‘You’re Against Dawla, But You’re Listening to Their Nasheeds?’ Appropriating Jihadi Audiovisualities in the Online Streetwork Project Jamal Al-Khatib–My Path!

Abstract

“Jamal al-Khatib” is a participatory project in the field of P/CVE, which aims at delivering alternative narratives to adolescents via digital youthwork. The target groups are youngsters who either sympathize with jihadi propaganda online, or are vulnerable to online recruitment efforts. The project was initiated by a former in prison whose intention, after he extricated himself from the jihadi scene, was to prevent other youngsters from repeating his mistakes. Besides professionals from various backgrounds reaching from social work and Islamic studies to film production and digital content management, the team consists of adolescents who either dropped out of the jihadi scene or proved to be resilient against recruitment efforts of jihadi online actors. According to the project’s peer-to-peer approach, their experiences form the basis for the campaign’s contents. Resorting to the method narrative biography-work, videos featuring alternatives to jihadist propaganda are produced. A lot of effort is put into adapting to the audiovisual appearance of IS propaganda. The videos are posted on different social media platforms, delivered to the target group via the fictional character “Jamal al-Khatib” and discussed in the course of online street work. Evaluation demonstrates that the project was successful in attracting a hard-to-reach target group online.