{"title":"Who Says “Muslims are Not Terrorists”? News Differentiation, Muslim versus Non-Muslim Sources, and Attitudes Toward Muslims","authors":"Ruta Kaskeleviciute, Helena Knupfer, Jörg Matthes","doi":"10.1080/15205436.2023.2268097","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"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 von Sikorski et al. (2017) 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).","PeriodicalId":47869,"journal":{"name":"Mass Communication and Society","volume":"38 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Mass Communication and Society","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2023.2268097","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
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 von Sikorski et al. (2017) 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).
期刊介绍:
Mass Communication and Society" mission is to publish articles from a wide variety of perspectives and approaches that advance mass communication theory, especially at the societal or macrosocial level. It draws heavily from many other disciplines, including sociology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, law, and history. Methodologically, journal articles employ qualitative and quantitative methods, survey research, ethnography, laboratory experiments, historical methods, and legal analysis.