Mass media and persuasion: Evidence-based lessons for strategic communications in CVE, 1-8.
Hamid, Nafees. 2022. London: Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy, and Trends.
This source is a briefing note prepared by researcher Nafees Hamid for the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy, and Trends research programme, an interdisciplinary project based at King’s College London exploring the factors which shape violent and peaceful behaviour. The piece focuses on the employment of strategic communications within deradicalisation campaigns, outlining common misconceptions and summarising key takeaways regarding the efficacy of mass media in countering violent extremism. Though Hamid’s research is situated within the context of terrorism, numerous parallels can be drawn between deradicalisation and other effort which seeks to address an individual’s propensity to participate in conflict. A central component of the reintegration pillar of disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR) programmes, for instance, is the need to overcome ex-combatants’ socialisation to violence prior to their re-entry into their former communities. Hamid’s work examines the utility of mass media in this process and addresses a central misconception – that mass media persuasion, alone, can serve as the decisive factor in one’s decision to join or leave a violent extremist organisation (VEO). Individuals are rarely, if ever, motivated to enter or exit such groups by consuming visual, written, or spoken media alone. The power of mass media, instead, lies in its ability to influence perceptions of social norms, which, in turn, can reduce violent propensities. Fundamental shifts in core beliefs require person-to-person interactions; however, such belief changes are not necessary to move someone from a violent trajectory, in which an individual will actively participate in violence, to a non-violent one, where a passive belief in a group’s ideology remains. Ultimately, belief changes are social processes, with free-floating mass media offering an unsuitable, albeit dangerously attractive, substitute for the interpersonal exchanges central to any peacebuilding initiative.
Link: https://icsr.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/XCEPT-Briefing-Note_Mass-Media-and-Persuasion-Evidence-based-Lessons-for-Strategic-Communications-in-CVE.pdf