Who says “Muslims are not terrorists”? News differentiation, Muslim versus non-Muslim sources, and attitudes toward Muslims

Autor(en)
Ruta Kaskeleviciute, Helena Knupfer, Jörg Matthes
Abstrakt

Media coverage on terrorism can lead to negative attitudes toward Muslims. We theorize that undifferentiated news—i.e., not explicitly distinguishing Muslims from terrorists—can accelerate these negative effects. In a quota-based 2 (news differentiation: differentiated and undifferentiated) × 2 (expert interviewee source: Muslim and non-Muslim) between-subjects experiment (N = 291), participants read news about Islamist terrorism. A control group received news unrelated to terror. Building on the concept of news differentiation and extending this line of research, we analyzed effects on explicit and implicit attitudes toward Muslims. Drawing on social identity, self-categorization and mediated intergroup contact theories, findings revealed that undifferentiated news increased hostile attitudes toward Muslims and attitudinal undifferentiation. However, undifferentiated news did not activate implicit attitudes. We also found that undifferentiated news had the strongest negative effects when coming from sources that are perceived as similar (i.e., non-Muslim).

Organisation(en)
Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft
Journal
Mass Communication and Society
Band
27
Seiten
101-124
Anzahl der Seiten
24
ISSN
1520-5436
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2023.2268097
Publikationsdatum
08-2023
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
508007 Kommunikationswissenschaft
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Communication
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG 16 – Frieden, Gerechtigkeit und starke Institutionen
Link zum Portal
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/who-says-muslims-are-not-terrorists-news-differentiation-muslim-versus-nonmuslim-sources-and-attitudes-toward-muslims(849938e4-f493-43bf-94ff-fb20bd3c34df).html