The media’s coverage of mass public shootings in America: fifty years of newsworthiness

This study uses a media distortion analysis to examine the New York Times coverage of mass public shooting incidents occurring in the United States from 1966 to 2016. A comparison between media coverage and actual incidents is used to identify the characteristics influencing the newsworthiness of mass public shootings. This work expands the breadth and depth of media and mass public shooting research, strengthening the validity of previous findings, and identifying new characteristics influencing newsworthiness. Findings indicate significant predictors of newsworthiness include higher casualties and injuries, as well as perpetrators that are young, Middle Eastern, and ideologically motivated. School shootings are more likely to receive any coverage, and all non-workplace shootings receive salient levels of coverage. An incident is also more likely to receive any coverage if a combination of weapons is used. These findings have important implications for public knowledge and perceptions of mass public shootings.     

Assessing nation-state-sponsored cyberattacks using aspects of Situational Crime Prevention

Research Summary

This study utilized a quantitative analysis of 246 cyberattack incidents reported in the Extremist CyberCrime Database to identify significant predictors of nation-state-sponsored cyberattacks relative to those performed by non-nation-state-sponsored ideological actors. Clarke and Newman's Situational Crime Prevention framework for terrorism was used to identify differential opportunities to successfully affect targets on the basis of tools, weapons, and the ability to access targets in online settings. The analysis noted nation-state-sponsored attacks were less likely to use high-visibility attack methods and more likely to utilize attack methods leading to data breaches. In addition, they were more likely to target state governments and military entities relative to ideological actors.

Policy Implications

Nation-state attacks are more difficult to identify or mitigate while in process, requiring a more robust national cybersecurity policy framework to be implemented that moves beyond current practices. There is a need to better utilize all aspects of government, from legislation to grant funding, in order to deter cyberattacks from continuing into the future.     

非洲恐怖袭击时空规律的大数据分析——基于GIS技术和分离总体持续期模型

大数据及其分析技术的发展极大地推动了国际关系研究的发展,使得传统国际关系研究无法完成的任务变为可能。恐怖主义是当今全球治理中重大而棘手的问题,也是国际关系领域长期关注的议题。本文运用海量事件数据和地理信息系统(GIS)技术,将恐怖袭击的地理单元细粒化到以0.5×0.5经纬度作为分辨率的时空网格,寻找微观分析单元上恐怖袭击的时空规律,并运用分离总体持续期模型对恐怖袭击风险的空间分布和发生时机进行解释和预测。通过对非洲10674个时空网格在1994-2013年间恐怖袭击的时空特征进行分析,本文对非洲恐怖袭击发生时机进行精准捕捉,对恐袭地点进行细粒化定位,并对恐袭地理分布进行疫区与免疫区区分,不但深化了对恐怖主义的认识,而且提高了恐袭预测的精度和实际应用价值。本文的研究尝试表明,在大数据时代进行国际关系研究,不仅要充分利用海量数据提供的前所未有的丰富信息,更要选择和运用恰当的统计技术对复杂时空相关性进行细粒度分析,从而形成有效的创新路径。     

The container security initiative costs,implications and relevance to developing countries

Following 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security established the Container Security Initiative (CSI) programme in 2002 in response to the threat from terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction transported by cargo containers. This project establishes the tracking and targeting of ‘high risk’ containers and their subsequent scanning with X‐ray machines before loading onto the U.S. bound ships. To date, 44 of the world's largest ports have agreed to become CSI‐compliant, the majority of which are located in industrialised countries, while developing and least developed countries are under‐represented. CSI‐eligibility requires that ports represent a considerable volume of U.S. bound container traffic and invest in container scanning devices. Every non‐intrusive inspecting device (NII) costs several million dollars while investments in IT and existing infrastructure often triple the compliance costs. Containers originating in a CSI port are expedited through U.S. customs, representing a comparative trade barrier for exporters from non‐CSI ports. Thus, CSI acts as a tool for the U.S. to improve security, while representing a challenge to exporting countries' market access. This article provides an evaluation of the impacts this plan will have on the export competitiveness of developing countries. It reviews the potential benefits this programme offers in terms of improved trade facilitation, as well as proposing recommendations for its expansion to include developing countries. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The United Kingdom National Security Strategy: the Need for New Bearings in Security Policy

The first ever UK National Security Strategy statement reflect shifts in perspective on the nature of security concerns and the character of risks and threats in an era of globalisation. However, the UK National Security Strategy itself is a major disappointment. It fails as an attempt to conceive of a genuine strategy. It also fails to engage explicitly and fully with key imperatives for UK security policy, such as Islamist terrorism and the emerging power of China. However, the UK National Security Strategy, despite being weak and disappointing, offers important new bearings on where the National Security Strategy and the government's means to security policy should go from here, identifying areas to strengthen and develop national security structures.     

