Propaganda isn't as powerful and everybody seems to think it is
To justify its invasion of Poland, Nazi Germany created an absurd false flag operation known as Operation Himmler, which staged a raid on the Gleiwitz radio station in Germany, carried out by German operatives wearing Polish uniforms. No one believed it. Image by Maveric149 (Daniel Mayer), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Danish Institute for International Studies explores the use of "counter-narratives" to dissuade potential terrorists from committing violent acts. Turns out, the “counter-narratives” didn’t do much. And the propaganda that the Danes were attempting to counter wasn't very effective, either.
In a recent study of the existing academic and grey research literature relevant to the development of media and communications strategies to counter violent extremism, Ferguson (2016), concludes that the focus on counter-narratives as a strategy to prevent terrorism, is tied to the underlying assumption that consuming violent words will lead to committing violent deeds (2016, 9), in other words, that ideas cause violent actions and therefore that ideas are the root cause, which must be removed. This leads to the sub-assumptions that, since propaganda is crucial to mobilisation, counter-propaganda must be crucial to countering it, and that real-world violent acts can be prevented by removing or falsifying ideas.
Evidence that counter-narratives are an effective method for intervention is absent. Ferguson finds that the scientific support for these assumptions is sparse and that, although ‘there is some evidence suggesting patterns of discourse and communication such as hate speech, dehumanisation, and identity-based narratives (or propaganda) can contribute to conditions where IBV [Identity Based Violence] or VE [Violent Extremism] becomes more likely, the causal relationship remains unproven’ (2016, 10), and further, that evidence that counter-narratives are an effective method for intervention is absent.
With regard to the central assumption that ideas cause action, Ferguson concludes that the literature does not support it, but rather shows that ‘it is possible for individuals to hold, express, and consume extreme views, without transgressing to violence’ (2016, 11). In other words, the same pathway, such as the adoption of an extreme ideology, can lead to different outcomes, what is known as multifinality. In addition to the lack of evidence that radical ideas always lead to violent acts, recent research also indicates that radical ideas are not always preconditions for violent acts, which are justified by reference to them.
The assumption that ideas precede and cause action is tied to a specific understanding of radicalisation to violence, which supposes an intellectual process through which an individual or a group is convinced by and adopts an ideological cause, thereby overcoming their assumed natural aversion to the use of violence and resulting in the acceptance and ultimately the use of violence to advance the cause.
In this typology, two general clusters of pathways into involvement in terrorist plots are identified, namely an ideological-political one (the entrepreneurs and their protégés) and various more personal ones (the misfits and the drifters). Hemmingsen, Crone & Witt (2016), have suggested that the intellectualist understanding of radicalisation should be supplemented with other understandings of the processes through which individuals come to act violently with reference to ideology. To understand how individuals with a violent, criminal background transform their criminal violence into political violence, they introduce the concept of the politicization of violence.
Related to this, Crone (2016), suggests ‘that ideology is not necessarily a precondition for violence, but that prior experience with violence is more often a precondition for engaging an extremist ideology’ (2016, abstract). Crone argues that not only previous experience of violence through crime, but also the attraction of violence and attempts to gain access to it by travelling to conflict zones, ‘may pave the way for an extremist engagement, sometimes including a loose or superficial affiliation with an extremist ideology’ (2016, 594).
Expanding on this work, we suggest that there are at least three different pathways through which individuals and groups come to act violently with reference to an ideology: Intellectual radicalisation into violent extremism. A process through which an individual or group becomes convinced by an ideological cause and, after accepting the use of violence to promote it, actually acts violently. This implies a change of attitude followed by a change of behaviour. Politicisation of violence. A process through which an individual or group for whom violence is already part of the communication repertoire adopts an ideological cause and begins to frame and/or understand violence as more noble. This implies a change of attitude, but not a change of behaviour.
Utilitarian attachment of ideology.
A process through which an individual or a group attaches an ideological cause to their own agendas, whether political or personal, in an attempt to legitimise them. This does not necessarily imply a change of behaviour or attitude, as the attachment of an ideological cause may be superficial or even purely rhetorical.
We are not suggesting that ideology, narratives, and propaganda are irrelevant, but rather that they may play several different roles and that this leads to a need for several different responses; some of which are not focused on the ideology, narratives, or propaganda themselves, but rather on the purposes for which they are adopted or attached. Although we speak of different pathways through which individuals and groups come to act with reference to an ideology, it is worth mentioning that individuals very rarely travel alone or in a vacuum.
If becoming convinced by a cause is not always the starting point or the reason why individuals or groups act violently with reference to an ideology, then perhaps the cause, the ideology, the narratives, or the propaganda should not always be at the centre of attempts to prevent terrorism. If a group or an individual is not convinced by an ideology but rather seeks it out to use it for other purposes, then exposing, correcting or ridiculing the ideology is unlikely to change anything. In such cases, the focus should be on uncovering the purposes for which individuals and groups are using the ideology and then attempting to provide alternative, societally more acceptable ways of serving those purposes. In some cases, addressing the ideology or the narratives may be exactly what is needed, but in others it may be a waste of time.
Even in cases where addressing the ideology or the narratives may be relevant, it is unlikely that doing so in a confrontational manner by correcting, exposing or ridiculing it will have the desired effect.
Read the whole thing: here.
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