Abstract
Positioning theory was invoked to predict that framing effects of political violence are moderated by the social position of the message receiver. As a reference, for the purpose of this study, the societal structural configurations of Malay Muslims and Filipino Christians led to their classification as respondents from the Dominant Social Position, and Malay Christians and Filipino Muslims as participants in the Nondominant Social Position, respectively. Respondents read a vignette about either a terrorist or a freedom fighter who bombed a building, and then described the story character using trait attributes on a semantic differential scale. Respondents from disadvantaged groups preferred freedom fighters over terrorists, whereas respondents from dominant groups evaluated terrorists more highly than freedom fighters.
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