Conclusions

Abstract

Terrorism is not usually part of the daily lives of people in the United States, Great Britain, or Russia. Yet, in all three of these countries, citizens have a great deal of exposure to terrorism through the mass media. This book has sought to measure how terrorism—remote from most, but made immediate via the television screen—plays a role in election campaigns in these three diverse countries. At issue is whether terrorism, a rather imprecise concept that exists in different forms in the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom, can distort the electoral process. In the wake of 9/11, did politicians and parties attempt to use fear of terrorism to encourage voters to pick them as the “stronger” leaders? How did the nightly election news incorporate discussions of terrorism into the routine patterns of campaign coverage? How did the electorates respond in these three countries? The findings in this book suggest that the politics of fear were a powerful factor in the 2004 U.S. presidential elections, possibly highlighting the importance of strong, personal emotional response to candidates in the U.S. presidential contest. In Russia, fears about terrorism were part of a broader, more consistent agenda in which emotional manipulation routinely trumps an attempt to build an informed electorate. In Britain, however, the politics of fear seemed relatively remote, playing perhaps an implicit rather than an explicit role in elections.