Terrorism and immigration undoubtedly represent two of the most pressing fears of Western societies and the mass media are flooded with both images of illegal immigrants desperately seeking entry into Europe and videos documenting the crimes and atrocities committed by members of the Islamic State. Debate produced by these news swings between humanitarianism and disdain, the assumption of responsibility and censorship. Although distinguished by what we define “low-” and “high-intensity” characterizations of terror, the rhetoric about an “invasion” of foreigners and warnings of the menacing presence of ISIS in Europe overlap in the emotional effects produced by their representations. The Paper aims to study the impact of selected iconographic elements juxtaposing the figures of “immigrant” and “terrorist” on the Italian public’s emotions, threat perceptions and policy preferences. By using an experimental survey design encompassing multimedia contents, the Paper examines whether a dual-intensity characterization of terror has an effective validation in the targets of these representations depending on the information and communicative stimuli received. The Paper can contribute to verify the hypothesis of a reciprocal influence between media discourse organised around the themes of “immigrant as a threat” and “terrorism from inside” and approval of security and foreign policies adopted to contrast the fear of terrorist attacks by Islamic fundamentalists at home and the spread of the Islamic State in the Middle East.