Social and Emotional Intelligence as Factors in Terrorist Propaganda: An Analysis of the Way Mass Media Portrays the Behavior of Islamic Terrorist Groups

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Sustainability review:

1. When it comes to the definition of terrorism, in contemporary society, it is widely considered violence against the state. I think that paragraph on page 4 that defines terrorism needs to include more nuance. Please review:
   118. Lizardo, O (2008) Defining and theorizing terrorism: A global actor-centered approach. Journal of World-Systems Research 14(2): 91–118.
   119. Tuman, JS (2010) The struggle to define terrorism. In: Communicating Terror: The Rhetorical Dimensions of Terrorism, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
2. The Oklahoma City bomber and ISIS both directed their violence against a state entity or symbol.
3. I appreciate the distinction between terrorists and authentic Muslims, but even feel that the comparison in the text is satirical, although I can see that the authors may feel similarly and are defending this facetious description of a religion as terrorism.
4. On page 6, it is not clear why there was an anecdote about news about terrorism sparking anti-immigrant sentiments. It feels out of place.
5. Some background information (even just a paragraph) on why Romania was selected would be helpful. With regards to the US, lots of media research exists. See example below:
   652. Bowe, B. J., Fahmy, S., & Wanta, W. (2013). Missing religion: Second level agenda setting and Islam in American newspapers. International Communication Gazette, 75(7), 636-652.
6. Is “external mass media” code for foreign or multinational news? I think some more clarification before the hypotheses can be helpful. You may wish to refer to the following study:
   525. Roman, N., Alkazemi, M. F., & Stewart, M. C. (2020). Tweeting about terror: A world systems theory approach to comparing international newspaper coverage online. International Communication Gazette, 82(6), 507-525.
   526. Fahmy, S. S. (2020). The age of terrorism media: The visual narratives of the Islamic State Group's Dabiq magazine. International Communication Gazette, 82(3), 260-288.
7. It is not clear why the authors are coding for punctuation marks? I have never seen that before in a study. Here are the closest things I have seen to that:
   336. Vultee, F. (2006). “Fatwa on the Bunny” News Language and the Creation of Meaning About the Middle East. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 30(4), 319-336.
   337. Vultee, F. (2012). A paleontology of style: The evolution of the Middle East in the AP Stylebook 1977–2010. Journalism Practice, 6(4), 450-464.
8. I believe the abbreviation for mean is a capitalized M. Also, please proofread your article. Some percentages reported use periods, while others use commas. Aim for consistency.
9. It’s not clear how the proportions in Figure 1 were calculated.
10. With so much data, the results could go far deeper. What do the results show about Romania and its media representations of Arabs and Muslims? For reference please look at the following:
    26. Alkazemi, M., Wei, H., & Wanta, W. (2019). Terrorists or Pilgrims: A Comparison of Attributes of Chinese Muslims in the World Press. Journal of Media and Religion, 18(1), 13-26.
11. The discussion is not related to the findings of the article. If the role of the media is gate-keeping, then its job is not to paint positive portrayals of Muslims or any other group. Perhaps that is the role of civil society or diplomatic missions.
12. How are the results and discussions related to social and emotional intelligence? A big part of the paper focused on that. It’s confusing to not see it incorporated into the analysis.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper addresses a very topical issue on terrorism propaganda and the role of mass media. The paper is well-written and has an appropriate structure. Nevertheless, the paper has some gaps in the introductory sections. Please refer to more recent findings on the fourth Wave of terrorism, which started in the late 1970s. Refer at least cursorily to the following recent paper on the determinants of terrorism https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11293-021-09710-9 

Extend the discussion part and elaborate on typos and missing references.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors did a good job of addressing criticisms. 

Some text is italicized when it should not be.

Author Response

Please see the attachement.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf