Citation

Innes M. Br. J. Sociol. 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Crime and Security Research Institute, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, London School of Economics and Political Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/1468-4446.12735

PMID

32002987

Abstract

Informed by social media data collected following four terror attacks in the UK in 2017, this article delineates a series of "techniques of disinformation" used by different actors to try and influence how the events were publicly defined and understood. By studying the causes and consequences of misleading information following terror attacks, the article contributes empirically to the neglected topic of social reactions to terrorism. It also advances scholarship on the workings of disinforming communications, by focusing on a domain other than political elections, which has been the empirical focus for most studies of disinformation to date. Theoretically, the analysis is framed by drawing an analogy with Gresham Sykes and David Matza's (1957) account of the role of "techniques of neutralization" originally published in the American Sociological Review. The connection being that where they studied deviant behaviour, a similar analytic lens can usefully be applied to disinformation cast as "deviant" information.

© 2020 The Authors. The British Journal of Sociology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of London School of Economics and Political Science.

Language: en

Keywords

disinformation; social media; terrorism