Nussio Enzo, Böhmelt Tobias, Bove Vincenzo
Public Opin Q. 2021 Oct 7;85(3):900-912. doi: 10.1093/poq/nfab046. eCollection 2021 Fall.
Terrorists aim at influencing audiences beyond their immediate victims, but can only achieve this if an attack receives sufficient public attention. Previous research shows that terrorism can affect public opinion, but these studies are mainly based on emblematic single cases and relate to varying measures of influence, which are difficult to compare. This research focuses on the first-order effect of terrorism: attention. To analyze whether terrorists get attention, we combine a quasi-experimental approach for causal identification with a comparative design. We compile data from Eurobarometer surveys and contrast responses of more than 80,000 individuals surveyed before and after five diverse Islamist attacks in Europe in 2013-2019. Attention to terrorism increases in all targeted countries, regardless of attack size. Yet, while all incidents raise attention to terrorism, only larger attacks exert a meaningful impact across Europe.
恐怖分子旨在影响直接受害者之外的受众，但只有在袭击获得足够公众关注的情况下才能做到这一点。先前的研究表明，恐怖主义会影响公众舆论，但这些研究主要基于标志性的单一案例，且涉及不同的影响衡量标准，难以进行比较。本研究聚焦于恐怖主义的一阶效应：关注度。为分析恐怖分子是否获得关注，我们将用于因果识别的准实验方法与比较设计相结合。我们收集了欧洲晴雨表调查的数据，并对比了2013年至2019年欧洲五次不同的伊斯兰主义袭击前后接受调查的8万多人的回应。在所有目标国家，对恐怖主义的关注度都有所增加，无论袭击规模大小。然而，虽然所有事件都提高了对恐怖主义的关注度，但只有规模较大的袭击才在整个欧洲产生了有意义的影响。
