1. Contents
Description Page Number
Abstract 1
Aims & Objectives 2
Methodology 3
Scopes and Constraints 4
Literature Review 5
Discussion 11
Conclusion 18
Bibliography 20
2. 1
Abstract
Suicide bombers sacrificing themselves for their particular cause are not a recent
phenomenon but with the emergence of female suicide bombers in recent decades, there has
seemed to have been a rather hysterical reaction in the western world to this new extreme in
terrorism. With more and more ways in which to view the news from a variety of
perspectives, the difference in how the media portrays female suicide bombers based on the
point of view of a particular media agency can be argued as exploiting through
sensationalising the female suicide bombers in order to form an explicit opinion of the
cultures and nationalities of those involved. This topic is one that is not hiding in the realms
of obscurity but one in the frontline of journalism, and with news agencies such as Russia
Today and Al Jazeera now widely available to the global audience, there is now more than
one perspective being portrayed on a worldwide level.
3. 2
Aims and Objectives
This paper aims to investigate the way in which media outlets cover female suicide bomber
stories in the news. With an ever more broadening multi-lateral coverage of global news
becoming available through the internet, we are now not just subjected to a Western
perspective of current affairs. This paper will examine in what capacity female suicide
bombers are reported on by western media, while also comparing the differences that arise
within how male and female suicide bombers are covered. Through developing a clear
understanding of the discrepancies in the coverage of any particular events, the pattern of
differences will start to become apparent. With Western social biases that tend to cast women
in passive, non-aggressive roles, I hope to prove there is a sensationalism to the reporting of
female suicide bombers in order to further the perception that female suicide bombers are a
new, incomparable level of extremism.
4. 3
Methodology
Through reading secondary sources on the topic of women in the media and the less written
about, more specific topic of female suicide bombers, I will gather sufficient general
information and knowledge on the topic to begin to understand how female suicide bombers
are perceived in the media. Following on from this, I will gather a selected catalogue of
relevant articles. This catalogue will consist of primary source articles or reports filmed for
western news agencies as well as the major alternative agencies, Al Jazeera and Reuters in
particular giving a reliable alternative view on many major events, however there will be
even more local news agencies taken under heavy consideration as to get a more full picture
of the reception of suicide bombers.
5. 4
Scopes and Constraints
While both Russia Today and Al Jazeera declare independence of any government funding or
intrusion and appear to be the bastions of transparency amongst the news corporations in the
quasi anti-western media, many Arab news agencies are overtly jihadist in their coverage,
with a vested interest in how the news is published. This is something to be aware of when
assessing any articles from these agencies.
The sheer volume of articles written on female suicide bombers and attacks may be
somewhat of a stumbling block with many articles needed to be waded through in order to
find appropriate pieces.
6. 5
Literature Review
The media asserts itself through ‘a set of linguistic practices (in a broad sense) by means of
which selective definitions of ‘the real’ [are] presented’ (Hall, 2006). This gives the media
the power to ‘continuously construct and reconstruct social problems, crises, enemies and
leaders and so creates a succession of threats and assurances’ (Edelman, 1988) but also
‘[plays] a central role in winning support and opposition for political causes and policies’. On
the basis that the media plays such a pivotal role in garnering support and conversely
opposition of public thinking, the consideration of more than just one viewpoint must be
taken, an act that is far too often overlooked leaving the large majority in any particular
location listening to one side of the story, which will without fail have another side to it.
