electronic reporting and its capacity to spread rumour and speculationinstantaneously and widely, before they can be substantiated or refuted. Inthe immediate wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, for example,speculation that the atrocity was the work of Middle Eastern terrorists led todisplays of public anger and violence against Americans of Arab origin,including school children.

Richard Ericson and his colleagues point out that crime reporters oftenfocus on the victim's plight in order to encourage action by the police orother authorities. In turn, police encourage reporters to focus on the victim's

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perspective when this leads to public support or sympathy for policeactions.

We observed many instances in which police officers went out of theirway to encourage victims or relatives of victims to co-operate withreporters by giving interviews and still photographs that wouldpublicize their plight. For example, a radio reporter approached forinterview the mother of a child believed to be the victim of foul play.Upon being refused, the reporter had a police officer she knew talk themother into doing an interview. Apparently the police officer co-operated in the hope that the interview would evoke further publicsympathy and thereby assist in the search. The police officer thenstalled another reporter so that the radio reporter could maintain theexclusivity of her interview at least as long as her next hourly update.59

The use of funerals of victims by both government officials and by themedia is particularly striking. In the case of'targets of opportunity', such astourists or travellers, the victim is usually a relatively unknown personexcept to friends and relatives. Such was the case with Leon Klinghoffer,the American who was killed during the Achille Lauro seajacking in 1985,and Robert Dean Stethem, the navy diver murdered during the 1985 TWAskyjacking. In both cases, however, the funerals went beyond the privatescene of grieving and mourning that is typical of most funerals. Indeed, thiswas also true of the return of the two victims' bodies to the United States.Flag-draped coffins, the presence of public officials, public eulogies andextensive media coverage transformed these private scenes into nationalevents. In this way, the randomly victimized target of opportunity becomesthe equivalent of the symbolic or representative target, such as the diplomator the politician. In the latter case, one expects public eulogies and statefunerals. By treating the innocent bystander in the same way as arepresentative of the state, both governments and media participate in thecreation of a national symbol.

Victims' families sometimes willingly participate in the process ofrendering public their private tragedy. This was particularly striking in thecase of the Klinghoffer family, as pointed out by Jack Lule in discussing atelephone conversation between Marilyn Klinghoffer, the victim's wife, andPresident Ronald Reagan:

The family's willingness to contribute to the public nature of thewidow's grief was remarkable. A relative recorded the words of thewidow and the President, and then immediately made these wordsavailable to the press. The public face, to what might otherwise be atime of intimate mourning, reflected a kind of acknowledgement or

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acceptance by the family of the dramatic, public nature of the death ofthe victim.60

This acquiescence by the family of victims of terrorism to the publicritualization of their private grief is not, however, universal. Neither thewidow of Pierre Laporte, murdered in 1970, nor the widow of Aldo Moro,kidnapped and murdered by the Red Brigades in 1978, wished theirhusbands' funerals to be public events. In both cases, they felt that thegovernment had not done enough to save their husbands and refused tocooperate with a public ritual. In both cases, a public funeral was heldanyway, against the families' express wishes; in the Moro case, the body ofMoro was not even there, having been retained by the Moro family, whoheld their own private funeral while the State held its own public ritualwithout the central figurepiece." Such is the need for public rituals in timeof national crisis that when families of public figures wish to privatize whatis normally public, their wishes are subjugated to the needs of the State. Incomplementary fashion, we have seen how what is normally private isrendered public in times of national crisis.

Impact on the Press

There can be no liberty for a community which lacks themeans by which to detect lies."

Walter Lippman (1920)

The impact of television on the press - that is the print medium - hasgenerally been a lowering of the overall quality of news coverage,particularly political coverage." As we have seen, politicians have adaptedto television's use of flashy stories, short reports and superficiality and turnto television when they want publicity and recognition. Here is how the1981 Canadian Royal Commission on Newspapers describes how federalpoliticians deal with the media:

In a typical Ottawa 'scrum' of journalists besieging a politician forcomment, radio and TV journalists usually are at the centre, askingthe questions, while print journalists scribble in their notebooks on thesidelines. The politicians tend to answer in short 'clips' tailored fornewscasts rather than entering into substantial discussions withjournalists.64

Print media now use electronic media as the standard for determining theform and content of their news reports.65 Reports are shorter and morepersonal and subjective in style, focusing on issues of personality.

