9 New Media and Counter-Narrative Strategies

Introduction 9 New Media and Counter-Narrative This chapter examines the potential for the use of new media technologies in countering violent extremist narratives. The debate over extremist narratives and counter-strategies is set against a complex background Strategies of information and communication technologies (ICT) that both help and hinder the ability of governments and agencies to combat the use of these same technologies by extremists for propaganda, radicalisation, recruitment, and operational purposes. Whilst states are undeniably lagging in their use of new media, they do possess the resources to engage in these dynamic spaces, if a few important considerations are Tim Stevens taken into account. The following chapter discusses both the new media environment and how states Associate Fellow of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, might begin to engage more effectively with new media in order to counteract the propagation of King’s College London extremist narratives. The new media environment The term ‘new media’ has arisen almost organically in recent years, and has developed in opposition to ‘old’ or traditional forms of media, such as newspapers, television and radio. These familiar technologies are often characterised as ‘one-to-many’ systems of information delivery, centrally produced, and distributed through linear supply chains to multiple consumers. By contrast, new media forms – principally reliant on networked digital computing devices – are typified as interactive, ‘many-to-many’ exchange systems, which have also augmented the possibilities of rapid one-to-one communication across global networks. The boundaries between production and consumption have been substantially blurred by new media, such that consumers of digitally-mediated information are also usually producers too. In the current discussion, this is perhaps best exemplified by the phenomenon commonly known since 2004 as Web 2.0.1 There are a number of differences between Web 2.0 and the web’s first iteration, Web 1.0. Static websites still exist but have been overtaken in ubiquity and importance by user-generated content on blogs, social networking sites, web forums, file-sharing sites, etc, where the emphasis is on creating content rather than just reading it. In information management-speak, this illustrates the shift from ‘old’ client-server relationships to ‘new’ peer-to-peer relationships. Web 2.0 derives its value not from content provided by site owners only but by site users too, who are themselves creators of content. This surge in ‘user-generated content’ spurred a massive increase in types of web platform with which we are now all familiar. These include free blogging platforms (Wordpress, Blogger, LiveJournal), social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook, Ning, LinkedIn), content aggregators (Bloglines, Google Reader, Netvibes, Topix), online media sharing (YouTube, Hulu, Last.fm, Flickr), mashup tools (Google Maps, Yahoo! Pipes), real-time microblogging services (Twitter, FriendFeed, Tumblr), web forums, distributed online gaming, etc., where the emphasis is on creating content and social meaning, rather than media consumption alone. Theorists generally agree that these factors have helped in some way to ‘flatten’ traditional hierarchies of information exchange, with the potential to ‘democratise’ the postmodern public sphere.2 How this is playing out is much disputed, with some, like Herman and McChesney, arguing that far from doing so, access to global information flows is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few multinational corporations.3 As internet censorship becomes the live issue for governments worldwide into the next 11 11 decade, we may also witness the ‘Balkanisation’ of the internet – a far cry from the original promise of the engage.14 Media are part of a matrix of radicalising factors, and it follows that responses aimed at web, let alone the assertions of early cyber-utopians like Peter Ludlow, for whom cyberspace was a new countering radicalisation should take full account of all facets of people’s social environments, not just world beyond the reach of government.4 those mediated through communications technologies. In the same fashion, just as extremist narratives would exist without contemporary information technologies, the deployment of computer-mediated Although the web is the best known example of an internet-based technology,5 there are others that also counter-narratives should only be as part of a suite of interlinked operations beneath a coherent strategic qualify as new media. Virtual worlds, networked computer games, instant messaging, various internet umbrella. Due to the global environment of new media, global engagement is necessary: the best tools for communications channels, and many more digital platforms form the varied ‘ecosystem’ of new media. this are new media themselves. ‘Old’ media have also come on board, with newspapers and television channels increasingly offering interactive platforms through which people can access content at their convenience, and often for free, as well However, not all of the target audiences towards whom counter-narratives might be directed are necessarily as engage in feedback with programme broadcasters and makers. In an important sense, the distinction engaged with new media. In the West, this mainly applies to older members of the public – who are not between ‘new’ and ‘old’ media is becoming slightly redundant and it may, as public diplomacy expert Matt very likely to constitute a target demographic in this case – but young people are increasingly ‘wired’ via Armstrong consistently avers, be more useful to think in terms of ‘now media’ instead.6 domestic broadband, or, more often, ‘wireless’, by virtue of near-saturation internet-ready mobile telephony. The same applies to the rich countries of east and southeast Asia. In southern Asia, the Middle The ecology of new media presents opportunities for multiple actors to exploit the relative anonymity, East, and North Africa, domestic internet connections are less widespread but network functions are often velocity and ubiquity of the global internet for their own ends, for good or ill. The existence of both fulfilled by educational establishments and public internet facilities. socially constructive and detrimental outcomes has led to what a recent Chatham House report termed, ‘the dilemma of the technological commons’.7 Often forgotten in the context of this discussion is the importance of cellphones to citizens of less- developed countries.15 Whilst the global internet-using population is somewhere around 1.5 billion,16 Political extremists have long been users of networked communications technologies8 but it is only mobile phone users easily exceed three billion.17 In addition to this vast network of voice users, SMS (text since 9/11 that the relationship between terrorism and the internet has been a significant focus of policy message) channels are also significant communications vectors globally. As more cellphones incorporate concerns. Islamists are not at present the only violent extremist groups using new media, but the framing internet functionality as standard, with the added attractions of iPhone applications, augmented reality context of most of this discussion is undeniably the ‘War on Terror’, with its emphasis on global jihadism. and other new developments, we can expect to see them becoming more important generally, but Although the technical proficiency of groups like al-Qaeda is often exaggerated,9 it is clear that Islamists particularly in countries with less developed static internet infrastructures. Therefore, we should not think are tapping into new media technologies as a very effective vehicle for their anti-Western narratives. that ‘new media’ equates just to those that are accessed via fixed and mobile personal computers. Video is particularly important: of insurgent attacks in Afghanistan, IED explosions in Iraq and statements The following sections will deal primarily with the internet as the example par excellence of a new media by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri – all of which are channelled onto the internet by organisations technology. This is principally due to its increasing ubiquity, and the relative familiarity with which we like al-Fajr Media Center and the Global Islamic Media Front as files tailor-made for a range of platforms regard it. However, other forms of social media exist, and will develop rapidly in the coming years, and and bandwidth capacities.10 These are circulated and widely-distributed by further tiers of activists and the following comments should be born in mind when we consider all types of digital communications sympathisers through forums, chatrooms and email, and onto high-profile sites like YouTube, amongst platforms. many others. Not only can these serve as inspiration to a wide range of interested parties, but the same platforms are used by radical preachers, ideologues, self-appointed commentators, and what al-Qaeda New media: opportunities and obstacles expert Jarret Brachman terms ‘jihobbyists’. The emphasis is not only on the viral circulation of ‘core’ video Media theorist Marshall McLuhan is probably best remembered for his oft-quoted maxim, ‘the medium and other material, but on the production of one’s own material that promotes the narrative of jihad.11 is the message’.18 By this, he did not imply, as is commonly thought, that technology is more important The ‘e-jihad’ has

Load more