Who Is to Blame?

Abstract

We present the results of a content analysis of communications related to the act of terrorism at Domodedovo airport. They show that mass media plays a significant role as a source of factual, undigested information. The theoretical value of the results is that they show a significant number of cases where an actor is accused with no reference to his actions or nonactions. The range of types of complicity in terrorist activity was substantial.

Keywords:

• attribution of responsibility and blame
• blogs
• perception of risk
• social media
• sociology of risk
• terrorism
• terrorist threat

Notes

1. For an overview of research on the blogosphere, see also Abramov, 2012.

2. As examples of research focused on the perception of the risk of terrorist threats, see Mumpower et al. (2013), Sjöberg (2005), and Slovic (2002). For an overview of results from a number of foreign surveys of popular opinion, see Burns (2007).

3. This corresponds to the division of actors into corporate, collective, or individual subjects (Deviatko, 2012, p. 52). This is similar in meaning to the division of social reality into the micro-, meso-, and macro levels (Deviatko, 2009, pp. 12–15; Rittser, 2002, pp. 578–81).

4. See also the discussion of these distinctions at the philosophical level in Bennett (1983).

5. At the same time, this kind of parallel has serious limitations. The research cited (Lickel, Schmader, and Hamilton, 2003) analyzes the assignment of blame in situations where two schoolchildren killed twelve of their classmates and one teacher. Here the bearers of “authority” were the parents of the two children, the local authorities, and the school's administration and teachers.

6. Our codifiers were published in Gavrilov and Tolmach (2012).

7. The difference was significant at p <  0.05.

8. The difference was significant at p <  0.01. Since we almost never see blogs refer to the terrorists groups we include under institutions, we have not included that section here.

9. These include the president, prime minister, specific regional leaders (mayor of Moscow, head of the Republic of Chechnya), deputies, and representatives of power structures (e.g., the Federal Security Services director, head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs).