Social representations of terrorism and terrorists in youth

Abstract

The content and structure of youth’s social representations of terrorism and suicide bombers are considered. Features of social representations of the phenomenon of “terrorism” (the general idea) and of the subject of “a suicide bomber” are discussed. The distinctive features of modern terrorism and the role of mass media in their formation are described. The results of empirical study of the content and structure of social representations are outlined. A special attention is paid to the analysis of content-related and emotional components of social representations, identification of their basis categories. The assumption of a determinant role of prejudices in the development of social representations of a terrorist is made.