Social Media Campaigns Against Violent Extremism: A New Approach to Evaluating Video Storytelling

Authors

  • Sara Monaci Politecnico di Torino

Keywords:

social media campaign, storytelling, online violent extremism, countering narratives, online radicalization

Abstract

In response to the threats posed by jihadist online propaganda, multiple countering violent extremism (CVE) campaigns were carried out with the goal of offering counter and alternative narratives able to contrast those of terrorist organizations. Although there is growing literature on the topic of how to build an effective CVE program, there is a lack of knowledge about how to evaluate a CVE online campaign. Drawing from recent research in the health domain and in the CVE field, I present a new evaluation approach that entails through a comparative analysis of multiple CVE campaigns and a qualitative inquiry focused on the case study #heartofdarkness (#hod). To achieve this, two combined methods were adopted: a revised version of the Message Sensation Value index used in antismoking campaigns analyses to measure the videos’ appeal, and a set of focus groups aimed at collecting feedback on the videos’ storytelling with a sample target of at-risk youths and expert stakeholders.

Author Biography

Sara Monaci, Politecnico di Torino

Sara Monaci is Associate Professor in Media and Communication at Politecnico di Torino, (DIST). She’s Delegate of the Rector for Cinema and Media Engineering (Bachelor and Master degree).  She teaches Multimedia communication, Future Storytelling, ICT, Communication and Society in the course of degree in Cinema and Media Engineering (Politecnico di Torino) and she’s member of the International Research Network Sociology of Culture for ESA (European Sociological Association). In the past years she was Visitor Researcher at Brown University, Department of Italian Studies (Providence, RI, US) and she has been working for several cultural institutions such as Centre Pompidou (Videomuseum), Castello di Rivoli - Museo d’Arte Contemporanea,  Museo Nazionale del Cinema (Torino, IT).  At present she’s partner of SAFFRON (Semantic Analysis of Foreign Fighter Recruitment Online Networks), a EU funded project (2016 -2018) in the context of  PREVENTING RADICALISATION TO TERRORISM AND VIOLENT EXTREMISM program. In the context of SAFFRON she’s in charge of the social media campaign #heartofdarkness (www.theheartofdarkness.eu), a counter narrative tool for the prevention of violent radicalization among European youngsters.  Among her recent publications:  (2017), Explaining Islamic State online propaganda: a transmedia approach, in: International Journal of Communication, 

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Published

2020-02-13

Issue

Vol. 14 (2020)

Section

Articles

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