The Use of Television Visual Technologies in Presenting Terrorism: A Quantitative Study at the Faculty of Media at Damascus University

Through a quick review of the history of television newsroom technology and terrorism topics, it can be said that there was no study before that that addressed how terrorism news is presented from the perspective of studying visual technology in newsrooms. This shows the importance of a study conducted at the Faculty of Media at Damascus University entitled “The Use of Television Visual Technologies in Presenting Terrorism”. It links these technological developments and the mechanism of their employment to terrorism news, through a quantitative study of how ISIS news is presented visually.

This study examines how RT Arabic and Sky News Arabia channels present the news about ISIS through their newscasts; revealing the visual technologies these networks adopted in covering ISIS

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The study found that among the eleven different types of newsroom visual technologies identified in the study, both channels relied on graphs most frequently to present ISIS news visually. However, unlike Sky News Arabia, RT Arabic employed limited usage of visual technology to cover the brutality and violent acts of ISIS in its coverage.

The results ofthe study concluded that graphic technology, the interactive screen, and electronic display are important because they are considered one of the most important elements in highlighting ISIS news because it contains the possibility of using electronic maps and illustrations to determine the location of events and how they occurred. However, there were differences between Sky News Arabia and RT Arabic in terms of visual presentation (maps, charts, documents).