Of course there is the issue of who exactly controls media discourse. There can be no doubt
that it is not the “ordinary person” that is playing a major role in what is shown as factual
news or indeed journalistic opinion in the media, it is the elite who converse amongst
themselves, and whether that is for their own personal interest or for the interest of the wider
public is not the topic of discussion here, but there can be no doubt that the “ordinary
person’s” active and controlled access to highly respected professionals is more often than
not highly constrained. “Leading politicians, managers, scholars or other professionals have
more or less controlled access to many different forms of talk and text...journalists will seek
to interview them, ask their opinions, and thus introduce them as major news actors or
speakers in news reports” (van Dijk, 1996)
There are a number of theories as to where the power balance rests at the top level of opinion
making. There is the often cited Deutsch cascade model which consists of five levels. The
socio-economic elite make up the top tier of this model, followed by the political elite and
7. 6
then comes the mass media. There is then a network of local opinion leaders with the
politically relevant strata, which consists of the majority of the population sitting at the
bottom of the chain. (Deutsch, 1978) Rosenau had a somewhat different take on the levels of
opinion making: News and interpretations of an event are first carried, by say, a newspaper;
this then is read and adapted by opinion makers, who assert (step 2) their opinions in
speeches on the subject that are reported (step 3) by the press and thereupon picked up by
‘opinion leaders’ in the general public who in turn pass on (step 4) the opinions by word of
mouth. (Rosenau, 1968) Whatever the theory however, there is one constant throughout, the
ordinary person that undoubtedly makes up the majority of the population is rooted to the
bottom of the opinion making levels. These are the people who vote, object to governmental
decisions
With most of the major media outlets being owned by one of only a number of mass media
corporations or by the state it is located, the level of diversity of reporting of the news is low,
with many of those reporting on news events just regurgitating each other’s words, all
reporting in the way in which is chosen to suit by whichever news corporation controls it.
‘The heavy reliance by news people throughout the country on these ‘elite’ news sources ... is
one reason why patterns of news coverage are broadly similar throughout the country.
Regardless of regional and local difference that shape social and political views, Americans
share most of their news. This provides a basis for nationwide public opinions that bear, to a
marked degree, the imprint of the pacesetter media.’ (Graber, 1993) With such a distinct
over-reliance on such small number of news information sources, there will undoubtedly be a
multitude of similar if not the exact same reporting of news stories.
These thoughts are echoed by Chomsky and Herman, who note that ‘media centralization and
the reduction in the resources devoted to journalism have made the media more dependent
than ever on the primary definers who both make the news and subsidize the media by
8. 7
providing accessible and cheap copy.’ They go on to make clear that ‘they now have greater
leverage over the media, and the public relations firms working for these and other powerful
interests also bulk larger as media sources.’ (Chomsky & Herman, 2008) This in no
uncertain terms presents the idea that news agencies are only relaying the message that they
are being given and that most if not all of their competitor agencies are also being supplied
with. Alarmingly, Chomsky and Herman also explain how there are ‘200,000 more public
relations agents working to doctor the news than there are journalists writing it.’ The way in
which information is supplied is, it would seem, more important than the news itself.
Information must be given in a way that works in the favour of those supplying it.
When speaking of the foundation and development of communication as a discipline Byerly
and Ross noted ‘This dynamic discipline has evolved quickly and voluminously, particularly
with regard to research on the ways in which gender, race, ethnicity and sexual and national
identity enter into the construction and consumption of media messages’ (Byerly & Ross,
2004) Clearly indentifying the importance that must be placed upon each of these variables in
how they affect the way in which news is told, this aspect of communication was developed
as a result of a concern ‘...about the dual ability of the media to reinforce unequal status quo
relationships, as well as to circulate new ideas and help set political agendas leading to
change, liberation movements have given significant attention to the role of the media in
social process.’ The significance given to gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual and national
identity shows just how much of a different light the media will show an event in relation as
to whether the central character or indeed characters of said event is male or female, black or
white or more prevalently, of an Islamic background.
Byerly and Ross, in a second publication, state the dangers that come with the way in which
women are portrayed by news media workers, that in contrast to fictional entertainment, the
news is taken as real life. ‘While program and filmmakers insist they must be free to follow
9. 8
their creative muse wherever it takes them, even if that’s into political incorrect waters, news
media workers on the other hand, insists that what they show is indeed the real world’, which
reflects onto the consumer of such news items, with the suggestion that ‘there is never any
acknowledgement that what we see, read and listen to in the news is the result of myriad
selection decisions that follow journalistic conventions in terms of what constitutes a “good”
news story.’ (Byerly & Ross, Women and Media: A Critical Introduction, 2006) People read
news stories, and in doing so, take it as fact, allowing women to be portrayed in whatever
light suits the elite news sources and the political climate of the time.
