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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