RAN Activities in Communication & Narratives, July 2021

This is a specialised overview paper on the key themes of the RAN Communication & Narratives (C&N) Working Group in the past 10 years.

These key themes are all topics related to:

• developing counter- and alternative narrative campaigns;
• the roles of different actors in strategic communications and campaigns in preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE);
• understanding narratives and recruitment methods.

Communication lies at the heart of spreading extremist ideas, but also of ways to provide alternatives to these extremist black-and-white narratives. This includes both online and offline efforts. Counter– and alternative narratives are not deradicalisation tools in themselves.

They can be used as preventive tools to offer individuals multiple/different perspectives on societal challenges. Online efforts should go hand in hand with initiatives in the offline domain, for example by educating young people at schools about the consequences of violent extremism. Internet and social media might be channels to plant seeds of doubt.

The C&N Working Group aims to identify and bring up the way that communication and narratives are used or encountered in radicalisation processes and in measures or efforts that challenge such extremist ideas and/or provide alternatives.