Towards resolving the 30-year terrorism definition conflict, Weinberg, Pedahzur and Hirsch-Hoefler (2004) compared Schmid’s definition, (see excerpt below), a product of a survey in which 22 definitional elements were identified in the 109 definitions of terrorism retrieved from 200 participants; to the application of the concept in three terrorism-based academic journals: Terrorism, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Terrorism and Political Violence. Of the 22, Weinberg, Pedahzur and Hirsch-Hoefler (2004) observed that only 16 elements appeared in Schmid’s definition (p. 780).
Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual group, or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal, or political reasons, whereby – in contrast to assassination – the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat – and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organisation), (imperilled) victims, and main target (audiences (s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought (Schmid & Jongman, 1988, p. 28)
For their study, Weinberg, Pedahzur and Hirsch-Hoefler selected 73 definitions from the 55 articles and compared these to Schmid’s (1988) 22 elements. The exercise yielded mixed results. For example, while some components such as the psychological elements of terrorism were in decline (41.5% to 5.5%), probably due to the absence of contributors from the field of psychology; the authors of the articles in the three journals made no variations between terrorist targets, that is – “combatants and non-combatants” or the “immediate target and wider audience” (p. 782). However, certain traits remained prevalent across both studies, and were used by the authors to generate another definition: “terrorism is a politically motivated tactic involving the threat or use of force or violence in which the pursuit of publicity plays a significant role” (p. 782).
The significant achievement of the trio lay in the ability to adopt observable and measurable terrorism components in designing their definition of terrorism. Thus, a remarkable achievement for research in the field of terrorism, especially media-related terrorism research as a result of the renewed fo
