Victim-blaming, manipulation, and denial: How terrorists use language to justify violence
Victim-blaming, denial and reversal are among the tactics used by terrorists to justify their violent actions and influence audience perceptions of harm and agency, according to a new Charles Darwin University (CDU) study examining the language of some of the world’s most notorious individuals.
The study by CDU Linguistics Lecturer and Forensic Linguistics expert Dr Awni Etaywe analysed rhetoric used in texts by Osama Bin Laden, former Boko Haram leader Abubaker Shekau, and Christchurch Mosque gunman Brenton Tarrant.
The analysis revealed the individuals used a variety of linguistic tactics to justify their respective violent actions such as ‘discrediting’ that is to tarnish a target subject to challenge their credibility and capabilities, ‘blaming and denying’ to shift responsibility and blame onto victims, and ‘deontic retaliation’ which involves a variety of tactics terrorists use to present an act of violence as a justified response or retaliation to a past event or offence.
The analysis also shows the individuals use the ‘boulomaic function’, chiefly via wording such as ‘want’, ‘wish’ and ‘hope’ to express the fantasy desire to cause harm without coercing specific actions.
Dr Etaywe said while the individuals adopted a variety of the above, all presented themselves positively while portraying victims negatively.
“This approach articulates beliefs advantageous to threateners while discrediting, delegitimising and blaming victims,” Dr Etaywe said.
“Discrediting is notably prominent in the ‘manipulation’ by texts of Bin Laden and Shekau to influence victim’s behaviour through deterrence or compulsion. Bin Laden strategically employs discrediting in his threat texts to sway the American people’s trust in their political leadership, particularly the Bush administration’s propriety, tenacity and veracity, and to influence anti-war sentiment and stance towards war.
“Shekau’s act of discrediting serves to undermine governance and power image in Nigeria. Shekau enhances his own capacity while casting doubt on the victims’ capacity, manipulating their perception of his power and his opponents’ incapability.
“The boulomaic function is evident in Tarrant’s texts. The bursty repetition of the verb ‘want’ in the context of direct threats emphasises this strong inclination.”
Dr Etaywe said by examining the texts, it allows experts to understand how threats can force behavioural compliance (through e.g. manipulation and retaliation) and cause damage to the subjects of the texts, and how threat texts can offer clues to author’s commitment to violence.
“This offers insight to criminal interrogators on why some texts are polarising, radicalising and mind-unsettling,” he said.
Dr Etaywe is a leading expert in forensic linguistics focusing on terrorism, cybercrime, and digital deviance. His previous research includes a study examining how terrorists use language to mobilise support and legitimise harm, and a study on how far-right conspiratorially terrorist discourse leverages social bonds to incite hatred and radical actions – that is the role of social affiliation in incitement.
Dr Etaywe said this analysis helps society to understand how similar linguistic tactics are used by individuals many might not consider violent extremist, such as former President Donald Trump, to influence and manipulate public perception and behaviour in contemporary media discourse.
‘Discursive pragmatics of justification in terrorist threat texts: Victim-blaming, denying, discrediting, legitimating, manipulating, and retaliation’ was published in the journal Discourse & Society.
The study by Dr Awni Etaywe explores an under-researched area of tactics used in terrorist threat texts and their investigative value
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6 comments
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Andrew Smith
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Arnd
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Clakka
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paul walter
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frances
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Bert
Return to home pageSounds like our right wing MSM, influencers, LNP etc. who have revisited ‘the great replacement’ with headlines shouting at and dog whistling temporary resident international students under the NOM net OS migration; former being described as ‘immigrants’ and the latter ‘immigration’, but false and suggestive.
Supports the ‘great replacement’ and leads onto both radical language, social Darwinist ideas and produces ‘stochastic terrorism’ a la Christchurch.
