Media's role in defining terrorism for American society

Terrorism

Now, a white male sitting in church on Sunday is shot and killed by two Muslim men with black hoods over their faces who believe the man they killed ordered the kidnapping of one of the men's wives, which was unsuccessful. Is it perceived initially as terrorism?

What did we all think immediately after learning of the Oklahoma City bombing that was eventually blamed on Timothy McVeigh? We thought it was an act of terrorism. And it was.

The point of this exercise is that we do not know what the definition of terrorism is. How is it defined for us? Mostly, by the media. The web, TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines all tell us whether a particular act of violence is terrorism -- in almost every case -- whether that is true or not. In this way, media has taken a nebulous, vague, all-encompassing term and made it into what they think defines it. They play an enormous role in shaping our thought patterns about what terrorism is. And this is neither good nor bad. Rather it is just the way it is due to the large role the media plays in our lives in this modern day. Most Americans depend on it.