Thinking about the perception of the terrorist threat by young people

By Narayan

A bomb goes off in a populated town centre, there s a mass shooting on the beach, a
siege in office buildings in the capital. Since the 9/11 terrorist attack, the UK threat level, as
shown on the MI5 website has oscillated from substantial (an attack is a strong possibility),
to severe (an attack is highly likely). A significant development for this level of threat has
been globalised terrorism, which emerged prominently after the end of the cold war, with
improvements in global communications and technology. A globalised world produced
global terrorism. With that said, how are young people supposed to make sense of these
situations? How should terrorists and their accompanying threat be perceived? Critically
quite frankly!
Sidetracking to the psychology of perception for a moment, research in the field indicates
that perception is an active process. The process of arriving at a conclusion in which
people develop their own version of reality based on the information received through the
five senses. In addition, what people perceive and how they perceive, are greatly
influenced by past experiences, education, cultural values, and roles requirements. As a
consequence perception is subjective, based on the assumptions and preconceptions of
an individual. A few simple optical illusions illustrate the subjective nature of perception
below; how well do your powers of perception fair?

Briefly summing up,

cognitive psychology
presents three useful
pitfalls that can help
young people better
perceive the terrorist
threat. We tend to
perceive what we expect to perceive; new information is added on to existing images;
mind-sets, thinking in certain ways, tend to be quick to form but resistant to change. By
becoming aware and understanding these common errors in the our thought processes, it
allows us, as young people, to be more critical and arrive at better conclusions, with all the
information thrown our way in this globalised age of mass digital communication. So what
are the general sources of information for young people when it comes to terrorist threats?

The television, internet and social media in particular are the main sources for information
of the youth of today. According to a YouthNet research survey, taken as part of the
European Digital Youth Information Project 2010 (on the theme of online information for
young people), on average respondents spent more than four hours a day online. Four
plus hours is a significant amount! Establishing that, the online medium portrays a vast
array of information on the terrorist threat from both sides of the fence for young people.
On the one hand, there is the mainstream online news providing fast news and live
coverage of terrorist threats on television. The traumatic scenes of these attacks such as,
the 7/7 London bombings in 2005, the recent Charlie Hebdo siege, and triple terrorists
attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait, normally provide western take on events similarly
repeated throughout most online and television outlets. On the other hand, social media
sites provide opinionated viewpoints from live tweets to blogged articles, and Facebook
status updates from the millions of users, including accounts from official sources as well
as those from terrorists organisations and their supporters.
Keeping in mind the three common pitfalls in perception mentioned earlier, we as young
people need to be more actively aware and critical when absorbing this information. A
great example is David Camerons extremism speech in Birmingham in July, where he
claimed what we are fighting, in Islamist extremism, is an ideology. With many of the
mainstream news channels reiterating this point, it can cause the creation of a mind-set
which stigmatises muslims. Particularly, with images of muslim terrorists, such as Jihadhi
John, Al-Qaeda holstering Islamic flags, and terrorists shouting arabic utterances, this may
colour young peoples perception of terrorist threats. Linking Islam and terrorism together,
may prove to be counter productive and missing the real issue. There are other extremist
ideologies that exist, the buddhist 969 movement or KKK for example, Should we really
perceive Ideology as the problem?
A better way to discern the terrorist threat could be to take an empathetic step in their
minds. Why do terrorists commit these violent atrocities? What convinces young people to
run away and to join ISIL or other terrorist factions? Is ideology to blame? There are no
clear answers to these questions. However thinking on these lines brings us closer to
perceive in a clearer way, than accepting the repeated rhetoric thrown at us through
various channels whether online or elsewhere. Instead pointing to Ideology as the
problem, Prof Andrew Silke a counter-terrorism specialist and advisor of the Cabinet
Office and the UN says research shows that people are drawn to terrorism more because
of identity issues than ideology. He explains;
Why would anyone want to take their family to Syria to join Islamic State? he asked.
Nobody is going to say they are doing it to join the most evil movement that has ever
existed. So you need to see it more in terms of how they see themselves and how they see
the world. Then you can see the incentives to join and realistic obstacles to them doing it.

Exploring the greater debate of the terrorist threat from different angles, will help young
people to shed rigid mind-sets as new information assimilated adds on to existing images
and forms the bigger picture. By this, what young people expect to perceive of the terrorist
threat - the image that comes to mind when you think of a terrorist - can change with a
critical outlook, by being more aware of our thought process and the pitfalls in perception,
young people can begin to question where these images come from, and why they stick.
So in essence when it comes complex political assessments, be critical and question
vigilantly.