Girvan, ErikHull, Christina2019-04-302019-04-302019-04-30https://hdl.handle.net/1794/24525This thesis investigates media impressions between radical far right violent extremism and radical Islamic violent extremism to see if impression formation explains differences in our associations of violent extremists. Focusing on two cases from 2015, the Charleston church shooting and the San Bernardino office shooting, this thesis examines impression formation to see if the initial categorizations of the extremists in the media change over time or remain consistent. This thesis explores whether violent extremists that are associated with the ingroup are more likely to have the impressions of them change over time to become more individuating than violent extremists associated with the outgroup which would remain more category-based. This thesis also addresses how to reduce bias that negative impressions of a group could cause, through intergroup contact.en-USAll Rights Reserved.Electronic Thesis or Dissertation