The politics of response to terror: the reshaping of community and immunity in the aftermath of 7 July 2005 London bombings

Abstract and Research ContextThis item contains the Author’s Accepted Manuscript (AAM) of the article:Salerno, D. (2017). "The Politics of Response to Terror: the Reshaping of Community and Immunity in the Aftermath of 7 July 2005 London Bombings". Social Semiotics, 27(1), 81–106. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2016.1151681Research Overview: This article explores the politics of response to the July 7th, 2005 London bombings by analyzing UK counter-terrorism institutional campaigns in the three years following the attack. Drawing on the interpretive biopolitical category of "community/immunity" (Esposito), the semiotic analysis of these institutional campaigns describes the representation of the political community and the citizen in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks.The research argues that counter-terrorism discourse relies on two contrasting tendencies:The Unifying Force: A narrative that brings people together in the name of common values (the "One London" sentiment).The Immunological Shift: The necessity to weaken communitarian bonds to allow the citizen to control and check up on others, reporting “anything suspicious” to authorities.The article traces the emergence of the "citizen-surveillant" and how surveillance activities are shaped around the representation of the terrorist event. Paradoxically, this brings about a mimicry effect where the surveillance action carried out by the citizen mirrors the imagined actions of terrorist preparation. By examining media narratives, posters and public communication from Transport for London (TfL) and the Metropolitan Police, the study provides a semiotic mapping of how the "War on Terror" reconfigured the visual and social imaginary of urban life.Methodological Note and PaginationThis manuscript has been formatted to include page markers in brackets—e.g., [p. 85 printed version]—to correspond with the pagination of the final published Version of Record in Social Semiotics. This allows researchers and evaluators to cite the work accurately even without access to the journal’s paywalled PDF.The text remains identical in content to the published version, having undergone full peer review and editorial approval.Bibliographic Information and ImpactJournal: Social Semiotics (Taylor & Francis / Routledge)Publication Date: Online First (March 2016); Volume 27, Issue 1 (2017).DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2016.1151681Keywords: Semiotics, Counter-terrorism, Biopolitics, Community, Immunity, London Bombings, Surveillance, Visual Culture.Usage and LicensingThis version is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. Users are free to download and share the work for non-commercial purposes, provided the original author and publication source are credited. For commercial use or derivative works, please refer to the official Version of Record available via the publisher’s website.