[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-135730-105":59,"doc-detail-135730-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","terrorism-as-failed-political-communication-a-typology-of-communicative-objectives-and-why-attacks-fail","Terrorism as Failed Political Communication - A Typology of Communicative Objectives and Why Attacks Fail","","Terrorist acts function as political communication by conveying intended messages beyond the violence they produce. This work develops a typology of primary objectives ranging from strategic aims to morally communicative statements such as condemnation, clarifying what speech-act content terrorism may carry. It also explains recurring reasons terrorist communication fails: violence, limited audience awareness of grievances, the complexity of the message, and framing by governments and media that sidelines communicative meaning, refining how political communication scholars study terrorism.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/terrorism-as-failed-political-communication-a-typology-of-communicative-objectives-and-why-attacks-fail/135730/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/terrorism-as-failed-political-communication-a-typology-of-communicative-objectives-and-why-attacks-fail/135730.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Quinn Holloway","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-05","2026-08-21",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":52},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why does the article treat terrorism as political communication?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Some terrorist acts are intended to communicate meaning beyond the violence they cause, embedded within political communication rather than existing only as strategy or psychology.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What typology do the authors propose for terrorist communicative objectives?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"They develop a typology of primary objectives spanning intentionality from mere instrumentality to morally communicative messages such as condemnation.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What reasons are given for why terrorist acts typically fail as political communication?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Failure is attributed to the violence itself, audiences often lacking prior awareness of grievances, sometimes complex communication, and framing by governments and media that sidelines communicative content.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},135730,1787319012,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":52,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":46,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":129,"read_time":31},2336474466712,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_a8503ba1806abce46bf441b54a3ca4cd","Terrorism as Failed Political Communication  \nASHLEY PATTWELL 1  \nTYSON MITMAN  \nDOUGLAS PORPORA  \nDrexel University, USA  \nSome terrorist acts are meant to communicate something beyond the violence they cause. They are a form of political communication that should be studied as such. To identify the acts we consider politically communicative, we develop a typology of primary objectives that ranges from strategic goals to such communicative statements as moral condemnation. We examine why, as a form of political communication, terrorist acts typically fail. Terrorism fails as political communication because it is violent;  \nbecause targeted audiences often have little prior awareness of the group’s grievances;  \nbecause it is sometimes a complex communication; and because governments and media frame issues in a way that sidelines the act’s communicative content. In promoting a better understanding of the message, and why it fails, we hope to make this component of terrorism a more robust subject of study for political communication  \nscholars.  \nKeywords: terrorism, political communication, communication failure, speech acts,  \nrhetoric  \nIntroduction  \nOrthodox terrorism studies generally focus on the psychological or strategic motivations behind terrorism while the communicative content of any particular terrorist act is ignored. Thus, terrorism is regarded as principally a strategic act with an emphasis on what speech act theory (Searle, 1969) would call its perlocutionary effects. Speech act theory calls the intended point of a message the illocutionaryact, the actual impact on the “receiver” is the perlocutionary effect; the intention and the effect are not always aligned.  \nAshley Pattwell: [ashleypattwell@gmail.com](ashleypattwell@gmail.com)  \nTyson Mitman: [tyson.mitman@gmail.com](tyson.mitman@gmail.com)  \nDouglas Porpora: [porporad@drexel.edu](porporad@drexel.edu)  \n[Date submitted: 2013](Date submitted: 2013)–[05](05)–[15](15)  \n1 The authors would like to extend thanks for the time and feedback of two anonymous reviewers whose suggestions greatly improved this work.  \nThe emphasis on terrorism’s effects has prevailed in parts of communication as well, particularly among those who study how terrorists use mass media to accomplish their instrumental ends. Arguably, however, insofar as an act is terrorist, it has some communicative content. Therefore, some sociologists (Goodwin, 2006; Tilly, 2004), communication scholars (Hadis, 2007), and rhetoricians (Windt, 2006) have been attentive to the communicative aspects of terrorism, particularly emphasizing audience. What is striking in these treatments, however, is that they generally stop short of identifying any message content meant to be conveyed through the act.  \nIn this article, we propose to build on these prior communication analyses and take them one step further. First, we want to emphasize that acts of terrorism are always political and as such always embedded with some communicative content. In short, whereas illocutionary acts are ordinarily understood as ways of doing things with words (Searle, 1969), as a communicative act, terrorism represents the reverse case: saying something by doing something. Thus, we seek to complete the picture toward which the prior analyses point. We seek to draw out explicitly what the communicative content is. To that end, we develop a typology of primary objectives that ranges in intentionality from mere instrumentality to the morally communicative. We want to move beyond an objectivist interpretation of terrorism, which exclusively understands it by its origins and targets, as opposed to the illocutionary acts it sometimes performs.  \nApplying speech act theory to terrorist acts can raise a question of intentionality. Manifest intentions, however, are generally decipherable from context alone (Blum & McHugh, 1971; Davidson, 1963; Geertz, 1973; Rubinstein, 1977) . When it comes to the most communicative of terrorist acts, we ca","cbCaifa9possHYpo","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaifa9possHYpo","pdf",282190,"English","# Introduction\n## Terrorism and political communication\n## Speech act theory and communicative content\n# Communicative Action\n## Instrumental vs communicative terrorism","[{\"question\":\"Why does the article treat terrorism as political communication?\",\"answer\":\"Some terrorist acts are intended to communicate meaning beyond the violence they cause, embedded within political communication rather than existing only as strategy or psychology.\"},{\"question\":\"What typology do the authors propose for terrorist communicative objectives?\",\"answer\":\"They develop a typology of primary objectives spanning intentionality from mere instrumentality to morally communicative messages such as condemnation.\"},{\"question\":\"What reasons are given for why terrorist acts typically fail as political communication?\",\"answer\":\"Failure is attributed to the violence itself, audiences often lacking prior awareness of grievances, sometimes complex communication, and framing by governments and media that sidelines communicative content.\"}]","Terrorism as Failed Political Communication - A Typology of Communicative Objectives and Why Attacks Fail | PDF"]