Asymmetric struggle for the hearts and minds of viewers: Can the media actually trigger sympathy towards terrorists?

Abstract

Interviews with terrorists are often seen as humanizing and evoking sympathy towards them – even among potential victims of these terrorists. However, scarce research attention is devoted to systematic empirical examination of the emotional responses evoked in viewers by personalized media coverage of terrorists. This study examines Jewish-Israeli responses to a televised interview with a female Palestinian terrorist, caught by Israeli security services on her way to perform a suicide bombing in Israel. The study uses quantitative methods to determine the effect of the interview on Jewish-Israeli viewers, and to show that political identification in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict – as hawks or as doves – affects viewers' perceptions of the interviewed terrorist and viewers' emotional responses to her.

Keywords:

• terrorism
• asymmetric conflict
• extremism

Acknowledgment

The author thanks the Smart Institute for Communication at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, for the support of this study.

Notes

1. 13 April 2002.

2. The item was originally in Hebrew and in Arabic with Hebrew subtitles. It was translated to Hebrew and to English from the transcription of video recording by the author with the help of an Arab research assistant.