IS Propaganda: Should We Counter the Narrative? | ICCT

Great read!!!!! Very much in agreement - you can not win a fight by only being on the defense and your enemy owning the offensive. We have to change our organizations structure and tactics towards a long term fight. if we want to be able to fight and defeat IS.
"Perhaps the greatest failing that this fixation on counter-narratives highlights, is the piecemeal approach to communications and the lack of understanding of the need for a comprehensive, integrated and multi-dimensional communications campaign. Successful campaigns are a complex construction, made up of multiple different types of messaging (offensive and defensive, identity and rational-choice) dispatched through multiple mediums (online, print, tv, radio, oration), all in support of and mutually re-enforcing, a central narrative and synchronised with action on the ground. This is the reality of the propaganda campaign that we face from IS. It is naivety at best, but certainly doomed to failure, to respond with only a focus on one type of messaging in an isolated effort against an integrated campaign. The sum is certainly greater than the parts. Whilst politicians seem apt at understanding the scale and sophistication of the communication campaigns needed to get them elected, it is time that they realise that the same effort is needed to face down IS’s propaganda."