Their security threats are heightened to justify US imperialism.

The relationship between terrorism and media can be studied on three levels; “terrorists and government”, “terrorists and media” and “government and media” (Crelinsten, 1989). All three actors use and manipulate language to suit their purpose. When the media are used by the governments especially in the case of the War on Terror, not only the government policies are articulated and made legitimate, but also the portrayal of the enemies’ identities is built around the discourse of ‘others’, where at times they are dehumanized via animal metaphors like rat, hunt, and snare, etc. (Steuter & Wills, 2009) and object metaphors like elements. Such dehumanizing strategies are used to depict enemies as monsters not worthy of humane treatment (Maiese, 2003). The media are not only used by the governments to channelize their views and to shape public opinion but recently the terrorist organizations have also been making use of media to disseminate their views. They also use the media for propaganda to achieve their goals (Wilkinson & Gunnell, 2000) and spread terror (Weimann, 2005). Rothenberger et al. (2018), have employed Critical Discourse Analysis to study the discursive strategies used by ‘terrorist groups’ to build their identities by using websites to communicate. Similar methods have been employed to scrutinize how magazines produced by Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) position their identities. The results indicate differences in the policy goals where the former is directed towards the outward change i.e. other countries, whereas the formers’ aim is to declare the Caliphate (Novenario, 2016). When it comes to media as an actor, Schudson (2011) gives three main reasons which compel American journalists to abandon a “neutral stance”. “In moments of tragedy, journalists assume a pastoral role” (Schudson, 2002) means that while covering tragic stories, an element of grief is added into the script and an atmosphere of gloom is created. Then, in moments of “public danger” (ibid.) journalists abandon an objective approach. By “public danger” Schudson means danger posed by “hurricanes’ and ‘terrorists”. The third situation arises when there are ‘threats to national security’ (ibid.). The 9/11 event provoked all these three factors, there were deaths of innocent people, there were threats to the public by terrorists, and lastly, it was a matter of national security. Under normal circumstances, journalists would have covered the event by detaching themselves from the public, but it was a matter of war, so journalists had to abandon objectivity. Soon after the collapse of the twin towers “the media hunt for the villains had begun” (Huffington, 2001). President Bush’s speeches were hugely backed up by the US media. The rhetoric had once again begun, “Us vs. them,” (Clift, 2010) “peace lovers vs. terrorist,” “democracy vs. tyranny” etc. Lewis (2014), explicates how the Bush-Cheney administration had built up their discourse on key terms like ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’.