Terrorism and Mass Media: A Reflection from the Sri Lanka Terror Attack

The world shivers at the mention of terrorism. The international news storylines mostly present two hegemonic undertakings: the economic and power game ruling blocks comprising US, Russia, China, EU and so forth, on one hand, and the true battlegrounds of ruling blocks in Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and so forth, one the other. May be the storylines presented by the international media is not the true reflection of undertakings the world should know, and a lot more remain under presented behind those storylines. On the top of that, media houses play a twisted role in creating antagonists and protagonists in international geopolitics and assigning roles to different actors.

The terrorism, as we knew and believed once, has been changed in last couple of decades since the attack on the World Trade Center in New York in 2001. Not only terrorism has been changed after the World Trade Center in the emergence of new actors in the international power game but also it changed the perception of people about the religions and geopolitics; especially Islam and Middle East. In last March, A terror attack killed around fifty Muslims and left many injured during the Friday prayer in a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. The international media mostly labeled it as shooting and the terrorist as a shooter. The terrorist livestreamed the whole attack like an animated videogame and inscribed some hate speeches on the gun he used in the attack. The incident in the Christchurch, New Zealand, is not the only attack on Muslim communities in recent years but one of the many incidents and the it is becoming frequent.  After the Christchurch incident in New Zealand, a massive terror attack demanded a death toll amounting 253 innocent lives on Ester Sunday last month in Sri Lanka. After the terror attack Sri Lanka, international news storylines undoubted labeled it as a terrorist activity and proactively probed the link with the local and international terrorist groups like Islamic State (IS) and the local terrorist group National Thowfeek Jamaath.  While it is beyond the proof yet whether the Sri Lanka Attack was a consequence of New Zealand attack, the proactive role of international media was noticeable to make an express linkage between the two. Media decide who should be called a terrorist based on his region or color not the fact that terrorism ransoms the equally without the consideration of religious or color of victims. A handful number of people died in Sri Lanka terror attack were Muslims.

This is a one-type of bias mass media play in response to terrorism. But in regard to terrorism there are numerous biased and nonsense roles mass media have been playing. It is said that a terrorist is always successful because he produces the level of fears and panics that changes the courses of longstanding societal, political and interfaith interactions among different groups, communities, regions and countries.  While mass media only probe the linkage of religions with the terrorism, they hardly concentrate on economic, political and social motives of terrorism. Either a mosque or a church or a chapel is mostly targeted and this strategy of terrorism give it an universal advantage. For example, if a mosque in New Zealand is attacked, it raises the concern of Muslim communities living in West and Muslin-minority countries around the world, on the other hand, if a Church is attacked anywhere of the World it raises the concern of non-Muslims about Muslims around the World; while an attack on non-religious places may not reach such an universal advantage. Media grabs a terrorist activity, widely publishes it, links it with religions, especially with Islam, and complements the objective terrorism dividing societies, and creating fears and panics.

The terrorism in any form is a threat to the peaceful coexistence around the world. However, the place that faces the problem faces an extensive and long-lasting challenge. Historically, Sri Lanka is a politically turbulent place just ending a phase of civil conflict with the LTTE around a decade ago. Last year it faced an anti-Muslin riots that destroyed a mosque and raised a communal tension around the country.  As acknowledged by local and international security agencies, they had prior knowledge of an upcoming attack. Despite the fact of prior knowledge, security agencies in Sri Lanka did not take any preventive action. Sri Lanka is currently undergoing some political transitions that started from October 2018. President Maithripala Sirisena announced that Mahinda Rajapaksa is the new Prime Minister. Although, by various forces Sirisena removes Rajapaksa and returned Wickremesinghe. In this unstable situation miscreant takes the advantage of terror attack.The terror attack on the verge of that transition and the non-preventive activity by security forces indicate a political connection with the terror attack. Some block might have been taking advantage of this turbulent situation. Historically, the Sri Lankan turbulence with the LTTE was fueled by different external and internal blocks. Instead of going with the flow, mass media should play an investigate role to probe the other reasons like political, economic and geopolitical reasons behind the terror attack. 

In Christchurch attack, the terrorist Brenton Tarrant livestreamed the attack on Facebook. The livestreamed video was reposted and rebroadcasted millions of times in different local and international media around the world. While it is clear that Brenton Tarrant wanted the world to watch the video, by reposting and rebroadcasting the video media complemented a terrorist’s objective. This tendency of media was seen in some previous terrorist attacks. In 2016, the terror attack in a residential hotel in Dhaka was livestreamed by several national and international media. In recent India-Pakistan border conflict media from both countries played a provocative role. Some media house in India compared the Indian invasion in Pakistan with the patriotism. This is definitely a breach of media’s broadcast standards. 

In case of Sri Lanka terror attack, media relied on previous IS attacks to probe a linkage between the IS and the local National Thowfeek Jamaath. It is, however, true that attacks by IS or local terrorist group cannot be sidestepped. But the focus on IS and local terror group targeted some local innocent people and Muslims that created another bias and discrimination on the local community. Moreover, the focus on the IS and its associated group may shade the actual perpetuator if some group other than IS is responsible for the attack. Even some media proactively created a presuming linkage of Sri Lankan attack with the Christchurch attack. This again aggravated the situation in Sri Lanka and around the world.

It is generally presumed that media houses are concerned about the increasing the TRP and public viewing volumes by broadcasting controversial news storylines. This sick competition leads media houses globally to go beyond their broadcasting standards. Media is said, however, to be the “Fourth Estate” of democracy whereas increasing the TRP or viewing volumes by sick competition is an opposite to the notion. There should have some ethical standards and regulations regarding broadcasting the news and storylines grounded on the policy of harnessing communities and promoting global peace not dividing the world into pieces.

Aashish Kiphayet
Aashish Kiphayet
South Asian Geopolitical analyst and New York based freelance journalist. He could be contacted at kiphayet[at]gmail.com