Animating CVE: Online Animation as a Form of Counter-Narrative Orla [email protected] PhD Candidate@orlita School of Law and Government Dublin.

Animating CVE: Online Animation as a

Form of Counter-Narrative

Orla [email protected] Candidate @orlitaSchool of Law and GovernmentDublin City University

CVE & Animation

Abdullah - X

•Series of animated shorts , developed with CVE aims in mind•Support from YouTube and Google•Deliberate attempt to combat the ‘increasingly innovative and modern techniques jihadist recruiters…using to influence young Muslims.’ •Home Affairs Committee Report 2014: hope that ‘given the role that social media is playing in the dissemination of extremist messages… other large multi-national social-media companies will follow suit.’

Outline

Animation and Internet – Propaganda

Extremist narratives – online messaging

Counter-narrative and animation

Raises many questions – an area that warrants further study

Proposed study

Animation & Propaganda

•Near ideal vehicle for propaganda•Disney and World War II•9/11 – shift to alternative media Propaganda – many forms, not only media systems where coercive control is used.

Internet: Battleground of Discourses

Visuality and interactivity of Web 2.0: with almost all forms of online media allowing and empowering users to generate their own content and interact, jihadist groups have increasingly made use of sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Tumblr (Prucha & Fisher, 2013:19).

Allows for the development of new virtual communities – jihadi groups, through their use of the Internet, can influence young people across the world.

New production, distribution, and exhibition site for animators to create and exhibit animated narratives (Van Buren, 2006: 538).

The Draw of Narratives – Extremist Propaganda

Narratives – key to understandings of ourselves, our identity and place in the world.

Narratives: offer clear meaning to complex world events, instruments of psychological warfare, ‘allows rebels without a cause to connect to a cause’ (Holtman, 2013).

Increasingly sophisticated dissemination of extremist narratives – particularly online

Islamists ‘are tapping into new media technologies as a very effective vehicle for their anti-Western narratives’ (Stevens, 2010: 114).

Extremist Animation

Counter-Narrative and Animation

Abdullah – X

Online Animation – The Way Forward for Counter-Narrative?

Longstanding/acknowledged difficulties measuring impact (both CVE and media studies)

Need to move beyond figures, statistics, (perceived) popularity

All examples of ‘grassroots efforts’ of some kind

Role of government and private organisations

The ‘counter’ in counter-narratives…

The nature of animation – ‘a near ideal vehicle for propaganda?’

Proposed Study

Grounded theory study into the use of animation as a form of counter-narrative

Move beyond the statistics, numbers of viewers etc to deeper understanding of counter-narrative and use of animation

Open ended (no a priori hypothesis) qualitative study, participant driven

Starting point: interviews with creator of Abduallah – X

Conclusions

The suggestion that there is something about the animated form that particularly lends itself to this type of messaging warrants further research

In addition there is also a need to critically question current understandings of the idea of ‘counter-narratives.’

Orla LehaneSchool of Law and GovernmentDublin City [email protected] @orlita