section_path: Tactics/Media spectacle
section_name: Media spectacle
paragraph_text: Media spectacle
  
  Terrorists may attempt to use the media to spread their message or manipulate their target audience. Shamil Basayev used this tactic during the Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis and again in the Moscow theater hostage crisis. Terrorists may also target national symbols for attention. Walter Lacquer wrote that "terrorism was always, to a large extent, about public relations and propaganda ('Propaganda by Deed' had been the slogan in the nineteenth century)".
  
  The El Al Flight 426 hijacking is considered a turning point for modern terrorism studies. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) realized they could combine the tactics of targeting national symbols and civilians (in this case as hostages) to generate a mass media spectacle. Zehdi Labib Terzi made a public statement about this in 1976: "The first several hijackings aroused the consciousness of the world and awakened the media and world opinion much more ― and more effectively ― than 20 years of pleading at the United Nations".