Mass-Mediated Terror Threats Intimidate the Public

According to a widely accepted definition, terrorism is political violence that deliberately targets civilians. But because one, perhaps the most important goal of terrorists is the intimidation of societies they target, terrorism is also understood as the threat of political violence against civilians. While researchers have studied the effects of terrorist incidents on affected populations, they have not dealt with the impact of terrorist threats. The same is true for the news about govermental terror alerts, warnings, and assessments. My colleagues Robert Shapiro and Yaeli Bloch-Elkon and I closed this gap by examining the post-9/11 television coverage of both threats from Al Qaeda leaders and terror alerts and assessments by the Bush administration.