This study is focused on the way in which the media reports on terror attacks, and how the demographic of the perpetrating group influences the level to which an attack receives media coverage in the context of written articles reporting on such attacks. The first variable, which was treated as the independent, was the demographic of the perpetrator. Though acts of terror are committed by many different groups, the two that this research focused on was Muslim perpetrators and far-right perpetrators. It is worth noting that despite many of the Muslims involved in this study were acting on behalf of terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda or the Islamic State, the affiliation to such groups did not affect the way such data was treated. This was based on the assumption that the general public would not make a distinction relating to the motivations of the perpetrator, focusing instead simply on his religion, and religion that would be assumed based on the perpetrator’s name (i.e. Mohammed, etc.). The second variable, the dependent, is the number of articles written. To apply these variables, this study took various case studies sourced from the Global Terrorism Database (a sample size of nine from both results of the independent variable) and identified the number of articles that were published on each, using raw data from a study published in Justice Quarterly, titled “Why Do Some Terrorist Attacks Attract More Media Coverage Than Others.” The hypothesis of this study contended that terror attacks committed by Muslims would, on average, receive more media coverage from written articles than those committed by far-right perpetrators. The null hypothesis would therefore be that there is no significant difference in written media coverage regarding Muslims compared to that of far-right attacks. This study will be important for determining the way in which different groups may be disproportionately represented by the media, opening the doors to other avenues to pursue, such as the impact such coverage has on forming narratives of certain demographics. It will also help to address future terrorist attacks regarding media coverage, helping to identify areas that may need additional attention paid that is currently being ignored. In this study we failed to reject the null hypothesis due to a lack of statistical significance. As the data above indicates, with R indicating far-right and M indicating Muslim, despite having a significantly higher mean for articles pertaining to Muslim-perpetrated attacks, the p-value, or statistical significance, is 0.52 for equal variances assumed, and 0.489 for equal variances not assumed—a far cry from 0.05, required to deem a study statistically significant. The mean difference in the number of articles for different groups has been reported as 36.88, with Muslim perpetrators receiving the higher mean (120.55), compared to far right perpetrators (83.67). This study is similar to one published in Justice Quarterly, titled “Why Do Some Terrorist Attacks Attract More Media Coverage Than Others,” mentioned above. However, in this study the researchers determined that there was a significant correlation, seeing the perpetrator’s religious affiliation as being a significant contributing factor to the amount of media attention paid to the attack, determining that terror attacks in which the perpetrator was a Muslim received as much as 357% more press coverage than others. Another study, published in the American Journal of Political Science titled “Prime Suspects: The Influence of Local Television News on the Viewing Public,” provided a holistic perspective on the issue. While not reporting directly on Muslim-perpetrated terror attacks, the study found that the race of the perpetrator directly impacts the public perception of them. The Justice Quarterly piece complimented this, emphasizing the importance of the non-white element of reporting, further indicating that the demographic of the perpetrator directly influences public perception, and thus the amount of media coverage it receives. In contrast to my research partner’s corresponding post, in this initial study we decided to include the data that may have been considered outliers. This data includes three cases in the Muslim data set, one of which received as little as five articles published, whereas the Boston bombing and Fort Hood both received 400 or more articles. We deemed this data pertinent and important to include as it spoke to the nature of media coverage for major attacks. Had there been only one instance, such as if the Fort Hood attack had not received such coverage, then we would have elected to omit the Boston bombing given that it would then be an anomaly. However, with a second example to offer some consistency to the response of similar instances we decided that it was important to include them. This presented a clear problem: such a wide variation in data made it difficult to accurately read what the data was indicating, thus resulting in a significantly higher mean for the Muslim demographic than the far-right counterpart, though with extremely low statistical significance and an enormous level of uncertainty, as evidenced by the visual graph. We have determined two reasons why this may be. The first would be, as suggested above, that the outliers led to an extreme variation in data that made finding a reliable correlation impossible. However, as my research partner’s data analysis indicates, this is an insufficient explanation, as the removal of such outliers does not have a major impact on the study’s statistical significance. A second reason, which is consistent with our studies, is that the small data set does not allow for enough analysis to establish a meaningful correlation. Both demographics for our independent variable had nine sources of data, most of which were of similar numbers. Such similarity and a low sample size prevent any sort of statistically significant findings. Works Cited: Gilliam, Franklin D., and Shanto Iyengar. (2000). "Prime Suspects: The Influence of Local Television News on the Viewing Public." American Journal of Political Science, 44(3): 560-73. doi:10.2307/2669264. Kearns, Erin M., Allison E. Betus, and Anthony F. Lemieux. 2019. “Why Do Some Terrorist Attacks Receive More Media Attention than Others.” Justice Quarterly, 6.