Whilst much research is put into the way in which the media is controlled, there is also the
idea that the reason that women are used by terrorist organisations in these suicide attacks is
that they are well aware that a woman is more likely to make western news than a male
counterpart. ‘Women make news, and those who dispatch them know it.’ That the
commanders of terrorist operations are aware of the preference in western media for a story
on a female as opposed to a make suicide bomber will only push higher the numbers of
female suicide bombers, as they become recipients of ‘eternal virginity’ and take their place
in the ‘paradise of the afterlife’. It is thought that ‘the world media do focus on stories about
the women, giving the Palestinians coverage and making the world aware of their cause.’
(Berko, 2012) This is where the role of the media in relation to females as actors in terrorist
operations has to come under intense scrutiny.
Palestine has become one of the better known locations related to female suicide attacks and
just as it is believed much of this is down to women being more likely to make western news,
the way in which their indigenous media shows there act after it has been carried out has
become more important for scholars. Raising the point of tapes that are left behind by suicide
bombers, Namaan notes ‘It is a common practice for Palestinian suicide bombers to leave
videotapes of themselves, filmed against the Palestinian flag or the Dome of the Rock,
10. 9
holding a rifle. In Arab media the tapes are aired repeatedly, and the suicide bomber is
culturally classified as a shaheed. But in the West we rarely see the videos of the men, and
even their names are often not disclosed. The case with the women is quite different, as their
names are publicly emphasized and the videos aired’. (Namaan, 2007) It very much seems
that the media on both sides look to exploiting the unquestionable extremes that women will
go to for their cause, as they are well aware that the story of a man carrying out a similar act
will not cause the public stir that the elite newsmakers love to see.
The status of the women at the centre of some suicide attacks has come under media scrutiny
in the past, with the ‘American military and media claimed that they had Down Syndrome
and thus could not be consenting participants in the bombings.’ However these claims were
revised to declare ‘that these women were suffering from depression and schizophrenia.’
(Deylami, 2013) On this matter, Deylami concludes that above any of the psychological
uncertainties surrounding the women, it was that these women were ‘victims of a virulent and
violent Islamic patriarchy; tactical casualties of the irrational and vicious arsenal of male
Islamic radicals.’ It is this shaping of what became an ever more repeated event that irks with
those who research the topic, which is heavily influenced by feminist theory.
One such female theorist, Iris Marion Young claims that, in particular since the September 11
attack on the US, ‘the Bush administration has mobilized the language of fear and threat to
gain support for constricting liberty and dissent inside the United States and waging war
outside.’ (Young, 2003) Young argues that ‘viewing issues of war and security through a
gender lens means seeing how a certain logic of gendered meanings and images helps
organize the way people interpret events and circumstances, along with the positions and
possibilities for action within them, and sometimes provides some rationale for action.’ This
again is clearly putting the argument that the way in which people interpret or indeed are told
11. 10
to interpret events gives legitimacy to any subsequent action that may be taken by those with
the power to do so.
Whilst we have become more and more used to hearing of female suicide bombers, through
the coverage given by the media but not to be disingenuous, the number of suicide attacks
carried out by women, however this was an almost unthinkable act up until after the
September 11 attacks, with the presumption that ‘the notion of a female suicide bomber who
is Muslim and perhaps, by extension, Arab, unthinkable and even grotesque. How could a
woman, with the explicitly associated trope of motherhood, kill “without regret”?’
(Gronnvoll & McCauliff, 2013) This was the author’s comments on how readers of a USA
Today article from 2002 that put forward the idea that there could well be females behind the
suicide attacks that had taken place and that would continue to take place in their home
countries. The newspaper article was speaking of the thought of female suicide bombers as a
new phenomenon, suitably forgetting that cases of female suicide bombers had been ongoing
since 1985, the first recorded female suicide attack.
12. 11
Discussion
Since the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre, New York, females have
received a disproportionate amount of media coverage surrounding suicide attacks, with
many journalists of the opinion that the women who carry out such attacks are in fact victims
of their male dominated environments and just as political strategists use their considerable
knowledge of public opinion, it can be argued that terrorist organisations are highly aware of
the attention a female suicide bomber will get in contrast to their male counterparts. This goes
for indigenous media outlets just as much as their western counterparts, who in contrast to
western media, do everything in their power to put a positive spin on the actions of a female
suicide bomber.
