No Compassion for Muslims? How Journalistic News Coverage of Terrorist Crimes Influences Emotional Reactions and Policy Support Depending on the Victim’s Religion

Abstract

Islamist terrorist attacks have become a salient threat to Western countries, and news coverage about such crimes is a key predictor of public emotional reactions and policy support. We examine the effects of two key characteristics of terrorism news coverage: (1) the victim’s religion and (2) first-person narratives that facilitate perspective taking. A quota-based experiment ( N = 354) revealed that irrespective of the narrative type, news reports that mention the victims’ Muslim religion induce less anger and compassion, but more joy among non-Muslim news consumers. However, fear was equally induced by all news articles. As a consequence, fear, anger, and joy predicted support for more restrictive terrorism policies, while anger and compassion were related to more support for victim compensation.

What is terrorism (according to the news)? How the German press selectively labels political violence as “terrorism”

“…Attacks on civilians or tourists may be perceived as more gruesome, thus more in line with the assumed illegitimacy of terrorism. As already mentioned, Schmuck et al (2021) show that the more news audiences identify with the victims of attacks, the more emotional their reactions to coverage and, thus, in- and out-group bias – an effect that may extend to journalists. Studies analysing whether attacks on civilians receive more coverage do not find consistent associations (Chermak and Gruenewald, 2006; Mitnik et al, 2020); however, almost none have analysed how the type of victim influences labelling.…”

“…Threats make perceived belonging to an in-group, for example one’s nation, and differences to out-groups, for example perpetrators of violence or those assumed to agree with them, more salient. Thus, SIT plays an important role in understanding coverage of political violence and its effects (Matthes et al, 2020; Schmuck et al, 2021; Von Sikorski et al, 2017, 2021). Nossek (2004: 344) argues that in- and out-group thinking is decisive for how journalists cover political violence as ‘professional norms become subordinate to the national identity of the reporting correspondent.’ National identities influence coverage as journalists feel compelled to take a clear stance on the illegitimacy of violence by condemning acts as terrorism, especially if in-group members, for example domestic audiences, are targeted.…”

“…Proximity may also influence labelling. Following SIT, attacks on Western countries are considered a bigger threat for in-group members: If Western journalists and their audiences can identify with victims, for example domestic citizens or citizens in other Western countries presumably sharing similar values, this may activate in- and out-group thinking (Schmuck et al, 2021). Attacks in Western countries may be perceived as an attack on ‘us’ and lead to condemnation of violence as being illegitimate, that is, terrorism.…”

“…Turning to perpetrator characteristics, the threat of lone actor terrorism has been a frequent object of discussions (Cai and Landon, 2019; Fisher, 2017). Underlining the salience of the issue, Schmuck et al (2018) finds that if German recipients are presented with news about attacks where the perpetrator has not been identified, around 40% assumed lone actors to be responsible (see similarly Schmuck et al, 2021). However, lone actor terrorism – here defined as violence by individuals instead of groups – may be considered less threatening: If attacks are perpetrated by formal organizations, recipients are more likely to perceive them as terrorism (Huff and Kertzer, 2018).…”

“…This study advances research in three ways: From a theoretical perspective, it illustrates how Social Identity Theory may not only serve to understand stereotypic coverage of Islam (Matthes et al, 2020) and related media effects (Schmuck et al, 2021;Von Sikorski et al, 2017 but also journalistic use of the pejorative label 'terrorism'. The paper also addresses two empirical gaps: Research on journalistic labelling of different attacks is largely absent, at least apart from case studies including few incidents (de Veen and Thomas, 2020;Elmasry and el-Nawawy, 2020).…”