The affective nexus between refugees and terrorism: A panel study on how social media use shapes negative attitudes toward refugees

Autor(en)

Jörg Matthes, Ruta Kaskeleviciute, Helena Knupfer, Muhammad Masood

Abstrakt

Social media, as an important resource of information for many contentious topics, has great affective potential in terms of anger and fear. We investigated how exposure to news about refugees on social media is related to negative attitudes toward refugees as well as attitudinal differentiation with respect to Muslims and terrorists. A two-wave panel survey (N

_T2 = 524) showed that social media use about refugees was not directly related to negative attitudes and attitudinal differentiation. However, we found that anger served as the affective nexus between the refugee topic and the terrorism topic: Social media use about refugees led to more anger about terrorism over time, which in turn led to more negative attitudes toward refugees. Fear with respect to terrorism did not play a role in this process. Overall, our findings underline the key role of anger, but not fear, when trying to understand negative reactions toward refugees.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft

Externe Organisation(en)

City University of Hong Kong (CityU)

Journal

Political Psychology

ISSN

0162-895X

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12950

Publikationsdatum

11-2023

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

508007 Kommunikationswissenschaft

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Philosophy, Social Psychology, Political Science and International Relations, Sociology and Political Science

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 16 – Frieden, Gerechtigkeit und starke Institutionen

Link zum Portal

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/the-affective-nexus-between-refugees-and-terrorism-a-panel-study-on-how-social-media-use-shapes-negative-attitudes-toward-refugees(aea73b30-12b2-4082-83e8-97c300e12a8b).html