The media has always come under academic scrutiny in their depiction of females and the
female body, with vast amounts of research carried out into the objectification and
exploitation of females in the media. There are endless numbers of research papers published
with mixed findings as to whether the recruitment or motivation behind joining a resistance
or insurgency is altogether differing when comparing males to females. This does not
translate across to the reporting of suicide attacks however with the media deciding to focus
hugely on the personal situation of female suicide bombers which when analysed in
meticulous detail will of course show evidence of personal trauma more times than it does
not, but research also alludes to the situation of males being quite similar, with
There is an undoubted reluctance for the media and indeed it seems, policy-makers to accept
the fact that females are very much a part of terrorism and insurgencies, and have been for
some considerable time now. It appears though, that the media are not about to change their
tune when it comes to their documentation of female suicide bombers. Female combatants
13. 12
almost strictly evoke an image of a masculinised, often desperate female, one far removed
from the image that has been created of women by society. This image of the masculinised
female is often drawn out very clearly by the media who, through advertising, film,
newspaper, television and all other sources of mass media, depict this idea of a right and a
wrong way for women to appear in society. In reality however, females have been actively
involved in resistance movements and insurgencies in the majority of cases studied.
April 23 2009, a day that Reuters News Agency reported ‘what appeared to be Iraq’s
bloodiest day in over a year’ (Kami, 2009), is reported on that very day in the New York
Times with a completely different take on the events giving an in depth analysis of the day’s
proceedings, however rather than focussing on the occurrences, the New York Times article
analyses the nature and more specifically, the gender of the attacker of the less deadly blast,
rather than reporting each attack on the impact caused. This article was written just hours
after the attacks took place but despite this, the author describes in vivid detail all of the
visual features of the female suicide bomber in a what is an obvious attempt to evoke feelings
of shock amongst the readers.
“At least 80 people died and 120 others were injured Thursday in three bombings, one by a
female suicide bomber in Baghdad who, Iraqi officials said, held a young child’s hand as she
set off her explosives among a group of women and children receiving emergency food aid.”
(Williams, 2009) This is the opening paragraph in an article that becomes overwhelmingly
focussed on one incident, even though it did not cause as many fatalities at 28 as the
considerably more effective suicide attack carried out in the city of Muqdadiya in Diyala
Province, which caused the death of at least 47 people. “She wore a black abaya..” was the
authors description of the attacker, a piece of trivial information that he then uses to
dramatise the situation, following this up in a later paragraph by saying “Afterward, a tattered
black abaya stuck to a wall on the first-floor balcony of an adjacent apartment building,
14. 13
singed by the explosion”. The effort the author goes to continuously relate the incident to the
gender of its central character is, when itself analysed, clearly trying to garner shock from its
readers at how it could be possible for a woman .
The attacker is closely compared to the crowd that she would eventually cause such
devastation, the author noting “The woman who blew herself up in Baghdad’s central Karada
district on Thursday resembled most of the other women crowded outside a food distribution
site that was catering mainly to those displaced by the war” and that she only stood out from
the crowd as she “she began nudging her way through the crowd”. Many people who would
have no experience or knowledge of suicide attacks would be able to imagine or clearly
realise that one of the central aspects to a successful suicide attack is the illusion of normality
as to get to the most effectual location, to cause the most destruction, thus sending out the
most powerful message possible. This is the whole concept of a suicide attack, as opposed to
it being a personal vengeance over the oblivious members of the public that soon became
another statistic in what must be viewed as a most heinous, but ever evolving and
increasingly popular method of pushing a message across.
Finally, this section of the article tells of the woes of the innocent bystanders, many of whom
lost family members and friends. This is obviously not in any way an extreme method of
reporting and in fact is rather normal but when all of this commentary on the female takes
place whilst the separate, more fatal attack carried out by a male receives a brief comment on
the location of the attack, the number of fatalities and injuries, and the nationality of the
victims, it does lead to a question of why this attack got an much higher level of coverage
than the attack that lead to the death of at least 47 people, the perpetrator of which attack
receives not one word on his appearance nor is there any mention of the aftermath of the
incident or witness accounts.