共识的构建：恐怖主义分析路径之选择

进行反恐怖主义研究必须弄清楚恐怖主义的基本范畴，这些基本范畴包括恐怖主义的正当性和概念界定，然而实际情况却是问题丛生。恐怖主义的正当性问题是一个价值判断问题，不同的评价主体由于所处位置及论说语境不同，会作出截然不同的判断。而恐怖主义的概念界定差异则是由不同学科的定义重点不同所导致的，其定义的主要方法包括政治学、语义学和法律学三种方法。关于恐怖主义基本范畴的分析，最终目的还是要归于问题本身的解决。在具体分析恐怖主义时，人们一般习惯于套用“文明冲突论”或“现代性”的范式。这两种理论都有其依据，也有其缺陷，而沟通理性在此之外提供了一条新路径。     

威胁我国安全的恐怖主义特点分析

恐怖主义对我国的威胁日益突出，对国家安全、社会稳定和人民生命财产安全构成了严重危害。威胁的主要来源，一是国际恐怖势力和极端组织实施的恐怖活动；二是境内外民族分裂势力实施的恐怖活动；三是邪教组织实施的恐怖活动；四是黑社会等严重刑事犯罪组织和其他极端分子实施的恐怖活动。威胁我国安全的恐怖主义除了具有一般恐怖主义的政治性、暴力性、刑事违法性等共同特征以外，还具有主体结构多元、国际背景复杂、宗教色彩浓厚、组织运作联合、方式手段诡秘、发展态势趋强等突出特点。     

论国际恐怖犯罪活动特点、成因及对策

国际恐怖主义是当前国际社会所面临的主要挑战之一,它严重危害了国际社会的整体利益。尤其是近几年来,国际恐怖犯罪活动猖獗,以“本·拉登”为首的恐怖组织,更是制造了几起震惊世界的恐怖犯罪活动。这也使这种特殊的犯罪形式引起了学术界的关注。也因此,研究这种犯罪的特点、成因等一系列相关问题具有十分重要的意义。     

Catastrophe risk,insurance and terrorism

This article empirically investigates how the terrorist activity of September 11, 2001, was addressed by the insurance industry and government in the United States. It shows that the insurance system worked reasonably well in compensating losses suffered, albeit with various tribulations. It also demonstrates that the insurance industry, along with government as the ultimate risk manager, imaginatively reconfigured markets to continue terrorism insurance coverage in many contexts. The findings challenge many of Ulrich Beck’s contentions about catastrophe risks and insurability. At the same time, they indicate the fragility of the insurance system. Insurers’ perceptions and decisions about uncertainty – with potential for windfall profits as well as catastrophic losses – create crises in insurance availability and promote new forms of inequality and exclusion. Hence, while the insurance industry is a central bulwark against uncertainty, insurers can also play a key role in fostering it.     

Enacting catastrophe: preparedness,insurance, budgetary rationalization

Abstract

This article examines ‘enactment’ as a significant new form of knowledge about collective life that differs fundamentally from familiar forms of ‘social’ knowledge. The emergence of enactment is traced through a series of domains where the problem of estimating the likelihood and consequence of potentially catastrophic future events has been made an explicit object of expert reflection: response to a possible nuclear attack in US civil defence planning in the late 1940s; the emergence of natural hazard modelling in the 1960s and 1970s; and the emergence today of terrorism risk assessment and its proposed application to federal budgetary distributions. The article engages with central questions in debates around ‘risk society’ and insurance, holding that new approaches to understanding and assessing risk are not merely idiosyncratic or subjective. Rather, they should be treated as coherent new forms of knowledge and practice whose genealogy and present assemblies must be traced.