The news labeling of violence varies. The same act of violence may be labeled “terrorism”, a “shooting”, or a “rampage”. Despite theory and research on the relationship between the media and terrorism, it is still unclear when news outlets will label violence “terrorism” and how frequently the label will be used. Focusing primarily on “terrorism” labeling, I use the strategy of “social geometry” to develop seven propositions that partially explain and predict the moral news labeling of violence. These principles increase our understanding of “terrorism” labeling, but also illuminate the broader issue of how deviance is defined.
A rotulação de notícias de violência varia. O mesmo ato de violência pode ser rotulado como “terrorismo”, “tiroteio”, ou “fúria”. Apesar das teorias e pesquisas sobre a relação entre mídia e terrorismo, ainda não está claro quando as agências de notícias rotularão a violência como “terrorismo” e com que frequência o rótulo será usado. Concentrando-me principalmente na rotulação do “terrorismo”, em
Scholars have long been interested in the relationship between terrorism and the news media. Indeed, research has focused on, among other things, terrorists’ strategic use of the media (see, e.g.,
Determining whether an act of violence is “terrorism” is not easy. After all, there is no consensus definition of terrorism. Not surprisingly, there is often much confusion and debate about labeling in the aftermath of significant violence. For example, the day after the 2015 attack by Dylann Roof at a Charleston, South Carolina church the
The literature on social control will not provide a great deal of help answering these questions. Theory and research on deviant labels are underdeveloped. Sociologists who study social control, as a form of conflict management (see
In short, I address two gaps related to “terrorism” labeling and social control in this paper. First, regarding the “terrorism” label, no prior theory has developed a logically consistent set of simple, testable, and general propositions that explain and predict the likelihood and frequency of “terrorism” labeling by the news media in response to violence. Second, regarding social control, there has been a major emphasis on investigating the responses to deviance at the expense of explaining how deviance is defined.
To fill these gaps, I offer seven tentative propositions that partially explain and predict moral news labeling in response to violence. Four of these propositions predict “terrorism” labeling, two focus on positive and neutral labeling, and one helps to address the evolution of moral labeling. They are as follows:
1. “Terrorism” labeling varies directly with the relational distance between the perpetrator(s) and target(s). 2. “Terrorism” labeling is greater in response to attacks perpetrated against more conventional targets than against less conventional targets. 3. “Terrorism” labeling is greater in response to attacks perpetrated against more organized targets than against less organized targets. 4. “Terrorism” labeling increases with the social closeness of news outlets to the target(s) and social distance from the perpetrator(s). 5. Positive news labeling increases with the social closeness of news outlets to the perpetrator(s) and social distance from the target(s). 6. Neutral news labeling is a direct function of the isosceles triangulation of social closeness between the three participants. 7. Variation in moral news labeling is a direct function of social diversity.
To help me develop these formulations, I employed the strategy of “social geometry” invented by Donald Black (see
The news labels used to describe violence vary. The same act of violence may be labeled “terrorism”, a “shooting”, or a “rampage”. Perpetrators are often deemed “terrorists”, “bombers”, “killers”, “madmen”, or “crazed gunmen”. Consider the following examples:
· · The · Scott Shane ( · The editorial board of
What explains this variation in news labeling? And specifically, what explains the likelihood and frequency of “terrorism” labeling? A survey of the literature produces five major explanations. First, variation in “terrorism” labeling results from a lack of consensus over the definition of the term (
While each explanation has contributed to our understanding of “terrorism” labeling, they are all limited in that they do not provide a logically consistent set of simple, testable, and general propositions that explain and predict the likelihood and frequency of “terrorism” labeling in response to violence. To help me fill this gap in the literature and develop such propositions (see
Deviance is immoral behavior and social control is the definition of, and response to, deviance (
“Terrorism” and “terrorist” are not the only negative labels. “War” is arguably more negative than “terrorism”. On September 12, 2001 President George W. Bush said the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon the day before were “more than acts of terror. They were acts of war” (
Negative labels are not the only labels that are reported in response to violence. News outlets also report positive and neutral labels (see
Donald Black argues that each form of social control has a corresponding social geometry. Suicide, gossip, avoidance, and all other forms of social control, including “terrorism” labeling, is isomorphic with its geometric configuration. The theoretical goal is to identify each behavior’s geometry. By doing so, we are stating the social conditions under which that behavior occurs. Afterwards, the geometry can be subject to empirical testing to assess its validity.
