Contents -- Introduction -- Terrorism and Language Wars -- The Mediation of Terror -- Culture and the Political Signifier -- Cultural Politics and Globalization -- Government, Democracy and the Mediasphere -- Structure and Methods -- Key Concepts -- 1 Mediated Terror and the Politics of Representation -- Terror -- Televisual Media and the Broadcast of Violence -- Representation and Violence -- The First Casualty: War and Truth -- Conclusions -- 2 Conflict and Culture: Civilization, History, Identity -- Culture and Islam -- The Clash of Civilizations Thesis -- The Media and Cultural Division -- Division and Identity Politics -- History and the Roots of Islam -- Modernization and Civil Society in the Middle East -- Palestine and the 'Jewish Question' -- The Body Politic: Interface with Globalization -- Interdependence and the Formation of the Cultural Divide -- Conclusions -- 3 The Meaning of 9/11: In the Midst of Infi nite Justice -- Meaning and the Aesthetics of Terror -- Divine Justice: Global Order -- Citizens, Consensus and Dissent -- Hero - Victims -- Public Opinion and the Not-Quite-Real -- The Meaning of America and the Twin Towers -- Freedom -- Surveillance and Control -- Conclusions -- 4 The Iraq Invasion: Democracy in the Field of Battle -- The Purposes of War -- From Freedom to Democracy -- Coalitions of the Killing -- Democracy in the Age of Terror -- The Electronic Polis -- Bomb the World -- In Bed with al- Qa'ida -- Al- Jazeera and the Alternative Media -- Conclusions -- 5 Globalizing Jihad: The Bali Bombings at the End of Paradise -- October 12 and Global Jihad -- Jamaah Islamiyah -- Paradise Defiled -- Clash of Imaginings: Global and National Context -- The Crisis of Contiguity -- The Bombings: Media and Political Discourses -- The Blind Puppeteer: Atrocity and Civil Society in Indonesia -- Development and Recovery in Bali.

Conclusions -- 6 The Occupation of Iraq: Rule of Law and the New Public Sphere -- Resolution -- The First Casualty: David Kelly and Trial by Ordeal -- The New Iraq -- Privatization and Occupation -- Ordeal and Execution -- Al-Jazeera and the Rule of Law -- Images of Violence: Photographs and the Transformative Public Sphere -- Ordeals at Abu Ghraib -- The Body Politic and Abu Ghraib -- Theatre of War -- Conclusions -- Conclusion: Cultural Democracy, Difference and the End of Civilization -- Language Wars Here and Over There -- Democracy and Global Culture -- The Hijab and Global Politics -- World Government: Beware the Faithful -- References -- Index.