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This study examines how news images of refugees in the context of the war in Ukraine mobilize intergroup relations. A visual rhetorical analysis is used to examine the rhetorical strategies employed in news images of Ukrainian refugees in a mainstream Finnish national newspaper from February 25 to May 31, 2022. The data consisted of 465 images. The study constructed four humanizing visual rhetorical strategies based on the visual expression in news images: maternalizing, fragilizing, agonizing, and activizing. The rhetorical strategies constructed four subject positions for Ukrainian refugees: vulnerable victims, innocent victims, suffering Ukrainians, and persistent/resilient Ukrainians. All rhetorical strategies implicitly communicated the subject position of evil to Russia. The paper contributes to the current knowledge of the humanization of refugees in media discourse and the potential of media images to mobilize intergroup relations. Methodologically, the paper elaborates visual rhetorical analysis as a means of social psychological study of refugee discourse in the context of war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a multidimensional approach to collective violence. Stemming from the literature on collective violence and intergroup relations, a sociostructural model is proposed, functionally connecting the structure of intergroup relations with the variety of collective violence. Three archival databases on anti‐Jewish pogroms in Poland and the Russian Empire at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries are used to demonstrate the variability of types of pogrom violence and its relations with social structure. The results are discussed in light of various intergroup threat theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social psychology has focused on patterns of inequality (e.g., discrimination, stereotyping, stigma, intergroup relations) that underlie well‐documented disparities, often without engaging with the structural and intersectional patterns underlying these experiences. In this paper, we draw on intersectionality theory and research to illustrate how approaches to studying inequity and disparities in social psychology reflect a Western perspective, and structures work to uphold the status quo. It is argued that structures within the research process need to be made visible, both in terms of how research questions are framed, as well as on the representation within institutions responsible for producing and disseminating work addressing disparities. Engaging with intersectionality theory and research, we suggest four strategies that address individual and structural approaches to better position social psychology to contribute meaningfully to the reduction of disparate outcomes affecting minoritized individuals and groups. We suggest (a) examining and addressing the sources of inequality (e.g., addressing racism rather than the effects of racism), (b) carefully attending to language and framing in both the causes and impact of inequality and discrimination to shift the status quo in social psychology research and in society, (c) addressing representation within social psychology research, namely in critically examining representation and assumptions made about research samples, and (d) addressing representation in the "structure" of institutions. We offer these approaches, informed by intersectional theory, as tangible strategies to address some of the structural issues underlying inequality and disparities that can be addressed within social psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shared belief systems are generally assumed to forge policy networks. Empirical evidence whether and to what extend shared policy core beliefs create ally networks and under which circumstances shared policy core beliefs are not necessary to form these networks, however, is limited. Based on a novel inferential network approach in combination with mediation analysis, this study investigates the role of belief systems as a link between interest group type and policy preference congruence, ultimately leading to ally networks in the European Union. In order to measure the intervening effect of policy core beliefs, automated text analysis is used. Our results suggest that shared policy core beliefs are a strong mediator for members of the same interest group. In addition, "strange bedfellow" networks between NGOs and businesses do, in fact, lack belief congruence and emerge on issues with low potential for intergroup conflict. This paper makes a contribution to our understanding of ally network formation and adds to the emerging line of research which combines quantitative text with inferential network analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]