To identify a behavior’s geometry is to find its location, direction, and distance along the five dimensions of social space. The
Since this explanatory strategy was first introduced in Black’s (
With that said, how does social geometry explain the “terrorism” label? The likelihood and frequency of “terrorism” labeling in response to violence is partially a function of each attack’s geometric configuration in social space. By examining the social statuses of all the participants involved in each violent attack and the relations among them, we can begin to uncover geometric patterns conducive to the “terrorism” label. When trying to identify the geometry of the “terrorism” label it is important to ask, was the attack between intimates, such as family members, or between citizens of different countries? Was the attack perpetrated by immigrants, members of the ethnic minority, or social outcasts? Were the targets members of the ethnic majority or minority? Were they active members of their community or social hermits? Was the attack directed against an organization of some kind, such as a corporation or state? What about the social characteristics of third parties, such as the news outlets reporting on the attack, and their relations to the principals?
It is important to recognize that social geometry does not explain all the variance in “terrorism” labeling. The nature of the violence also matters. For example, “terrorism” labeling is likely to increase as the number of casualties increase. Furthermore, some tactics are more likely to elicit “terrorism” labeling than others. Bombings are more associated with “terrorism” labeling than shootings (
To help me develop my propositions and identify the social geometry conducive to the “terrorism” label, I draw mostly from recent research on portrayals of violence and terrorism in the news media. I pay particular attention to acts of mass violence. The nature of small-scale violence, such as assault, homicide, and suicide, differs in too many respects from the nature of mass violence. It makes little sense to compare, for example, the labeling of intimate partner violence to the labeling of ethnic cleansing. Again, it is essential that we keep the nature of violence constant. While empirical reality makes this difficult, I try to approximate uniformity across cases when possible by focusing my analysis on mass violence. Additionally, because there are gaps in this literature, my formulations are only provisional – subject to future elaboration and qualification. Nevertheless, as Baele
“Terrorism” labeling occurs across time and place. However, regardless of when and where “terrorism” is reported it is likely to have the same underlying sociological features. I argue that the likelihood and frequency of “terrorism” labeling by the news media in response to violence is greatest when (1) there is a high degree of relational distance between the perpetrator(s) and target(s), (2) the attack is perpetrated against more conventional targets, (3) the attack is perpetrated against more organized targets, and (4) the news outlet reporting on the attack is socially close to the target(s) and socially distant from the perpetrator(s). Now consider the evidence.
Relational distance is the degree to which people participate in each other’s lives (
A certain degree of relational distance is usually necessary for violence to be labeled “terrorism”. As a result, “terrorism” is rarely reported in response to intimate violence. This is often true for family rampage killings or familicide – the killing of multiple family members. For example, just after midnight on January 1, 2019, a Thai man, Sucheep Sornsung, killed six members of his family, including his two young children, at a New Year’s Eve party. In response,
At first glance, the absence of clear political motive among the perpetrators of familicide, gang violence, and school and workplace shootings seem to account for the lack of “terrorism” labeling. However, some experts believe that motive is not an essential component of terrorism and determining if an attack is terrorism is easier when ignoring psychological mindsets (
Research provides additional evidence that supports my provisional formulation on the negative association between intimacy and “terrorism” labeling. As Pete Simi writes,
the media…in the United States are far more likely to refer to violent incidents linked to “international” groups as terrorist than violent incidents linked to domestic radicals…In terms of Middle Eastern terrorists, there is strong consensus about the danger they pose…Although white supremacists are highly stigmatized…they are not necessarily viewed as a significant terrorist threat…Instead the consensus regarding white supremacists typically involves characterizing them as…“incompetent,” and “disorganized” (
Simi continues by writing that the media often believes domestic terrorism groups are little more than dysfunctional “‘boisterous loudmouths’” (
is far more likely to refer to incidents associated with agents and supporters of presumably foreign-based…organizations…than with the violence of home-grown militants acting in the name of such groups as the Animal Liberation Front (
An analysis of over 1,600 news stories on terrorism in the United States between 2001 and 2010 finds that negative news reporting increases with relational distance (
In sum, the news reporting on familicide, gang violence, school and workplace shootings, domestic radicals, and other relationally close violence shows that intimacy repels “terrorism” labeling.
Cultural characteristics that are more frequent in a society are more conventional (
First, consider national origin. Nationality is an indirect measure of culture because national origin is often associated with specific cultural behavior such as distinct manifestations of language, dress, and folklore. “Research has revealed”, Nacos writes, “that the U.S. media is more prone to label violent acts as ‘terrorism’ when U.S. citizens are involved than in cases without American involvement” (
As predicted, when Americans are the perpetrators of violence the likelihood that “terrorism” is reported by the American news media falls. Consider the 1994 attack by Dr. Baruch Goldstein. During prayer at the Ibrahimi Mosque on February 25th Goldstein opened fire leaving 29 dead and over 100 Palestinians wounded. In the aftermath of the incident, “members of the American media characterized Goldstein’s deed as a massacre, a shooting rampage, murder, or mass murder, but not as an act of terrorism” (Ibid., p. 106). Because Goldstein was an American citizen, the attack was seen by American news outlets as committed by a culturally conventional perpetrator. As a result, rather than reporting the “terrorism” label, the news media used less severe labels (e.g., “murder”) to describe the attack.