15. 14
Compared to the Reuters article of the same event it becomes clear as to how differently such
an event can be interpreted and indeed how differently it can be reported, and depending on
which website you chose to read about such an event, how differently someone will contruct
their opinion on the event. Reuters are much more careful in any of their claims about the
attacker, taking a rather cautious approach to the gender of the attacker stating that “Some
witnesses said the bomber was a woman.” (Kami, 2009) This is the only mention of gender in
the entire article which later on quotes an Iraqi government official but not without explicitly
stating that his words were given to the US government funded television station Al-Hurra.
In a more collected and researched article written in 2008, as opposed the heat of the moment
reporting displayed in the previous article, and also published by the New York Times, we
see a whole article dedicated to informing the people of the way in which female suicide
bombers are in fact victims of terrorism rather than perpetrators. There is a constant
reiteration of these female suicide bombers to have lost a close relative or spouse through
either combat or a their very own suicide attack. This point is a way of exonerating the
women of their actions, who are portrayed as being little more than vulnerable pawns in the
newspaper’s profile of the “actual” terrorist’s path towards their goals.
‘The women who become suicide bombers often have lost close male relatives — a husband,
a brother, a son — in fighting, because they became suicide bombers themselves or because
they were detained by American or Iraqi security forces.’ (Rubin, 2008) While this may or
may not have the extent of effect the author would lead you to believe, it must come into
consideration that family ties play a huge part in a person’s disposition on issues such as
these and that it’s not a trait exclusive to extremism. Using selective articles, you could make
the case that the US Army has a huge number of its military due to family ties but, crucially,
this is on the side of interest for the media and therefore is seen as a noble path to follow
previous generations of family into the military.
16. 15
An article was written on a US Major General killed in Afghanistan in August 2014 making
him the highest ranking officer to die in the line of duty since 1970 in the Vietnam War.
(Schwartz, 2014) The article, running the headline ‘For General Killed in Afghanistan, the
Military Was a Family Tradition’ as expected, gives the insight into the background of the
deceased General. The first paragraph of the article reads ‘For Maj. Gen. Harold Greene, the
military was the family business. He followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather to
his post in the Army. His wife is a retired Army colonel and his son is a West Point graduate
and a first lieutenant stationed at Fort Sill, Okla.’. This is not taking away from the strength
and influence that family ties have, and they undoubtedly do, but the problem here is that the
media is able to pick and choose when and whether these family ties are a following of great
military tradition that the military should pride itself on or conversely, a heinous act of
brainwashing that leads to religious and political extremism.
The article in question goes on to state how he was a family orientated man on four more
occasions in, but spoken of in honourable terms given the context. ‘Gen. Greene was known
by relatives and neighbors as a family man and a frequent presence in the tightknit cul-de-sac’
which leads to quotes by the man’s son describing his father by saying ‘“He loved his family,
and he loved his friends, and he loved what he did”’. The next instance of family links being
raised and this time in even more emotive fashion, takes the army and family ties and places
further emphasis on how the two go hand in hand, in a way that almost creates the underbelly
of what the military is all about. ‘When Gen. Greene's son began studying at West Point, his
roommate had nowhere to go for Thanksgiving. "The first thing out of his mouth was, 'He's
coming with us,'" Lt. Greene said. The friend spent the next four Thanksgivings with the
Greenes, becoming "part of the family," Lt. Greene said.’.
The article is quite well written in terms of evoking that sense of family that is a part of
everyone, and therein lies the problem with the media and how the angle at which they report
17. 16
certain events is seriously swaying the way in which people then view these events and thus
form their opinion. Once again the author refers to the deceased’s family, raising the issue of
how Gen. Greene’s father, also a soldier whom Gen. Greene would follow into the military,
was ‘always his coach’.
The even longer running conflict in Israel has also been subject to female suicide attacks with
the first recorded case of such coming more than three years previous to Iraq’s first attack.
