Abstract
Two experimental studies investigated how news reports about terrorist attacks committed by unidentified perpetrators influence beliefs about the perpetrators and Muslims in general. In Study 1, a quota-based sample of 354 Germans was exposed to terror news coverage describing either non-Muslim or Muslim victims with no reference to the perpetrators of the attacks. Upon stimulus exposure, participants were asked the likelihood that the perpetrators were either Islamist extremists, far-right extremists, or lone operators. In Study 2, no information about the victims was provided, but the perpetrators were either Muslims or unidentified. In addition, we measured news consumers’ Islamophobic attitudes in both studies. Results from Study 1 revealed that participants attributed perpetrator-unidentified attacks to Islamist perpetrators when the victims were non-Muslims. In contrast, terrorist attacks directed against Muslim victims were more likely to be attributed to far-right extremists. Additionally, Study 2 revealed that news consumers associated perpetrator-unidentified terrorist attacks with Islamist extremists to an equal degree as terrorist attacks that were committed by Muslim perpetrators. Attributing the attack to Islamists was in turn significantly related to Islamophobic attitudes in both studies. Implications of these findings for journalism practice and society at large are discussed.
Highlights
Terrorist activities in Western societies are dominating the media landscape worldwide.The intensive media coverage about terrorist attacks committed by radical Islamist terrorists has raised concerns about unwanted and negative effects on intergroup relations between Muslims and non-Muslim majority members in Western societies
Our results revealed that non-Muslim news consumers were more likely to indicate that the unidentified perpetrators were Islamist perpetrators rather than lone operators inin thethe news articles were described as operators not not belonging belongingto toany anyorganization organizationwhen whenthe thevictims victims news articles were described non-Muslims compared to
When the attack is directed against Muslim victims, news consumers are more likely to ascribe the attack to far-right extremists
Summary
Terrorist activities in Western societies are dominating the media landscape worldwide. The intensive media coverage about terrorist attacks committed by radical Islamist terrorists has raised concerns about unwanted and negative effects on intergroup relations between Muslims and non-Muslim majority members in Western societies. Empirical research has repeatedly demonstrated that exposure to news reports that link terrorism to Islam may promote negative attitudes toward Muslims (e.g., Saleem et al 2017; Von Sikorski et al 2017, 2018). The existing literature lacks a uniform definition of terrorism, terrorist acts have been defined by key criteria such as (a) the use of violence; (b) the intention to generate fear; and (c) the aim to influence citizens’ political beliefs (Moghaddam and Marsella 2004; see Nacos 2016).
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