Now consider religion. The American media typically frames Muslim perpetrators of violence as “terrorists”. This is exactly what the cultural direction formulation predicts considering the unconventionality of Muslims in contemporary American society. The portrayal of Muslims as perpetrators of terrorism has been widespread in American popular culture for decades (
The media in the United States and in other Western countries report on “Islamic” or “Muslim” terrorists and terrorism but not on “Christian” terrorists and terrorism, for instance in the context of…anti-abortion violence in the United States committed under the banner of the Christian “Army of God” (
A set of recent experiments, looking at popular labeling instead of news labeling, provides additional evidence for the association between Islam and “terrorism”. West and Lloyd (
With that said, considering the conventionality of the perpetrator(s) or target(s) individually is misleading. When analyzing the social geometry of violence, the conventionality of both the perpetrator(s) and target(s) must be considered simultaneously. Consider the 2017 incident on Westminster Bridge in London. Khalid Masood deliberately hit several individuals with an automobile – killing four pedestrians – before entering the Palace of Westminster and fatally stabbing Police Constable Keith Palmer. Masood’s targets were largely white and Christian, while Masood was black and Muslim. This attack received significant news coverage and negative framing. A search in LexisNexis Academic for “(Khalid Masood) and (terrorism or terrorist)” between March 22, 2017 and March 24, 2017 produces 455 newspaper articles from around the globe. In short, the “terrorism” frame was widely adopted by newspapers directly after the attack.
A similar attack occurred three months later on June 19, 2017. The white Christian perpetrator, Darren Osborne, deliberately drove an automobile into a group of brown Muslims outside the Muslim Welfare House in London. Osborne’s attack resulted in the death of one individual. Like Masood’s attack, this incident received significant news coverage and negative framing. A LexisNexis Academic search for “(Darren Osborne) and (terrorism or terrorist)” between June 19, 2017 and June 21, 2017 produces 207 newspaper articles.
Despite the adoption of the “terrorism” frame in response to Osborne’s attack, it was significantly less compared to Masood’s attack. In fact, Masood’s attack garnered over two times more newspaper articles containing the “terrorism” label than Osborne’s attack. Although these events are not identical, they do share some important characteristics such as being committed only three months apart, by one male, in London, and with the use of an automobile as the primary weapon. As a result, the observed variation in “terrorism” labeling between the two attacks can arguably be attributed to cultural direction—Masood’s attack was perpetrated against more conventional targets, while Osborne’s attack was perpetrated against less conventional targets.
In sum, evidence suggests that “terrorism” labeling is greater in response to violence perpetrated by those who are culturally unconventional, such as foreigners and ethnic minorities, against those who are culturally conventional than in response to attacks in the opposite direction.
Organization is “the capacity for collective action” and can be measured by “the presence and number of administrative officers, the centralization and continuity of decision making, and the quantity of collective action itself” (
When “terrorism” is discussed it often refers to “‘terrorism from below’” (
According to the American discourse on “terrorism” as it has existed, virtually unchanged, since the mid-1980s, the definition of “terrorism” is self-evident, and accepted by all. “Terrorism” is something that groups or individuals engage in, uses of force by States, especially Western ones, cannot amount to “terrorism” (
While there have been some discussions of state “terrorism” in American history (see
“Terror” as a function of upward attacks against more organized targets has been observed in news discourse: “terrorism as a frame…seems reserved only for individuals, sub-national groups, and pariah states” (quoted in
Mass violence also occurs in the opposite direction – against less organized targets. However, organizationally downward violence rarely elicits the “terrorism” label. For example, in May 1985 the headquarters of the black organization MOVE, located in a rowhome on Osage Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was destroyed with a bomb dropped from a state police helicopter. Eleven people died, including five children. On the front page of the
In sum, evidence suggests that violence perpetrated by principals with low organizational status, such as individuals, against principals with high organizational status, such as states and corporations, garner more “terrorism” labeling than violence in the opposite direction.
