Sedykh N.S., Gshiyantz R.E. The graphical model of the social representations of terrorism

Abstract: This article presents the main results of an empirical research, the goal of which is to study the peculiarities of the student youth’s perception of subjects of terrorism. As such, the following were examined: a terrorist — the leader of a terrorist movement, responsible for development of corresponding ideology, propaganda, and promoting the idea of extremism for the purpose of recruiting new members into the ranks of the organization; a terrorist — the executant, member of a terrorist cell responsible for the preparation and carrying out of an act of terrorism; a male and a female terrorist bombers. The methodology behind the research is developed based on the semantic differential and is aimed at detecting the physical appearance, socio-demographic characteristics and character traits of terrorists, which will solve various problems with regards to carrying out their destructive actions. For the purpose of expansion the interpretations and development of conclusions, the author offers a graphical model of social representations of terrorism, which allows illustrating the key vectors of terrorist activity and the structure of perception about subjects of terrorism. This presents an interest in the context of problematics of antiterrorist activity. In the analysis of the results, one of the aspects taken into consideration is that of the role of mass-media in the social formation of the phenomenon of terrorism. The question of optimizing the social and informational-psychological countermeasures to terrorism under the modern circumstances becomes more relevant.

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