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What Does the 'Terrorist' Label Really Do? Measuring and Explaining the Effects of the 'Terrorist' and 'Islamist' Categories
- Source :
- Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Vol. 42, no. 5, p. 520-540 (2019)
- Publication Year :
- 2017
- Publisher :
- Informa UK Limited, 2017.
-
Abstract
- Many scholars and practitioners claim that labelling groups or individuals as “terrorists” does not simply describe them but also shapes public attitudes, due to the label's important normative and political charge. Yet is there such a “terrorist label effect”? In view of surprisingly scant evidence, the present paper evaluates whether or not the terrorist label – as well as the “Islamist” one – really impacts both the audience's perception of the security environment and its security policy preferences, and if yes, how and why. To do so, the article implements a randomized-controlled vignette experiment where participants (n = 481) first read one out of three press articles, each depicting a street shooting in the exact same way but labelling the author of the violence with a different category (“terrorist”/“shooter”/“Islamist”). Participants were then asked to report on both their perceptions and their policy preferences. This design reveals very strong effects of both the “terrorist” and “Islamist” categories on each dimension. These effects are analysed through the lenses of social and cognitive psychology, in a way that interrogates the use of the terrorist category in society, the conflation of Islamism with terrorism, and the press and policymakers’ lexical choices when reporting on political violence.
- Subjects :
- 021110 strategic, defence & security studies
Sociology and Political Science
Accident prevention
05 social sciences
0211 other engineering and technologies
Poison control
Human factors and ergonomics
02 engineering and technology
Criminology
Suicide prevention
Occupational safety and health
0506 political science
Political Science and International Relations
Terrorism
Injury prevention
050602 political science & public administration
Normative
Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
Psychology
Safety Research
Social psychology
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15210731 and 1057610X
- Volume :
- 42
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Studies in Conflict & Terrorism
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....2e3ecd4d57ea5707975e8c0c944717a1