Fostering partnerships between authorities and racial/ethnic minority communities is critical to counterterrorism efforts. Moreover, recent theory suggests that counterterrorism efforts should be rooted in an understanding of terrorism and political violence as a consequence of intergroup conflict. The “war on terror” and harsh law enforcement tactics has increased the tendency to stereotype racial/ethnic minority communities, such as Muslims, and defining entire racial/ethnic minority communities as a ‘threat’, increasing isolation among racial/ethnic minority communities. Isolation is one set of conditions that predisposes individuals and groups to terrorism. Viewing authority outreach to racial/ethnic minority communities as fundamentally an intergroup encounter, the purpose of this project was to identify existing authority minority-outreach communication frames, identify the minority-outreach communication frames that elicit hostility/backlash, as well as the minority-outreach communication frames that are most likely to foster willingness to build partnerships with authorities.
Publication Information
Glasford, Demis E. July. “Understanding Community Responses to Authority/Law Enforcement Minority-Outreach Intergroup Communication Frames" College Park, MD: START, 2016. https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START-ResearchBrief-UnderstandingCommunityResponsestoMin-Outreach_July2016.pdf