Building on the motivation created by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in the United States of America, terrorism has become a significant security and economic challenge globally. It has assumed worrisome scale and dimensions across the continents of the world despite the growing expertise of security intelligence and government leadership. From Asia, especially the Arabian nations, to Europe, America and Africa, terrorism has continued to dominate security discussions and planning among governments and, in particular, the United Nations. Its origin has been linked to both political and religious motivations and objectives. One of the earliest documentations on the origin of terrorism is seen in the works of Mark Burgess. He traces terrorism to the Thugees, an Indian religious cult that ritually strangle its victims (usually travellers chosen at random) as an offering to Kali, the Hindu goddess of terror and destruction. Between the 7th and mid-19th centuries, the Thugees were reputed to be responsible for as many as one million murders. That was perhaps the last example of religion-inspired terrorism until the phenomenon re-emerged a little over 20 years ago. David Rapport notes that “before the 19th century, religion provided the only acceptable justifications for terror” (p. 7). However, this study will adapt a working definition of terrorism as stated by The United Nations General Assembly. According to the UN, terrorism refers to: “…criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes... whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other nature that may be invoked to justify them” (p. 3). The United Nations, in the foregoing definition, places terrorism in a wide spectrum that captures anything that causes sustained acts capable of creating fear, death and destruction or disruption of human life cycle. People feel terror when they experience a threat to their lives, faith, ethnicity, property or livelihood. Primarily, the specifications in the definition underpin the core interests of terrorists. By terror and fear, they advance their political, ethnic, racial, religious causes, etc, on the public, or a targeted group of people. Television plays a very critical role in disseminating information in the most effective way. The audio-visual quality of transmission offered by the television gives it the edge above other means of mass communication. Since the invention of television in 1873 by a young telegraph operator, Joseph May of Ireland, the device has constantly undergone unprecedented transformation within its first one hundred years of invention and endeared itself to more users than predictable. Peter Olu, citing official figures from the International Telecommunication Union, noted that there were 600 million television sets, a higher figure than 565 million telephones in 1983 (p. 1). The attraction of the visual message the television transmits is powerful. It is very effective in modifying the social behaviours of viewers, a constant need by government, leaders and the business world.
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Open Access
Dec 29, 2023
Helle Strandgaard Jensen 
