- BOSTON (UPI) -- Terrorism
is likely to continue against the United States because teenagers around
the world view Americans negatively, due in large part to American movies,
TV and popular music, a Boston University study said Monday.
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- There's apparently little that can be done immediately
to change the widespread negative attitudes of these anti-American teens,
the breeding ground for future terrorist acts against the United States,
the study's authors say.
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- "There appears to be a significant probability that
the threat of terrorist acts against Americans will continue in the years
ahead," BU professors Margaret H. DeFleur and Melvin L. DeFleur said
in their study.
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- "It would take some triggering incident and the
presence of messianic militant groups to ignite, but it's a collective
perception with the scary potential of becoming a bloody reality when these
global teens come of age."
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- The DeFleurs based their conclusions on responses from
1,259 high school students from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, South Korea, Mexico,
China, Spain, Taiwan, the Dominican Republic, Pakistan, Nigeria, Italy
and Argentina.
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- Teens in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain held the most negative
views, closely followed by those in South Korea and Mexico. Teens from
Nigeria and Italy were generally neutral, while only in Argentina did teens
view Americans somewhat favorably.
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- The shared negative beliefs and attitudes create a hard-to-crack
foundation for breeding future terrorism, the authors said.
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- For the attitudes to erupt into terrorist action, they
must be combined with religious differences, provocative incidents by the
United States and the existence of militants bent on harming Americans,
the DeFleurs said.
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- The foreign teens generally viewed Americans as violent,
materialistic, dominating, disrespectful to those unlike them, not generous,
lacking concern for the poor, without strong family values and not peaceful.
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- They also believe many Americans engage in criminal activities
and American women are sexually immoral, according to the study.
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- "The findings suggest that problems for Americans
are likely to continue into the foreseeable future in terms of terrorism
threats," the researchers said.
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- The DeFleurs also said that while it is clear that these
teens developed their understandings and interpretations of Americans from
American movies, TV, video games, and music CDs, "gaining some sort
of easy way to manipulate that complex communication process that will
produce (positive) results quickly seems most unlikely."
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- While possibilities for immediate action by Americans
are limited, the authors suggest there may be long-term remedies.
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- Those would include public information campaigns, reviews
or evaluations of movies and other media products.
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- The public should also make clear to producers and distributors
of media content to other nations, the researchers said, "that what
they are now providing has in many cases become a source of very negative
and harmful definitions of Americans and their way of life."
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- ___
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- The full report can be found at the Web site: bu.edu/news/releases/2002/defleur/report.pdf
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- Copyright © 2002 United Press International. All
rights reserved.
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