This will be short, and if there is a better forum to put this in feel free to move it.

The recent terrorist attacks has really hit home the obvious to me. Terrorism by its nature seeks to propagate the effects of terror well beyond its point of origin by leveraging the media. To deny that is an attempt to separate terror from its true nature, if it doesn't do this then it is something else.

Reminds me of the Zen Koan like riddle, "If a tree falls in the forest and there no one to hear it, does it make a noise?"

The tree certainly made a noise, if one associates it with the recent terrorist attacks in Paris. Much of the Western world is clued to the news of the attack. In America, CNN, Fox, and other 24 hour news programs cover it as the expense of almost all other news, even when there are no actual updates. When there are no updates they bring in talking heads to speculate and promote theories on what the attack means. Can it happen here? What should we do? 24 hours a day, and it will continue until another news worthy item appears. These media outlets are witting or unwitting proxies for the terrorists. They are doing exactly what the terrorists want. We live in market states, where the market drives decisions over reason tied to national security, so their oohing and aahing over the attacks is understandable from that perspective.

Within minutes of the attack, a localized terrorist attack on a media office became globalized. It continues to make front page news (an ancient phrase now) globally promoting fear and grossly exaggerating the scale of the event. What would be considered a relatively minor tactical action during war, or a tragic criminal action if it was a mass murder based on criminal motivations, has become a globally strategic event because it was terrorism conducted in the West.

This gives terrorists a considerable amount of relative power to create a disproportionate level of fear. If I watch the news four days a day, I relieve the attack four times. Equally important, and tied to the sins of the media is the grossly disproportionate expenditure of funds on security measures by many countries in response to this event. I suspect most airports around the world have increased security, and many cities in Europe have increased security presence in heavily populated areas, etc. Of course increased security in subway stations and airports doesn't stop another attack like the one that just happened.

From a limited portion of the land domain it transfers to the information domain and effects the world. The terrorists are more effective at globalizing perception than the state actors opposing them, and this needs to change.