TY - JOUR
T1 - Youths in violent extremist discourse
T2 - Mediated identifications and interventions
AU - Cheong, Pauline
AU - Halverson, Jeffry R.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments are made to the colleagues at Consortium of Strategic Communication at the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University, and the Combating Terrorism Center, United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. The authors are grateful to Angela Trethewey, Megan Fisk, Zachary Justus, and Kristin Fleischer who worked on supporting data analysis as well as to Bud Goodall and Steve Corman who provided helpful comments on the article. This work was supported by a grant from the Office of Naval Research, no. N00014-09-1-0872, led by principal investigators Steve Corman, Angela Trethewey, Bud Goodall, Pauline Hope Cheong, and Daniel Bernardi.
PY - 2010/12
Y1 - 2010/12
N2 - This article examines the discursive strategies employed by violent extremists to build a persuasive collective youth identity, drawing from strategic communication, social movement, and membership categorization theories to analyze youth references from texts disseminated by Al Qaeda from 1996-2009. "Youth" is constructed via (a) ascriptions of allegiance to a common belief system whereby militant actions are directed toward establishing a new sociopolitical order, (b) descriptions of pious youth as "true believers" apart from "apostate" state regimes, and (c) references to hagiographies of extremist martyrs that serve as moral exemplars. This article concludes with research directions to facilitate counternarrative interventions.
AB - This article examines the discursive strategies employed by violent extremists to build a persuasive collective youth identity, drawing from strategic communication, social movement, and membership categorization theories to analyze youth references from texts disseminated by Al Qaeda from 1996-2009. "Youth" is constructed via (a) ascriptions of allegiance to a common belief system whereby militant actions are directed toward establishing a new sociopolitical order, (b) descriptions of pious youth as "true believers" apart from "apostate" state regimes, and (c) references to hagiographies of extremist martyrs that serve as moral exemplars. This article concludes with research directions to facilitate counternarrative interventions.
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U2 - 10.1080/1057610X.2010.523862
DO - 10.1080/1057610X.2010.523862
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:78649534119
SN - 1057-610X
VL - 33
SP - 1104
EP - 1123
JO - Studies in Conflict and Terrorism
JF - Studies in Conflict and Terrorism
IS - 12
ER -