“Isolated, apolitical and tragic”: comparing media portrayals of incel violence to violence of right-wing and Islamist perpetrators

Figures & data

Table 1. The dominant framings of Islamist and right-wing violence.

	Labelling of violence	Motivations for violence	Politicisation/Securitisation
Islamist violence	Labelled as “terrorism”; presented w links to GWoT, i.e. thematic	Primarily political; discussion of group membership and ideology	Immediate securitisation through group reference and GWoT
Right-wing violence	Descriptive labelling of the violence; presented as episodic incidents	Mainly personal, perpetrator-centric explanations and their life stories	Not securitised, maybe politicised. Yet within frame of gun violence not necessarily ideological context

Table 2. List of incidents included in study.

	Date of incident	Age of perpetrator	Victims Dead, injured
Incel violence	23/05/2014	22	7, 14
	01/10/2015	26	10, 8
	14/02/2018	19	17, 17
Islamist violence	16/07/2015	25	5, 2
	12/06/2016	29	49, 53
	06/12/2019	21	3, 8
Right-wing violence	17/06/2015	21	9, 1
	03/08/2019	21	23, 23

Table

What is the violence labelled as?
codes	descriptive	normative
manifestations	“shooting”; “attack”; “incident”; “mass-shooting”; “murder”	“massacre”; “tragedy”; “rampage”; “acts of horror”; “bloodbath”; terrorism’
(2) How is the violence framed in terms of context?
codes	thematic	episodic
manifestations	Links to GWoT; links to discussions on gun violence, the internet/social media; other (related) incidents of violence	“random” label; no links to wider discussions; focus on single event and its perpetrator

Table

(3) What is reported about the perpetrator of the violence?
codes	Personal Experience	Home life	Previous behaviour
manifestations	Loneliness; outsiderness; social environment, i.e. few friends	Family set up and relationships; no fixed address, foster families	Being a “nuisance”; “anti-social behaviour”; history of violence; history of (mental) illness
(4) What is considered the cause of the violence?
codes	Personal motivations	Political motivations
manifestations	Feelings of victimhood and isolation; loneliness; outsider; frustrations; revenge	Ideology; group allegiance; manifestos; references to radicalisation and overarching justifications for the violence

Table 3. Number and proportion of references by frame type and violence category.

	descriptive label	normative label	thematic frame	episodic frame	total number of articles
Incel violence	28 (31.82%)	61 (69.32%)	30 (34.09%)	57 (64.77%)	88
Islamist violence	28 (16.77%)	102 (61.08%)	93 (55.69%)	0 (0.00%)	167
Right-wing violence	24 (27.27%)	47 (53.41%)	34 (38.64%)	46 (52.27%)	88

Note: The proportion indicates the percentage of the specific frame relative to the total number of articles that focus on each violence category. Since different frames are not mutually exclusive, the proportions for each violence category do not sum to 100%.

Table 4. Number and proportion of references by life experience of the perpetrator and violence category

	Family	Social isolation	Deviant behaviour	Mental health	Emotions	total number of articles
Incel violence	13 (14.77%)	25 (28.41%)	18 (20.45%)	23 (26.14%)	6 (6.82%)	88
Islamist violence	13 (7.78%)	3 (1.80%)	19 (11.38%)	10 (5.99%)	0 (0.00%)	167
Right-wing violence	9 (10.23%)	5 (5.68%)	4 (4.55%)	4 (4.55%)	0 (0.00%)	88

Note: The proportion indicates the percentage of the specific frame relative to the total number of articles that focus on each violence category. Since different frames are not mutually exclusive, the proportions for each violence category do not sum to 100%.

Table 5. Number and proportion of references by political motivation and violence category

	Terror(ism)	Radicalisation	Ideology	total number of articles
Incel violence	0 (0.00%)	0 (0.00%)	1 (1.14%)	88
Islamist violence	97 (58.08%)	16 (9.58%)	30 (17.96%)	167
Right-wing violence	16 (18.18%)	1 (1.14%)	58 (65.91%)	88

Note: The proportion indicates the percentage of the specific frame relative to the total number of articles that focus on each violence category. Since different frames are not mutually exclusive, the proportions for each violence category do not sum to 100%.