"This handbook provides a comprehensive review of research in conflict and peace communication and offers readers a range of insights into foundational, ongoing, and emerging discussions in this field. The volume brings together peace studies, conflict studies, and communication studies to acknowled
...
ge the power of communication - both cooperative, solidarizing, and integrative as well as destructive and divisive - in constituting social relations. It features a multiplicity of authors, including academics and practitioners from all corners of the globe and from across the communicative spectrum. This handbook is divided into four parts: (1) Meta.theoretical, theoretical, and methodological approaches in conflict and peace communication research; (2) Conflict communication; (3) Peace communication; and (4) Cross.cutting and emergent themes." (Publisher description)
more
"Soziale Medien haben die Verbreitung von Antisemitismus revolutioniert. Algorithmisch verstärkt verbreitet sich Antisemitismus auf den Plattformen in Sekundenschnelle, kostenlos und global. Die daraus resultierende Gefahr für Jüdinnen*Juden ist eine große gesellschaftliche Herausforderung. Das
...
Buch gibt Einblicke in Fallstudien auf verschiedenen Plattformen und zeigt, wie soziale Medien durch die Verbreitung antisemitischer Inhalte von politischem Akteur*innen instrumentalisiert werden. Es werden innovative Methoden und Tools (CrowdTangle oder Voyant Tools) und neue Konzepte (Social Media Literacy, tertiärer Antisemitismus, antisemitische Eskalation) vorgestellt und Strategien, um Antisemitismus auf den Plattformen zu bekämpfen, kritisch evaluiert. Dieses Buch bietet eine umfassende Einführung für alle, die sich mit der Problematik Antisemitismus in den sozialen Medien auseinandersetzen wollen." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
more
"Zwischen dem 19.09.2022 und 18.09.2023 wurde das Projekt „Narrative über den Krieg Russlands gegen die Ukraine“ (NUK, im Folgenden NUK) vom Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD Germany) im Auftrag der Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung/bpb umgesetzt. Ziel des Projekts war es, Desinformati
...
on gegenüber ukrainischen Geflüchteten innerhalb russisch- und arabischsprachiger Communities in Deutschland mithilfe von vier online verbreiteten Erklärvideos zu beleuchten. Dieser Abschlussbericht stellt die zentralen Ergebnisse der Analysen zu Desinformationsnarrativen dar, skizziert den Entstehungsprozess sowie die Inhalte der Videos und führt eine Evaluation der Verbreitung der Videos durch." (Seite 3)
more
"Harmful actors use an ever-expanding range of digital spaces to spread harmful ideologies and undermine human rights and democracy online. Understanding their evolving ideas, online networks and activities is critical to the development of a more comprehensive evidence base to inform effective and
...
proportional efforts to counter them. But generating that evidence base can challenge the technical capabilities, resources and even ethical and legal boundaries of research. We are concerned that these issues may be worsening just as the options for spreading harm online increase. This difficulty in conducting digital research systematically, ethically and legally results in a situation where trade-offs have to be made between competing priorities, including the desire to understand and mitigate harmful content and behaviours online, the preservation of privacy and the adherence to legal agreements. We argue in this report that this does not need to be the case; solutions are available, and actions should be taken as soon as possible to ensure a future-proof scenario in which researchers have the tools to monitor, track and analyse harmful content and behaviours systematically, ethically and legally. This report outlines the findings from the research phase of a project by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and CASM Technology; it is funded by Omidyar Network. The aim of the project is to identify and test research methodologies for monitoring and analysing small, closed or hardly moderated platforms. The report provides applied examples and evidence for the limitations and dilemmas encountered by researchers. In three short research case studies, focusing on Telegram, Discord and Odysee (in German, English and French respectively), we seek to apply different methodological approaches to analyse platforms that primarily present technological, ethical and legal, or fragmentation barriers." (Executive summary)
more
"This report outlines the findings from the initial scoping phase of a project supported by a grant from Omidyar Network and launched by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and CASM Technology to identify online spaces used by extremist, hate and disinformation actors and communities as they
...
increasingly move away from mainstream social media platforms. The report outlines the key barriers posed by these platforms to researching and mitigating harmful content and behaviours, and reviews existing research methodologies and tools to address these barriers. Finally, the report presents possible future scenarios for the evolving online ecosystem, and proposes a series of initial recommendations for policy-makers, platforms and the research community." (About this publication)
more
"Across the case studies we identified three broad categories for the classification of content, which will be unpacked in greater detail in the following section: 1. Instructional material which contains guidance on operational aspects of terrorist and violent extremist activity. This includes guid
...
ance on the manufacture and perpetration of attacks, as well as guides on combat drills, fitness and non-violent activism such as sticker campaigning. 2. Ideological material which is designed to specifically further a violent extremist or terrorist world view. This includes key texts and lectures which provide the theoretical underpinning for a terrorist or violent extremist cause, and which provide explanation around why the world is a certain way. 3. Inspirational material designed to reinforce a violent extremist or terrorist mind-set. This includes a wide range of content which is designed to elicit a reaction or response in the radicalised mind. This includes material intended to provoke hatred towards a particular group of people or promote pride and support for a particular cause. Notably, this category of content is the least well-defined in the existing literature." (Page 7)
more
"This report focuses on the interactional dynamics between anti-Muslim extremists and radical Islamists in Germany and beyond. It reveals ideological underpinnings, approaches to mobilization and communication patterns, which all prove to be analogous on both sides, and it places emphasis on the rec
...
iprocity of hate that may serve to intensify processes of individual and group radicalization. Our study presents the first systematic analysis of the interplay between both forms of extremism that plays out on different places on the Internet. It provides direct evidence showing that Islamist and far-right movements converge at different levels and mutually amplify one another. The analysis focuses on measuring the online interaction between extremist content, individuals and events. Overall, over 10,000 Islamist and far-right Facebook posts and over one million German anti-Muslim tweets between 1 January 2013 and 30 November 2017 were analyzed for this study. Additionally, we conducted three months of ethnographic research into encrypted pro-IS and pro-Al-Qaeda groups on Telegram as well as into far-right chat groups.
Key Findings
Radical Islamism and anti-Muslim racism, which manifest themselves in the form of far-right extremism and right-wing populism exhibit a symbiotic relationship. In the context of glocal interaction patterns, the far right operates as a national sphere of resonance for international jihadism. Both negate and dismantle basic democratic values such as the inviolability of human dignity and religious freedom. What’s more, racism against Muslims paves the way for radicalization through Islamic fundamentalists. We identified three key patterns that reveal common worldviews and argumentative resemblance: First, the demonization of enemies based on a clear distinction between friend and foe. Second, the victimization of one’s own group as both sides take advantage of the alleged discrimination of their own group and the constructed dominance of the other. Third, conspiracy, which is the basic explanation provided for why the respective milieus do not share their exclusionary claim to truth. The alleged systematic blindness caused by the Jews or fake news are needed to balance the dissonance between claims and reality as well as to contribute to demonizing other groups." (Executive summary)
more