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Descriptions of events now include visual and aural details that mightnormally be missed by someone attending the event but would be picked upby the all-seeing, all-hearing video camera: 'the sweat on a politician'sbrow, a tear running down a face, or a nervous twitch may become part ofthe print description'.6*

The traditional distinction between on and off the record has alsodisappeared and print journalists relay information that would normally nothave been included in a written account. The attempt is to recreate the feelof a television interview. This has also begun to appear in other print media,such as biographies, memoirs and even more scholarly publications.Consider the following description of Yassir Arafat, written by a televisionandprint journalist for a collection of essays edited by two leading scholarsin the areas of media and terrorism:

Yasir [sic] Arafat was in top shape. A short, fat actor without anyparticular charisma, but an eloquent speaker. He didn't actually speak,though; he barked. With his wild gestures and war cries, hemesmerized the audience. A wide grin spread across his face when themajority approved his proposals. When Arafat laughed, his wholeface laughed - except his eyes....Arafat was guarded more carefullythan ever. But he did shake the necessary hands, especially mediahands. There were drops of spittle at the corners of his mouth. Arafatwas all mouth. Under the kafia he never seemed to remove there wereshiny beads of perspiration on his forehead.67

This was a description of Arafat's address to the Palestine National Councilin Algiers in 1983. The writing style accomplishes almost exactly what avideo camera would have done: it puts the reader there and focuses onvisual and aural detail that human perception (as opposed to a camera'sperception) would not readily record. Buried within the descriptive prose isthe hard news that Arafat's proposals were all accepted, but this is no longerthe central issue in the age of television.

So print media, like television, have begun to focus on the expressive,the presentational, the personality - in short, the entertaining. As NeilPostman suggests,68 public discourse in the electronic age amounts toamusing ourselves to death. What is dying is any attempt to raise the levelof political discourse to the point where the general public that consumesmedia reports of such discourse can become well enough informed tounderstand what is going on. In a crisis situation, it would seem thatachieving such a goal would be very important.

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Conclusion: Crisis Management in the Electronic Age

It is the very nature of electronic news gathering and reporting that makestelevision such an important variable in crisis management. Crisis managersmust adapt their decision-making to the new social landscape created by anincreasingly global communications network. It is a landscape where theboundaries of space and time have been transcended, where there is no cleardemarcation between 'here' and 'there', where our awareness of far-offevents can be instantaneous, where lightweight camcorders allow reportersto gather images almost anywhere and anyone with a modem can downloadthem off the Internet, where official statements or authorized versions ofevents can be challenged by a plethora of alternative voices with competingclaims to knowledge and authority. It is a landscape in which the differentand often conflicting needs of separate constituencies and audiences can nolonger be addressed separately, along compartmentalized channels ofcommunication. In the 1996 TWA 800 crash, for example, crisis managershad to walk a delicate line between declarations concerning the imperativesof the investigation and those addressing the needs of the victims' families,whether in the United States, France or elsewhere.

While the mainstream media do tend to restrict access to alternativevoices, lending primacy to the official perspective, the world wide web isnow replete with web sites that spring up as soon as a crisis breaks out. Suchsites constitute new sources of information to interested audiences,providing alternative versions of events, different spins on officialstatements and new sets of facts not usually available to the public during acrisis. Conspiracy theories thrive in such a medium despite official denials,as was demonstrated in the wake of the TWA 800 crash. There are thosewho believe that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was perpetrated eitherby the US government or, at the very least, with its prior knowledge, despiteall evidence to the contrary, let alone government denials.

Television news is simplified, dramatized and personalized. The realityit conveys is an artificial one where images substitute for ideas, personalityfor expertise and quick, dramatic solutions are favoured over questioning,argument and compromise. This artificial reality has, in turn, shaped publicexpectations of official response to a crisis, creating an 'electronicmindset'69 that expects a quick fix to complicated problems and which canbe easily manipulated in times of crisis.

The same official sources preferentially sought out by the media - thepoliticians and the police - have had to adapt to the infotainment nature oftelevision journalism. Sometimes it works to their advantage; sometimes totheir disadvantage. At times, the public - or its various constituents - areinformed, but sometimes they are misinformed or even 'disinformed', i.e.

