Section outline
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In order to map your target audience for your campaign, you must first examine the possible stakeholders. A stakeholder is a person or entity with an interest or concern in an issue area. The prevention of terrorism is a shared responsibility among individuals and communities at all levels. Stakeholders may help to drive attention to your campaign, offer advice, disseminate messages or just be an ally in advancing your goals and objectives.
So, who could be a stakeholder?
- Formerly radicalized individuals, or ‘formers.’ Formers can be credible messengers for a counter or alternative narrative campaign. ‘Formers’ are often well placed to discredit extremist propaganda, prevent radicalization, contribute to disengagement and deradicalization, and through reliance-building, support those who chose to leave a violent extremist movement.
- Informal actors, such as family members, friends and neighbors. Individuals at risk of radicalization, or who are already radicalized, tend to receive messages better when they come from people from their direct social environment. Therefore, informal actors can be credible messengers for counter- and alternative narratives.
- Local communities. There is a wide acceptance amongst P/CVE practitioners that building meaningful relationships with local communities and working together on the problem is important. Not only online advertisements and political campaigns, for example, but also violent extremists are using more and more localized approaches. Where violent extremists try to exploit local vulnerabilities, efforts to counter or prevent this should try to leverage local resilience and fill the gaps where they are found.
- The voices of victims of terrorism. Their voices can be a powerful alternative to extremist narratives.
- The media. The media plays a big role in the communication of a certain narrative, especially after a highly sensitive moment like a terrorist attack.
It is important to also consider your stakeholders familiarity with the topic and the ability to communicate without inadvertently producing unintended consequences for your campaign. For instance, ‘media’ can be a strong stakeholder that can help to create more external awareness around your campaign or messaging. However, PAVE research found that the media had been prone to incite radicalization through misinformation, poor editorial practices and sensational reporting. It is important to provide sensitivity training to mitigate any unintentional consequences.
Take a moment to think about who else in your community may be best positioned to champion your work!
After considering who your possible stakeholders are, you can then decide on who your target audience will be. For instance, people who you want to leave extremist organizations are very different from people who you want to prevent from joining extremist organizations. Think about those in communities that may identify as vulnerable to violent extremism. These communities could be geographically based (i.e. a local community in a country), or globally based (i.e. online, social media etc.). Don't forget that communities might also include those who feel connected to a war or conflict in a foreign country, regardless of the individuals’ country of origin or nationality.
Identifying the right target audience for a counter or alternative narrative campaign is the first important consideration. For example, you might want to:
- Create a preventative campaign educating a broader audience. This could be targeted at parents, teachers, religious leaders or other members of civil society.
- Reach a more specific age or gender group, such as young women aged 18-25, or teenagers aged 14-18 who are actively watching or searching for extremist content online.
- Influence members of online extremist groups or followers of known extremist accounts to deter from viewing and engaging with the content.
Campaigns can attempt to reach more than one audience; however, it is important not to be too ambitious and try to reach everyone. Be as specific as possible when thinking about exactly who the right audience is. Once you have identified your target audience, you need to conduct a basic mapping to learn a bit more about them in order to craft and disseminate the most impactful messaging.
Questions to consider:
- Does my target audience fall under the “upstream,” “midstream,” “downstream,” or “bystander” approach?
- Where does your audience spend their time (both online and offline)?
- What do they value, or what do they see as morally good?
- How do they communicate, or how do they use language?
- Who do they respect, or who else influences them?
- Which campaigns are they already involved in?
- Which campaigns are already targeting them?
After identifying who your stakeholders and primary audience are, it is critical to think about who you should be partnering with to make your campaign as impactful and effective as possible within your community. It is only through engaging all of society that we can effectively eliminate radicalization. Policy makers, faith leaders and institutions and civil society are three key groups that can play an imperative role to develop and implement a campaign. Remember, a multi-stakeholder approach is more likely to be effective and sustainable if the stakeholders involved have a common understanding of their respective roles and responsibilities and acknowledge their own strengths and limitations. Such an approach can bring together the entities and expertise necessary to effectively address the availability and accessibility of violent extremist and terrorist content on the Internet.