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Media Coverage of Right Wing Terrorists vs Muslim Terrorists (Outliers Removed) -Julian Maissel11/20/2019 Hypothesis: Terror attacks committed by Muslims will receive more media coverage than terror attacks committed by far right groups.
Null Hypothesis: There is no significant difference regarding media coverage for Muslim terror attacks compared to far right terror attacks. My hypothesis is based on Shanto Iyengar and Franklin Gilliam's research (2000) which found that news media reporting follows a "script" that includes two core elements: crime is violent and perpetrators of crime are non-white males. Research by Erin M. Kearns (2019), found that Muslim perpetrators of terrorism received, on average, 357% more coverage than non Muslim perpetrators. This hypothesis test uses data from Kearns's study to tackle a more specific issue. This hypothesis test specifically contrasts Muslim terrorists with white supremacists and other far right actors. Previous studies have demonstrated that Muslim terrorists receive more media coverage than other terrorists in general. However, I wanted to find out how much media coverage right wing terrorists received, considering the fact that the vast majority of domestic terrorists are right wingers. This research is important because it addresses an issue that affects the safety of American citizens, and it can help us determine whether or not we are framing the conversation around terrorism in a way that reflects the reality of the threat. Variables: Independent: Perpetrator Group (Muslim or Right Wing) - We used the Global Terrorism Database to gather data on individual terrorist attacks. A perpetrator was considered right wing if they were motivated by neo-Nazism, neo-fascism, white nationalism, white separatism, ethnonationalism, religious nationalism, or far right political views. A perpetrator was considered "Muslim" if they had a Muslim sounding name, or if they were motivated by radical Islamist beliefs (the perpetrator did not actually have to be Muslim; the important thing here is the perception that they are Muslim). Dependent: Number of articles published - We used Erin Kearns's data to assign a number of articles to each terrorist attack. Test Method: I ran the same independent samples T-test as Tate, however, I removed two outliers (5 articles and 6 articles) from the Muslim dataset, giving me an even number of samples for both groups, and less variance in the Muslim dataset. My thinking here is that it would reduce the huge variance in the Muslim perpetrators dataset, which I believe contibuted to Tate's test not finding any statistical significance, despite a large difference in means. Conclusion: The mean difference in number of articles is reported as 62.44, with Muslim perpetrators receiving the higher mean (146.11), compared to far right perpetrators (83.67). In my view, this can be interpreted as a substantial difference. However, due to a p-value of .314 for equal variances assumed, and .304 for equal variances not assumed, the null is supported as this is statistically insignificant. This is likely due to massive variance in the number of articles for Muslim perpetrators, even after outliers were removed, plus an even lower sample size (18) than Tate's test. References Gilliam, Franklin D., and Shanto Iyengar. "Prime Suspects: The Influence of Local Television News on the Viewing Public." American Journal of Political Science 44, no. 3 (2000): 560-73. doi:10.2307/2669264. Kearns, Erin M., Allison E. Betus, and Anthony F. Lemieux. 2019. “Why Do Some Terrorist Attacks Receive More Media Attention than Others.” Justice Quarterly, no. Issue 6: 985. |
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