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deliberately misled by disinformation. Those values that underlie thedemocratic process - openness, accountability, the rule of law, and publictrust and confidence in government - can all be undermined during a crisisand the distorting prism of television can sometimes exacerbate theproblem.70 It is imperative that crisis managers take into account thepowerful role that television and other electronic media can play in theunfolding and handling of a major incident. Regular public education aboutissues of public safety and security and the feasibility and practicability ofinstitutional responses when the state or the public is threatened cancounteract, to a certain extent, the effects of television described above.

If the public understands the limitations within which crisis managementmust operate before a crisis occurs, then public trust can be maintaineddespite the constraints that a crisis inevitably imposes on governmentopenness and accountability, and even in the face of emergency measuresthat suspend the rule of law in certain areas. On the other hand, in an era ofdeficit reduction and cost-cutting, publics who vote for governments whopromise tax cuts, deregulation and privatization should be educated in theconsequences these trends may hold for public safety and security. If thoseagencies and companies that take over government responsibilities are lesspublicly accountable or less subject to legal controls, and if profitability andthe interests of stock-holders take precedence over the public interest,people should not be surprised when governments have little control overthe prevention of future crises.

Herein lies the greatest challenge to any partnership between the publicand private sector in an area as crucial to the public as safety and security.An informed public will demand that any such partnership maintain the samedemocratic standards that we traditionally expect of government alone. Asthe corporate and private sectors assume more and more regulatory powerover areas of public policy normally dealt with by government, theirdecision-makers are finding themselves increasingly in the media spotlightin time of crisis. As a result, they are having to address the same issues ofopenness, accountability, legality, and public trust and confidence thatpolitical leaders have had to deal with up to now. This is the legacy ofgovernment cutbacks, privatization, deregulation, corporate downsizing andfiscal restraint. In addition, the growth of supranational legal and politicalarrangements means that 'the governmental bodies of nation-statecommunities no longer (if they ever fully did) exclusively determine the livesof their citizens'.71 This globalizing trend, which is also evident in thebusiness and corporate world, in the media itself, and in a burgeoning civilsociety that transcends state boundaries, introduces a whole new set ofproblems surrounding the tension between cultural diversity and the need toharmonize response policy. But that's another story.

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NOTES

1. R.D. Crelinsten, 'The Impact of Television on Terrorism and Crisis Situations: Implicationsfor Public Policy', Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 2/2 (June 1994)pp.61-72.

2. See David L. Paletz and Alex P. Schmid (eds), Terrorism and the Media: How Researchers,Terrorists, Government, Press, Public, Victims View and Use the Media (Newbury Park, CA:Sage 1992) for a variety of perspectives.

3. Richard V. Ericson, Patricia M. Baranek and Janet B.L. Chan, Negotiating Control: A Studyof News Sources (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1989) p.214.

4. Ibid., p.215.5. Richard V. Ericson, Patricia M. Baranek and Janet B.L. Chan, Representing Order: Crime,

Law, and Justice in the News Media (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1991) p.32.6. Ibid., p.34.7. Mark W. Hall, Broadcast Journalism: An Introduction to News Writing. Third Edition,

Revised (New York: Hastings 1986) pp.87, 89.8. Crelinsten, 'The Impact of Television' (note 1).9. Time, 14 Oct. 1966, cited in Edward Bliss, Jr., Now the News: The Story of Broadcast

Journalism (New York: Columbia University Press 1991) p.245.10. Joshua Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place: the Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior

(New York: Oxford University Press 1985) p.276.11. Ericson et al., Negotiating Control (note 3) p. 189.12. Ericson et al., Representing Order (note 5) pp.31-2.13. Ericson et al., Negotiating Control (note 3) p. 192.14. Crelinsten, 'The Impact of Television' (note 1).15. Ericson et al., Negotiating Control (note 3) p.211.16. Meyrowitz (note 10) p.274.17. Ibid., p.278.18. Meyrowitz (note 10) p. 163.19. Ibid., p.165.20. Ibid., p.274.21. Ronald D. Crelinsten, 'The Victims' Perspective', in David L. Paletz and Alex P. Schmid

