Propaganda of the Deed
This concept is linked to the theory of Terrorism. For a Terrorist group to become successful they need to get their message across to as many people as possible with the advent of Television the terrorist now has a perfect tool for this. Since the Terrorist mainly wants a lot of people watching or scared not killed coded warnings are often used to allow the area to be evacuated reducing causalities and helping to guarantee that the press arrive in time to cover the event, normally a bombing. In some respects terrorist groups are pushed into carrying out more and more spectacular attacks to keep the media interested and to guarantee prime time coverage. Good targets are national capitals or large events which are guaranteed to gain international coverage. One of the reasons why terrorism does not thrive in a totalitarian state is that the press can be controlled and the government can cut off this oxygen of the terrorist, conversely this makes democracies more vulnerable to terrorism. The recent rise of terrorist acts in the former Soviet union illustrates this.
How to cite this article: Dugdale-Pointon, TDP. (28 May 2001), Propaganda of the Deed, http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/concepts_deed.html