Reactions of Dutch Twitter users to terrorist attacks happening psychologically close by or far away.

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2017-07-03
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en
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The threat level for terrorist attacks in the Netherlands is four out of five, with a real chance of an attack. In other words, terrorism has become a sustainable threat towards society. However, there is limited research on the reactions of Dutch natives towards attacks that have already happened. Therefore, the current study examined whether there was a difference in reaction of Dutch natives towards recent attacks in Bagdad, Beirut, Brussels and Paris. More specifically, whether there was a difference in reaction to attacks that happened psychologically close (Brussels and Paris) compared to psychologically far away (Bagdad and Beirut). Six independent coders analyzed a corpus of Tweets on differences in general attitude and differences in use of content categories. The results showed that a neutral attitude was mostly evoked by both the attacks close by and far away. Furthermore, news was found more often as a content category for the attacks far away compared to close by. In addition, personal experiences and expressing well wishes/requesting help were found more often as a content category for the attacks close by compared to far away. For future research it could be examined whether different cultures react differently to terrorist attacks happening psychologically close by or far away.
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