The ` War Against Terrorism ' : A Public Relations Challenge

This article examines the relationship between warfare and the media, arguing that both terrorists and conventional warfare planners in the Pentagon factor communications and public relations into their planning. In this regard, the article sketches out how the Pentagon developed a new genre of ‘public relations-ized’ warfare – warfare planned, not only as a military exercise, but as a televisual media event. Similarly, it will be argued that those attacking the World Trade Center deployed an understanding of terrorism as a ‘media event’, and a grasp of how USA politics (and warfare) has been ‘media-ized’. This understanding was used by al-Qaeda to provoke the USA into the ‘War against Terrorism’. This war created a number of public relations problems for the Pentagon. The Pentagon’s response to these problems is examined.