There is growing international debate about the effectiveness of ‘counter-narratives’ to respond to the spread of hateful and violent messages through digital media. The idea of ‘narratives’ and ‘counter-narratives’ has been used for decades in the study of political violence, to identify the battle for the hearts and minds of people, especially those at risk of being recruited by extremist groups.
The key lessons learned from this literature suggests that effective messages should: 1) Come from community members, 2) Promote alternative values and viewpoints, instead of debunking and countering extremists’ messages, and 3) Should come from peers (for example, people of the same age group) as the potential recruits. However, there is a dearth of evaluation of the impact of counter-narratives, and a total absence of impact evaluations of grassroots messaging aiming at promoting positive messages that foster social cohesion and build resilience to violent extremism. There is very little understanding of what works and what doesn’t and what type of programs should be supported and funded.
To address this knowledge gap, Deakin University designed and delivered a pilot project that involved running two creative video making workshops with young migrants to Australia, facilitated by international experts, addressing issues related to social cohesion and promoting diversity. These workshops were contrasted with a control group that did not have any substantive guidance during the video-making process. We subsequently evaluated the production process and the impact of the messages communicated by these videos on a large sample of young Victorians to understand how to effectively promote the creation of online counter narratives among diverse youth in Victoria.
In this event, we will be presenting key findings from our research project: Preventing violent extremism and building youth cohesion through creative production of grassroots online counter-narratives: A pilot intervention and impact evaluation. During the event we will present:
The research findings about the impact of the program on the creators and on the audience of the videos.
A booklet addressed to civil society organisations and youth services to support them in designing programs to build social cohesion through creative production of grassroots online multimedia.
The event will include short presentations from the project team, participants, and partners. A discussant will be invited to the session, to drive a plenary discussion about the relevance of the research findings for policy makers, program managers and scholars.