Browsing by Subject "Terrorism"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Can We Talk? Seeking Common Ground in Fighting Terrorism
    (2009-03-31) Jacobs, Lawrence R.
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    Enhancing food defense: risk managers' perceptions, criticality assessments, and a novel method for objectively determining food systems' criticality
    (2014-03) Huff
    This research focused on evaluating the perceptions of food defense risk management by state officials, evaluating the validity of a criticality assessment created by the National Center for Food Protection and Defense (NCFPD), and developing a new geographic information system (GIS) based criticality assessment method. Specific objectives included: (1) investigating and reporting the history of food and agriculture criticality assessments; (2) conducting a survey to identify state officials' risk perceptions related to food and agriculture criticality; (3) analyzing the data collected by the most widely used criticality assessment method (i.e., Food and Agriculture Systems Criticality Assessment Tool); and, (4) developing a new method to objectively measure food system criticality.
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    Identity, allegiance and death: Inspire and the case of Anwar al Awlaki
    (2013-12) Beck, Peter Garrard
    This thesis argues that Anwar al Awlaki created Inspire magazine in an effort to promote and justify violent jihad. Based on a thorough review of ten issues of the magazine, research provides evidence that Awlaki and Samir Khan sought to shape the identity of young male Muslims to imagine themselves as jihadis. This thesis argues that Awlaki used text and photographs to subtly embellish his personal power in an effort to enhance the credibility of his arguments. This thesis provides evidence that Awlaki through Inspire sought to normalize violent jihad and to suggest that an imagined "community of loners" existed and was motivated to fight, despite an asymmetric battlefield and a withering history of strategic military challenges. Evidence is provided that Awlaki sought to assure jihadis that their efforts would be rewarded in paradise. This thesis documents the lethal intertwining of identity and allegiance to an imagined community.
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    Terrorizing the Masses: Identity, Mass Shootings, and the Media Construction of "Terror"�
    (2015-06) DeFoster, Ruth
    This dissertation examines the history, policy definitions and context of both terrorism and mass shootings in the United States. Using three high-profile mass shootings on American military bases as case studies, this project considers the role of news media in constructing the events (and the shooters) in markedly different ways. Specifically, this project examines the ways in which both events and shooters are framed in mainstream American broadcast media, analyzing media coverage through the lens of two pivotal shifts in public understanding of tragedies that took place around the turn of the 21st century-the 1999 Columbine shooting (which almost singlehandedly coined the phrase "mass shooting"� and produced enduring tropes in media coverage), and the September 11, 2001 attacks, which permanently and drastically refigured the image of "terror"� in the American imagination.