Who differentiates between Muslims and Islamist terrorists in terrorism news coverage?
- Author(s)
- Jörg Matthes, Ruta Kaskeleviciute, Desiree Schmuck, Christian von Sikorski, Claudia Klobasa, Helena Knupfer, Melanie Saumer
- Abstract
The present study took an actor-based approach to explain news differentiation in terrorism coverage. Actors were defined as non-Muslim sources, Muslim sources, and journalists. Actors who generateundifferentiated statementsactively link Muslims to terrorism, whereas actors who usedifferentiated statementsexplicitly distinguish Muslims from terrorism. We examined actor-specific, media-specific, and event-specific predictors of differentiation using a quantitative content analysis in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, 2015-2017 (12 quality/tabloid newspapers,N = 1071 articles). Results reveal that non-Muslim sources and journalists are more likely to make undifferentiated statements and less likely to make differentiated statements compared to Muslim sources. This gap between Muslim sources on the one side and non-Muslim sources as well as journalists on the other side is more accentuated for severe terroristic attacks and for articles mentioning dead and injured victims. For differentiated statements, the gap is also more pronounced in tabloid newspapers as compared to quality newspapers.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Communication
- External organisation(s)
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Universität Koblenz-Landau
- Journal
- Journalism Studies
- Volume
- 21
- Pages
- 2135-2153
- No. of pages
- 19
- ISSN
- 1461-670X
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2020.1812422
- Publication date
- 2020
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 508007 Communication science, 508014 Journalism
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Communication
- Sustainable Development Goals
- SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/who-differentiates-between-muslims-and-islamist-terrorists-in-terrorism-news-coverage(ecbc3a96-16be-4605-b8ca-9f6e786d72bd).html