Why are some suicide terror attacks more newsworthy than others?

ABSTRACT

Given their deeply deviant nature, suicide terror attacks are highly newsworthy events and in theory, should attract high levels of media coverage. However, this is not the case and some suicide bombings tend to be covered more extensively than others. Through a detailed case study of Boko Haram, this research delineates the conditions under which suicide attacks are more likely to be covered across national, regional and international media outlets. The analysis relied on a dataset of 473 suicide attacks carried out by Boko Haram since 2011. Drawing on a news media distortion analysis, this study finds multiple attributes of suicide terrorism can entice heightened levels of reporting. Suicide attacks entailing higher fatalities, female perpetrators and civilian targets all lead to greater media attention while ambiguity in terms of perpetrator gender identity significantly diminishes coverage. Moreover, all of these factors are robust across national, regional and international media outlets, though the effect of gender is strongest for international media sources. Suicide attacks on Nigerian soil are generally more likely to be covered compared to attacks elsewhere in West Africa where Boko Haram is also active and this effect is especially strong for international media coverage.

KEYWORDS:

• Terrorism
• African security

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). 2020. Global Terrorism Database. Retrieved from https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd

2. Chicago Project on Security & Threats – The Database on Suicide Attacks. Retrieved from https://cpost.uchicago.edu/research/suicide_attacks/database_on_suicide_attacks/

3. While the group continues to be popularly known as Boko Haram, as of March 2020 (time of completion of data collection), it was actually splintered into two main factions called Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP) faction and Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (JAS) faction. JAS was often referred to as the Shekau faction (after its leader at the time).

4. More information on the Global Terrorism Index can be obtained from

https://www.visionofhumanity.org/maps/global-terrorism-index/#/

5. The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). 2022. [Data file]. Retrieved from https://acleddata.com/#/dashboard

6. Council of Foreign Relations’ Nigeria Security Tracker dataset can be accessed at: https://www.cfr.org/Nigeria/Nigeria-security-tracker/p29483.

7. Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium can be accessed at the following link: https://www.trackingterrorism.org/

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Seed Grant for Transitional and Exploratory Projects (STEP) provided by Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Notes on contributors

Suranjan Weeraratne

Suranjan Weeraratne is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. His scholarly research focuses on several areas of international and domestic security including terrorism, ethnic violence and religious riots. Much of his recent research has been devoted to understanding various dimensions of transnational terrorism.