And while media coverage on the region is rather more reasoned than the quite evident anti-
Islam coverage in Iraq and Afghanistan, it still cannot get away from the issue of gender
driven reporting.
On March 29 2002, a young Palestinian girl, Ayat Al-Akhras, believed to be aged 18, blew
herself up in a supermarket in Jerusalem, killing two innocent victims in the process. One of
these victims happened to be a 17 year old Israeli female and with that much of the western
media had found their narrative for the story. The New York times, who have been referred to
on a number of occasions in this paper, and while there are arguments made that it is both a
pro-Israel and pro-Palestine newspaper, on the evidence shown, it has no qualms in
exploiting females in order to ensure its point is raised in the most poignant fashion.
In the days succeeding the attack, the New York Times published three articles profiling the
attacker, two of which were reactive articles, written not a long after the incident, but the
final article published by the New York Times was written a full week after the incident, after
the full details of the attack had been disclosed.
In both the first two of these three articles, there is presented details about her name, age, sex,
occupation, and family members, and included a large, full-length photo of her and another of
her mourning father. (Greenberg, 2002) (Schmemann, 2002) The only information given
about the victims of the attack was that “a man and woman were killed,” and that at least 30
18. 17
were wounded by the blast. No names, no descriptions, no occupations, no ages, no mourning
families, and no photographs were published.
The New York Times journalist Joel Greenberg, who had written one of the already
published articles proceeded to write a second article after it came to light that one of the two
victims killed in the blast was a 17 year old Israeli female, Greenberg saw the opportunity to
write an extremely emotive piece on the similarities of the two females but also the
disparities that would in the end be the reason behind both deaths. It is at this point that the
difference between being a male and female in such an event can mean the difference
between getting a full in depth article written while on the other hand having nothing written
only an occupation in the end being mentioned as a side note. The man who was killed did
not even get a mention of his name in three articles that were published.
The article begins with the ever appropriate comparison drawn between the two female’s
appearances, ‘The suicide bomber and her victim look strikingly similar.’, whilst also making
the almost compulsory note of their ‘flowing black hair’. Time and again we see attention
drawn to anything female that can be mentioned in the reporting of female suicide bombers.
The article goes on to give a rather in depth run down of the background and last number of
days the two females had. What the article or indeed any article that can be found on the
internet fail to mention is the male security guard that was also killed in the attack. According
to the Israeli government, the man in question was Haim Smadar, (Israel Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, 2002) and also claim that Smadar ‘prevented the bomber from going deep inside the
store, was killed in the blast.’
19. 18
Conclusion
The very essence of news coverage is to give detailed reports on current event, those being
from the most local of events to global events and while there is an ever growing journalistic
presence around the world, it is hard to say whether much of what happens in the world
makes it to the huge numbers of news and media outlets that have become more and more
accessible to the public. Whilst years ago, you could not have expected to read what the New
York Times or USA Today journalists version of events were compared to national
journalists, that outlet is now available to anyone with an internet connection through a few
clicks of their mouse.
There is a certain danger with this type of reporting, especially now with the internet taking
centre stage when it comes to the media now and it is that for many people now, to find out
the details of an event upon hearing about it, they will type the event into one of the internet’s
search engines or indeed do a “Twitter search” that will give them a while host of links to a
variety of different newspaper, news station and news agency’s piece on the event in question.
For someone who searches the event like so, they are just as likely to click into one article as
they are another, otherwise they would likely go straight to their preferred website of choice.
This leads to many people viewing an exploitive article and with that their opinion has been
formed.
As we see with the story of the suicide bomber Ayat Al-Akhras, journalists are at their
apparent most comfortable when they have a story that they can make resonate with its
audience. Rather than talk about the male security guard who gave his life in the hope that
some others may be spared, this was not deemed newsworthy by the media who instead
20. 19
would rather focus on the two faintly similar females and the hysteria that kind of story
creates.
It is not either just the fact that females are disproportionately covered when it comes to
females suicide bombers but the manner in which they are reported. It is repeatedly centred
around the gender of the attacker rather than the outcome of such an event. Instead of
focussing on those killed and injured by the attack, journalists, especially in the printed media
where it is easier to express such thoughts, would rather focus on what the female attacker
was wearing or what colour her ‘flowing hair’ was.
