Describing Perceptions of Media Influence among Radicalized Individuals: The Case of Jihadists and Non-Violent Islamists

Perceptions of Minority Discrimination: Perspectives of Jews Living in Germany on News Media Coverage

“…Social identity describes “the individual’s knowledge that he belongs to certain social groups together with some emotional and value significance to him of this group membership” (Tajfel, 1972, p. 292). Media coverage may increase the salience of social identity, and an individual’s social identity may influence how they perceive media coverage and its influence on third persons (Baugut & Neumann, 2020a; Hartmann & Tanis, 2013). For example, if being Jewish is part of an individual’s social identity, they are likely to pay particular attention to media coverage of issues that are important to their group; consequently, they may feel affected by media coverage as if they were personally the subject of the media coverage (Kepplinger, 2007; Neumann, 2019).…”

“…First, as Jews may often perceive antisemitism and social identity threats (e.g., Saleem & Ramasubramanian, 2017), they may exhibit a self-serving bias and attribute societal rejection of their ingroup to the allegedly hostile media’s power over the general public (Miller & Ross, 1975; Sedikides & Alicke, 2019). Second, Jews’ perceptions of strong influences on third persons may reflect their self-serving need to perceive their ingroup positively and as distinct from the outgroup (Branscombe et al, 1999; Tajfel & Turner, 1979); to this end, the outgroup is likely to be devaluated via the belief in its vulnerability to media influences (see Baugut & Neumann, 2020a).…”

“…Estimating media influence perceptions. Research has suggested that members of minority groups, such as Muslims in Western countries (Ahmad, 2006;Aly, 2007;Baugut & Neumann, 2020a) or Arabs in Israel (Tsfati, 2007), perceive an especially strong media influence on the general public. For several reasons, also Jews are likely to show perceptions of relatively strong media influences on third persons.…”

“…For example, an analysis of media (influence) perceptions may help to explain how minority members typically perceive mainstream society, including perceptions of being discriminated against. Previous quantitative research has broadly suggested that individuals from minorities who perceive their own group to be portrayed in a negative or stereotypical way, and who perceive a hostile mainstream media as influencing general public opinion, also tend to perceive themselves as threatened (Ibrahim & Abdel Halim, 2019; Saleem & Ramasubramanian, 2017), discriminated against, and rejected by the dominant majority (Baugut & Neumann, 2020a; Kunst et al, 2012; Sirin & Fine, 2007). Consequently, minority members may regard themselves as outsiders to society at large, which relates to the problem of minority alienation (Mirowsky & Ross, 1980; Tsfati, 2007).…”

Online news media and propaganda influence on radicalized individuals: Findings from interviews with Islamist prisoners and former Islamists

“…Such reactions, in turn, can be at least partly traced to findings that Muslims in Western countries typically perceive that the media exerts a strong influence on society (Neumann et al, 2018). Islamists have been also found to perceive strong media influences on different segments of society (Baugut and Neumann, 2019a).…”