Muslims Take Action. How Exposure to Anti-Islamic Populist Political Messages Affects Young Muslims’ Support for Collective Action: A Longitudinal Experiment

Abstract

ABSTRACT Drawing from the Social Identity Model of Collective Action, this study investigates whether Islamophobic political agitation increases perceived discrimination and support for collective action among young Muslims. Using a longitudinal experimental design, we exposed young Muslims aged 18 to 37 years (n = 143) to a variety of anti–Islamic right-wing populist social media messages either once (i.e., single exposure) or at several different time points (i.e., repeated exposure). Our findings show, for the first time, that anti–Islamic political messages not only increased perceived discrimination immediately after exposure, but that this effect was still detectable 2 and 3 weeks after initial exposure. Repeated exposure did not lead to an incremental effect beyond that of one-time exposure. Our findings also showed that perceived discrimination predicted support for nonviolent collective action, but not for violent collective action to improve young Muslims’ social status both after single and repeated exposure. From a democratic perspective, these findings are encouraging and have important theoretical and methodological implications.