(eds), Terrorism and the Media (note 2) pp.208-38.22. Meyrowitz (note 10) p.28.23. Ibid.24. Ronald D. Crelinsten, 'La couverture de presse et ses fonctions légitimantes', Criminologie

20/1 (1987) pp.35-57.25. Ronald D. Crelinsten, 'Terrorism and the Media: Problems, Solutions, and

Counterproblems', Political Communication and Persuasion 6 (1989) pp.311-39, at p.323.26. Abraham H. Miller, 'Terrorism, the Media, and the Law: A Discussion of the Issues', in

Abraham H. Miller (ed.), Terrorism, the Media and the Law (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Transnational1982) pp. 13-50, at pp.29-30.

27. Paul Wilkinson, personal communication.28. Anita Cugliandro, Nicole Groleau, Mike Wasserman and Gay-Lynn Farkas, 'The Squamish

Five: A Media Analysis of Newspaper Coverage', unpublished research paper (Ottawa:Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa 1991).

29. Ericson et al., Negotiating Control (note 3) p. 117.30. Jean-Paul Brodeur, personal communication.31. Ericson et al., Negotiating Control (note 3) p. 120.32. Ibid., p.158.33. Ibid., p.161.34. Ibid.35. Miller (note 26) p.38; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation v. Lessard, 3 S.C.R. (1991)

pp.421-58; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation v. New Brunswick (Attorney General), 3S.C.R. (1991) pp.459-84.

36. CBC v. New Brunswick (Attorney General) (note 35) p.462.

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37. Ibid.38. Ericson et al., Negotiating Control (note 3) p.147.39. Ibid., p. 168.40. James W. Hoge, 'The Media and Terrorism', in Miller (ed.), Terrorism, the Media and the

Law (note 26) pp.89-105, at p.95, citing Richard Clutterbuck.41. Geoffrey York and Loreen Pindera, People of the Pines (Toronto: Little, Brown 1991) p.357.42. Christopher Hewitt, 'Public's Perspectives', in Paletz and Schmid (eds), Terrorism and the

Media (note 2) pp. 170-207, at p. 197.43. Ibid., p.200.44. Ibid., pp. 186-7.45. Ibid., p. 187.46. Ibid., p. 190.47. Ibid.48. Ibid.49. Ibid., p. 194.50. Ibid., p.188.51. Ibid., p. 194.52. See also Christopher Hewitt, Consequences of Political Violence (Aldershot: Dartmouth

1993) p.67.53. Crelinsten, 'La couverture de presse' (note 24).54. Ibid.55. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), radio news broadcast, May 1992.56. Gabriel Weimann, 'The Theater of Terror: Effects of Press Coverage', Journal of

Communication 33 (1982) pp.38-45.57. Hewitt, 'Public's Perspectives' (note 42) p.191.58. Ibid., p.199, emphasis in original.59. Ericson et al., Negotiating Control (note 3) p. 151.60. Jack Lule, 'The Myth of My Widow: A Dramatistic Analysis of News Portrayals of a

Terrorist Victim', Political Communication and Persuasion 1/2 (1988) pp.101-20, citedfrom original manuscript dated 1987, pp.10-11.

61. Robin Wagner-Pacifici, The Mow Morality Play: Terrorism as Social Drama (Chicago:University of Chicago Press 1986).

62. Cited in Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of ShowBusiness (New York: Viking 1985) p. 108.

63. Ericson et al., Negotiating Control (note 3) p.231.64. Cited in ibid., p.244.65. Meyrowitz (note 10) p. 178.66. Ibid.67. Mark Blaisse, 'Reporters' Perspectives', in Paletz and Schmid (eds), Terrorism and the

Media (note 2) pp. 137-69, at pp. 142-3.68. Postman (note 62).69. Crelinsten, 'The Impact of Television' (note 1).70. Ibid.71. John Keane, 'The Crisis of the Sovereign State', in Marc Raboy and Bernard Dagenais (eds),

Media, Crisis and Democracy: Mass Communication and the Disruption of Social Order(Newbury Park, CA: Sage 1992) pp. 16-33, at p.30.

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Crelisten Television & Terrorism Implications for Crisis

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