Terrorism Research Issues on the Topic of Terrorism

Written into the very word, terrorism is a fascinating social problem worth inquiry. The meaning of terrorism is an act of violence or other that paralyses the individual or society with a feeling of terror. That terror can be a product of the relative infrequency and therefore surprise and seeming senselessness associated with the event, such as in the case of large scale and broad violent acts against larger populations (like 9/11, or the Oklahoma City bombing in the U.S.). The form of terror might also grow out of the expectation of debilitating acts against others as a standard operating procedure during certain circumstances (like the support and at the very least complicity of commanders in times of often ethnic war where women of the "enemy" are frequently and violently raped as an act of aggression and show of power).

Though the impetus and even the degree of "terror" can vary greatly and even have different character due to its cause it is a defining aspect of terrorism, at least part if not all of the perpetrators intent is to strike terror into the hearts of individuals being attacked or who anticipate attack. One social problem associated with the issue of terror is how close does one have to be to have such terror remake their long-term daily sense of well-being and therefore demonstrate a sense of success for the terrorist, and at what point does that terror dissipate resulting in what some consider complacency. This type of research inquiry would be best done at the epicenter of an incident or ongoing incidents, i.e....

The survey method would likely be used and the survey would likely be conducted electronically via email and/or support networking and/or collective interest chat boards, with survey inquiry and volunteer response.
This inquiry would therefore then be both site specific but individual in inquiry. Achieving access and rapport would have to take place in the form of a purposeful rather that random sampling strategy, i.e. those who directly experienced the events or vicariously experienced the events through the loss of another or the loss of community well-being. Collecting data would then not necessarily be indicative of anonymity nor would recording data or information as demographic information would be a necessary component of the inquiry. To resolve field issues the individual researcher would likely have to achieve unprecedented levels of access and rapport, therefore the participants would need to be invested in the project and its intent, even if it was just for the purpose of airing their feelings and grief about the events at a later date. In Ford, Adams, & Dailey who conducted post 9-11 research on health and well-being of individuals, something similar to what might be achieved to answer the above mentioned social problems; "Implications are discussed for using continuous time-sampling as a strategy to research patterns of relatively acute stress-related sequelae of terrorism in populations whose members are affected despite primarily not having been at the disaster epicenter," (2007, p. 129) The result of…