components such as the psychological elements of terrorism were in decline (41.5% to 5.5%), probably due to the absence of contributors from the field of psychology; the authors of the articles in the three journals made no variations between terrorist targets, that is – “combatants and non-combatants” or the “immediate target and wider audience” (p. 782). However, certain traits remained prevalent across both studies, and were used by the authors to generate another definition: “terrorism is a politically motivated tactic involving the threat or use of force or violence in which the pursuit of publicity plays a significant role” (p. 782). The significant achievement of the trio lay in the ability to adopt observable and measurable terrorism components in designing their definition of terrorism. Thus, a remarkable achievement for research in the field of terrorism, especially media-related terrorism research as a result of the renewed focus on the publicity component, an element, which has remained relatively constant across both studies (p. 781). However, in line with Sartori’s (1970) assertion that “the rules for climbing and descending along a ladder of abstraction are thus very simple rules ….We make a concept more abstract and more general by lessening its properties or attributes …” (p. 1041), the definition by the trio, may have lost one of the core ingredients of terrorism – the psychological impact. The trio had, however, explained that the reduction in salience accorded the psychology element, is not unconnected to the temporal differences from Schmid’s study. They also suggested that the writers of the published articles, which they used for their study may have adopted definitions that reflected the expressions of fourth wave terrorism, as opposed to third wave terrorism, which was in operation during Schmid’s study. Furthermore, the authors had also noted that the country of origin of journal contributors also played a role in their choice of definition elements. For example, an examination of the “civilian” and “fear” definitional elements by authors from Middle East (ME), Western Europe (WE) and North America (NA) showed marked differences. While experts from the ME had a 0% civilian component, 50% included fear in their definitions. Contrarily, WE and NA authors had a 40% and 20% civilian element and 20% and 17% highlighted the fear component respectively. This to some extent confirms Drake’s (1989) assertion regarding the nature of the definition of terrorism, when he argued that no singular definition can sufficien>