Can News Draw Blood? The Impact of Media Coverage on the Number and Severity of Terror Attacks

Klaus Beckmann, Ralf Dewenter and Tobias Thomas

Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, 2017, vol. 23, issue 1, 16

Abstract: Using a new data set that captures the share of reporting on terrorism, we explore the nexus between terrorist attacks and the news. It turns out that terrorism mainly influences news reports through the number of incidents. Regarding the reverse causality, we provide evidence that the share of the news devoted to terrorism Granger-causes further terrorist activities. However, short-run and medium-run effects differ: media coverage on terror only impact in the severity of terror in the short run (up to two months). From the third to the tenth months, it causes an increase in the number as well as in the severity of the attack. These observations are consistent with the idea of competition between terrorist groups.

Keywords: terrorism; media; news reporting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B25 D74 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

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Working Paper: Can news draw blood? The impact of media coverage on the number and severity of terror attacks (2016)
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DOI: 10.1515/peps-2016-0025

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