21. 20
Bibliography
Berko,A.(2012). The SmarterBomb:Women and Children as Suicide Bombers. Plymouth:Rowman
and Littlefield.
Byerly,C.M., & Ross, K.(2006). Women and Media:A Critical Introduction. Oxford:Blackwell
Publishing.
Byerly,C.M., & Ross, K.(2004). Women and Media:InternationalPerspectives. Oxford:Blackwell
Publishing.
Chomsky,N.,& Herman,E. S.(2008). Manafacturing Consent:ThePoliticalEconomy of the Mass
Media. London:The BodleyHead.
Deutsch,K.W. (1978). The Analysisof InternationalRelations. New Jersey:Prentice Hall.
Deylami,S.S.(2013). Female SuicideBombersandthe Makingof AmericanEmpire. International
Feminist Journalof Politics , 177-194.
Edelman,M. (1988). Constructing thePolitical Spectacle. Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress.
Graber, D. A.(1993). MassMedia and Awerican Politics. WashingtonDC:Congressional Quartely
Press.
Greenberg,J.(2002, March 31). MIDEASTTURMOIL:THE TERRORIST; DaughterConcealed Angry Soul
Of a Martyr.RetrievedMay8, 2014, fromNew YorkTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/31/world/mideast-turmoil-the-terrorist-daughter-concealed-
angry-soul-of-a-martyr.html
Gronnvoll,M.,& McCauliff,K.(2013). Bodiesthat Shatter:A Rhetoricof Exteriors,the Abject,and
Female SuicideBombersinthe “Waron Terrorism”. RhetoricSociety Quarterly , 335-354.
Hall,S. (2006). The rediscoveryof ideology:Returnof the repressedinmediastudies.InC.T. Culture,
John Storey (pp.124-155). Harlow:PearsonEducationLimited.
Israel Ministryof ForeignAffairs.(2002,March 29). Haim Smadar.RetrievedMay8, 2014, fromIsrael
Ministryof ForeignAffairs:
http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Terrorism/Victims/Pages/Haim%20Smadar.aspx
Kami,A.(2009, April 23). Suicide attacks kill 76 as Iraq reportsarrest.RetrievedApril25,2014, from
Reuters.com:http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/23/us-iraq-idUSTRE53M31W20090423
Namaan,D. (2007). Bridesof Palestine/Angelsof Death:Media,Gender,andPerformance inthe
Case of the PalestinianFemaleSuicide Bombers. Signs,933-955.
Rosenau,J.(1968). PublicOpinion and Foreign Policy. New York:RandomHouse.
Rubin,A.J. (2008, July5). Despair Drives Suicide Attacksby IraqiWomen.RetrievedJune 19,2014,
fromNewYork Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/05/world/middleeast/05diyala.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
22. 21
Schmemann,S.(2002, March 30). MIDEASTTURMOIL:TERRORISM;Suicide Bomber,18, Kills 2
Israelis and Herself.RetrievedMay8, 2014, fromNew York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/30/world/mideast-turmoil-terrorism-suicide-bomber-18-kills-2-
israelis-and-herself.html
Schwartz,F. (2014, August5). ForGeneral Killed in Afghanistan,theMilitary Was a Family Tradition.
RetrievedAugust9,2014, fromWall StreetJournal:http://online.wsj.com/articles/for-general-killed-
in-afghanistan-the-military-was-a-family-tradition-1407282707?mod=_newsreel_3
van Dijk,T.A. (1996). Powerandthe NewsMedia.InD. L. Paletz, Political Communication in Action
(pp.9-36). NewYork: HamptonPress.
Williams,T.(2009, April 23). 80 Are Killed in 3 Suicide Bombingsin Iraq. RetrievedApril 18,2014,
fromwww.NYTimes.com:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/world/middleeast/24iraq.html?_r=1&
Young,I. M. (2003). The Logicof MasculinistProtection:Reflectionsonthe CurrentSecurityState.
Signs, 1-25.
i