Intergroup Conflict and the Media: An Experimental Study of Greek Students after the 2008 Riots

• Main Authors: Alexia Katsanidou, David Hugh-Jones, Gerhard Riener
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Bielefeld 2011-12-01
• Series: International Journal of Conflict and Violence
• Subjects: dictator game, Greece, media, conflict, spiral of silence, riots
• Online Access: http://www.ijcv.org/index.php/ijcv/article/view/172
• ISSN: 1864-1385

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 51.2pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 51.2pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 32px;">We report a laboratory experiment in the context of the December 2008 riots in Greece, after the killing of a 15-year-old student by a policeman. Our sample </span></span><span style="line-height: 32px; font-size: medium;">comprised 266 students from the University of Thessaloniki. We tested whether media reports can affect people’s willingness to harm those in opposing groups </span><span style="line-height: 32px; font-size: medium;">by examining the way students allocated money between themselves and others of various professions, including police, in modified dictator games. Exposure </span><span style="line-height: 32px; font-size: medium;">to media reports decreased giving to police, but only when choices were private. Laboratory behaviour was correlated with self-reported participation in demonstrations, </span><span style="line-height: 32px; font-size: medium;">supporting the external validity of our measure. Media exposure appears to have affected behaviour by different pathways than those proposed </span><span style="line-height: 32px; font-size: medium;">in the existing literature, including “spiral of silence” and “frame alignment” theories.</span></p></p>