Communication Technology, Press Freedom, and Claims of Responsibility for Acts of Terrorism

Why are some terrorist attacks followed by public claims of responsibility by alleged perpetrators while others are not? Existing studies of credit claiming by terrorist organizations emphasize the factors that change the willingness of groups to publicize their involvement in terrorism. Equally important, however, are the opportunities groups have to publicize their responsibility for acts of terrorism. In this paper, we examine the enabling influence of communication technology and press freedom on credit claiming for terrorist attacks. We hypothesize that the prevalence of credit claims increase nonlinearly with the quality of communication technology in the countries terrorist groups attack in and as a function of press freedom in those states. Communication technology has a nonlinear relationship with credit claims because as communication technology improves, governments are also able to use it to monitor and identify the perpetrators of terrorism. We test this argument using data drawn from the Global Terrorism Database and the KOF index of information. Our results contribute to the literature on credit claiming for acts of terrorism as well as the broader scholarship on terrorism as a form of violent communication.