Login (DCU Staff Only)
Login (DCU Staff Only)

DORAS | DCU Research Repository

Explore open access research and scholarly works from DCU

Advanced Search

Shared cues, different violence organisations: comparing visual recruitment strategies of extremists, gangs, PMCs/mercenaries, and militaries

Brady, Sheelagh (2022) Shared cues, different violence organisations: comparing visual recruitment strategies of extremists, gangs, PMCs/mercenaries, and militaries. PhD thesis, Dublin City University.

Abstract
Extremists, gangs, militaries, and private military contractors (PMC)/mercenaries share the need to recruit, and all employ video for this purpose. How they use these videos to attract new members remains unclear, however. The study is a response to calls for a visual turn in violent extremism and builds upon an emerging shift within the literature, which examines the persuasive power of videos produced by some violence organisations (VOs), exploring the role that narratives, multimodalities, and symbols play in recruitment. It takes an empirical approach to answer the question, ‘what visual strategies are used by violence organisations to recruit members to their group or call them to action?’ Theoretically, it combines Hogg's theory on group membership and identity, Ellul's work on myths and the technique of propaganda, and Mirzoeff’s approach to intervisuality. Through primary analysis of 117 videos, produced and/or circulated by VOs, it shows that VOs encode their videos with similar cues designed to enhance feelings of belonging, identity, and shared beliefs in order to persuade and influence viewers. It therefore makes a pertinent contribution to the literature regarding comparative analysis, which tends to treat these VOs as distinct groups, failing to adequately consider the significance of shared approaches. The findings indicate that VOs’ recruitment and call to action videos should not be viewed independently, but as part of the broader ecosystem of online video content, designed not merely to entertain, but also to persuade; thus, they have implications for responding to extremist content.
Metadata
Item Type:Thesis (PhD)
Date of Award:February 2022
Refereed:No
Supervisor(s):Conway, Maura and Fitzgerald, James
Uncontrolled Keywords:Army; Internet; Online; Radicalisation
Subjects:Humanities > Language
Humanities > Sound recordings
Humanities > Video recordings
Humanities > Culture
Social Sciences > Communication
Social Sciences > International relations
Social Sciences > Terrorism
Social Sciences > Gender
DCU Faculties and Centres:DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Science > School of Law and Government
Use License:This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. View License
ID Code:26456
Deposited On:15 Feb 2022 17:51 by Maura Conway . Last Modified 15 Feb 2022 17:51
Documents

Full text available as:

[thumbnail of 05112021 SBrady PhD Thesis Final Approved Version.pdf]
Preview
PDF - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader
Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0
7MB
Downloads

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Archive Staff Only: edit this record