A NEW ERA: TERROR ORGANIZATIONS INTERACTIONS AND COLLABORATIONS ON SOCIAL MEDIA (original) (raw)

Today, the speed of radicalization almost the same for media and terror organizations as a result of entirely networked world. In the past, terrorists needed to access mainstream media to achieve their objectives throughout the masses. Now, sky is the limit since the social media changed the fundamentals of communication. Since the social media first boomed, the whole discourse; interaction, methods and the way of communication have changed. Evidently, terrorism and radicalism has been benefitting from it with maximum capacity and without any control and limit. Conversely, their target audience has multiplied and cultivated. They have been using many different social media platforms in order to spread their message, to educate and access their supporters and recruit more sympathizers. Meanwhile, the vital question has been asked for many years whether the media is one of the biggest oxygen suppliers to terrorism and its free publicity. So this reminds us that Baudrillard’s thesis that claims that terror would not be exist without the media coverage. The newsmakers and the media overall have to be sensitive on this but unfortunately, many examples shows that media either lost this empathy or play ‘your terrorist my terrorist’ hypocrisy. Instead, we observe more tabloidization in the media and ascending sympathy on violence, even legitimizing the terror and violence through free and easy publicity through social media apparatus.