Not only is there evidence that the principal disputants influence “terrorism” labeling, but also that third parties matter. Third parties encompass anyone with knowledge of the violence (e.g., witnesses and news outlets). Third parties vary in their degree of partisanship (
Recall “that the U.S. media is more prone to label violent acts as ‘terrorism’ when U.S. citizens are involved than in cases without American involvement” (
Social distance is measured by a combination of relational and cultural distance. Considering that “people are more likely to support a member of their own culture than a member of a different culture” (COONEY, 1998, p. 71), my fourth proposition predicts that the “terrorism” label is more likely to be reported when the perpetrators of violence hold political views that are different from those held by the news outlets and journalists reporting on the violence (see
Consider a final example: the Boston Massacre. Within weeks after the March 5, 1770 attack on King Street in Boston, Massachusetts, “massacre” started to appear as a label in the local press (
In sum, only looking at the characteristics of the perpetrator(s) and target(s) of violence limits our ability to explain “terrorism” labeling. Equally important are the news outlets reporting on the violence. Evidence suggests that the likelihood and frequency of “terrorism” labeling is greatest when news outlets are socially close to the target(s), while simultaneously distant from the perpetrator(s).
Morality is a quantitative variable that includes not only social control, but also social approval (
By identifying the conditions under which violence is praised, geometric logic provides an alternative explanation for why “one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter”. Rather than being subjective or in the eye of the beholder, geometric logic predicts that the distinction between “terrorist” and “freedom fighter” partially results from the evaluators (e.g., news outlets) and their different relations to the principals. Multiple news outlets may report different moral labels (e.g., “terrorism” and “liberation”) for the same act of violence because their respective relationships with the principals result in different geometries. While one news outlet may be socially close to the target(s) and socially distant from the perpetrator(s), another outlet may be socially close to the perpetrator(s) and socially distant from the target(s). I argue that the latter configuration is conducive to positive labeling. Stated more formally:
If positive, neutral, and negative news labeling is partially a function of social geometry, the evolution of moral news labeling in response to violence may also be explainable. In other words, it may be possible to partially explain and predict how moral news labeling changes over time. Specifically, due to the rise of the internet and electronic communications in recent decades, the assortment of digital media platforms, news organizations, and journalists have been expanding. This change may be resulting in more variation in geometric configurations for each act of violence and an increase in the variety of moral labels reported. This logic informs my final provisional proposition:
This paper focused on understanding variation in news labels of violence, which reflect moral judgments. The news labeling of violence is an aspect of social control and can be partially explained by the geometric configuration of violent acts. Specifically, I proposed that, all else constant, the likelihood and frequency of “terrorism” labeling in response to violence is greatest when a culturally unconventional and unorganized perpetrator, who is socially distant from the news outlet reporting on the conflict, attacks a conventional and organized stranger who is socially close to the news outlet reporting on the conflict. Furthermore, I argued that as the social closeness between the news outlet, perpetrator, and target start to equalize, neutral labeling increases. Positive labeling, on the other hand, is likely to increase as the news outlet becomes more intimate with and culturally similar to the perpetrator of violence, while at the same time becoming relationally and culturally distant from the victim. Finally, I argued that the rise of electronic media is increasing the assortment of news outlets and journalists reporting on mass violence. This has likely resulted in an increase in the diversity of geometric configurations for each act of violence. And as diversity in geometric configurations increases, I would expect the variety of moral news labels reported in response to violence to also increase and agreement over how to label mass violence to decrease.
These predictions, informed by my seven propositions, offer important contributions to the literatures on “terrorism” labeling and social control. First, my approach emphasizes variables, such as the relational distance between principals and the organizational direction of the attack, that have often been ignored in prior explanations of “terrorism” labeling. Second, my formulations are stated in terms of sociological variables and ignore speculation about psychological mindsets. As a result, the variables in my propositions are highly observable, making them easier to test. And it is a test of my formulations that is needed next. After all, the utility of an explanation is largely dependent on its validity. Third, my approach to “terrorism” labeling demonstrates that news labeling belongs to the family of social control. News labeling may be considered an act of justice like law, genocide, homicide, suicide, therapy, gossip, avoidance, and other forms of social control. However, unlike most theory and research on social control, my analysis of “terrorism” labeling explores the definition of deviance, not the response to deviance. Additionally, I move beyond prior work on therapeutic labeling and begin to address the social conditions conducive to negative labeling.
I would like to thank Casey Boches, Mark Cooney, Michele Dillon, Nicole Fox, James Tucker, and several anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts.
Consider just a few definitions of terrorism. Black defines terrorism in purely sociological terms: “self-help by organized civilians who covertly inflict mass violence on other civilians” (
The use of “terrorism” was uncommon at the time. “Terrorism” became widely used as a media label in the early 1970s (