Wiki: ‘Stochastic terrorism is when a political or media figure publicly demonizes a person or group in a way that inspires supporters of the figure to commit a violent act against the target of the communication. Unlike incitement to terrorism, this is accomplished by using indirect, vague, or coded language that allows the instigator to plausibly disclaim responsibility for the resulting violence. A key element is the use of social media and other distributed forms of communications where the person who carries out the violence has no direct connection to the users of violent rhetoric.’
Coincidentally, a major Anglosphere RW media group, according to Media Matters, actually employed one of the architects of the white nationalist radical right, friend of dec. white nationalist John Tanton and guess Tucker Carlson, i.e. Peter Brimelow of VDare reporting to senior management (editorial advice?), see his Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Brimelow
Really? And what, exactly, did Dr Etaywe expect? That perpetrators present themselves negatively, and their victims positively?
Calling out US American war mongering is hardly the sole preserve of high level linguistic cunning and strategic word manipulation. The simple ability to call it as you see it is quite sufficient.
That the political west, under the leadership of the world’s most powerful military, has a decades-long history of advancing the interests of its ruling class by precipitating ethical and political train crashes is not debatable.
What is the subject of legitimate debate is what should be done about it, and to what degree violence makes matters better or worse.
Yes, indeed Arnd.
I am reminded of “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”
Who now are the arbiters of common morality in this social media / AI based world? Noting for example Newscorp’s AI deals with Google, OpenAI et al from the treacherous Silicon Valley.
The increasingly chaotic verbiage that constitutes political discourse over, say, the last 40 years, to me is rooted in notions of supremacy and oppression, rather than having a base in respect, enduring rational discourse, negotiation, compromise and agreement for the betterment of all (for the time being).
Over the last 10-15 years it has reached levels of absurdity, where nearly all states across the globe, in a top-down vs bottom-up reckoning, rather than protect the diversity of their citizens, impose on them ideologies and constraints so often invented by corporations and mainstream media pursuing profit for the few at any cost. And those impositions are enforced by the state’s increasingly militarized police forces and pernicious albeit overloaded penal system. Surely a form of ‘terrorism’ in anybody’s book.
This chaotic verbiage is at a peak, for example, in the current Russia / Ukraine and Israel / Palestine matters, and the recent blatant attacks on the ICJ / ICC and United Nations as a whole. Such matters and attacks must surely be seen as desperation to maintain as the status quo the broken and collapsing industrial models of the past, enforced by politics corrupted by corporatized, militarized hegemonies, and those seemingly inextricably beholden to them. A right old propaganda and psychological blackmail upon ordinary citizens. In its entirety, a process now so out of control (especially in the ‘West’) that it is increasingly blowing itself and prospects of a healthy world asunder.
Albeit there is a developing push-back from more ‘enlightened’ parties promoting ‘multipolar’ dialogue and action along with ‘triangular co-operation’. In this they are backing in themselves as part of a now unavoidably interdependent world, and in that the better functioning of the United Nations. Meanwhile, the hegemonies via toxic domestic competitive politics and mass media do little to deconstruct their traps, opting for ‘terrorism’ via self-righteousness, blame, catastrophizing and regressive protectionist nationalist capitalism.
ABC RN’s Big Ideas recent podcast How to Make the Global North and the Global South play nicely together (presented by Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs) goes to such matters (particularly via a UN perspective). [It could be best reviewed via the transcript] The link (below) also has other worthy links, eg. The Future of International Cooperation
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/bigideas/cooperation-global-north-global-south-international-cooperation/103766668
The Gaza obscenity in a nutshell.
@ Andrew Smith: Seems in the US the PR/propaganda game – e.g. “meme makers” – is a nice little earner for some.
So it goes. Greed is good.
Could Orwell himself have predicted such enthusiastic complicity in our own oblivion?
https://newrepublic.com/article/181843/trump-reich-video-shows-deep-maga-sickness?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tnr_weekly
Such language is a deflection, such as in domestic violence, look what you made me do.