Privilege and 9/11: risk perception, terrorist acts and the White male effect
Date
2006
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
The World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 (9/11) altered the risk perception landscape in the U.S., leading the public to acknowledge the threat of terrorist acts in their daily lives (Roberts & Em 2003). This historic event forced the public to analyze their vulnerability to terrorist acts. Research using social demographic characteristics have revealed how race and gender influence perceived levels of risk. This literature has shown that white males in the US often perceive less risk in society (Finucane et al. 2000; Marshall 2004) than other racial and gendered categories. Flynn, Slovic & Mertz (1994) found that conservative White males of high social economic status perceived less risk, and labeled it the "white male effect". Elsewhere, Slovic claimed that "white males see less risk in the world because they create, manage, control and benefit from many of the major technologies and activities" in the US (2000: 402); their privilege acts to lessen their perceptions of risk. Because the widespread transformation brought by the 9/11 terrorist attacks on risk perception, this thesis retests Slovic's thesis, for it is doubtful if theories developed prior to 9/11 which posit that social and economic privilege lowers risk perceptions still apply in a post 9/11 context. Thus, this thesis reexamines the presence or absence of this "white male effect" and how social demographic variables interact with the characteristics of terrorist acts in a post 9/11 U.S.