Watched on September 2018

To Do list Research - starting September 2018

  • Do level 3 of the Panofsky method: Iconology, the gathering of information and solidifying knowledge about the society in which the motifs under analysis.
    • Research method 2: Visual Rhetorics Analysis
    A qualitative analysis of visuals from the perspective of persuasion methods that aim to have an effect on the target audience. Through this method, I will attempt to find unintended elements in the portraits that contradict the Islamic State’s narratives.
  • Islam
  • terrorism history
  • terrorism in Islam (Hashashin)
  • Watch Documentaries and movie about the Islamic State:
    The State, which is a look at the lives of four British citizens who joined ISIS in Syria.
    Audio series: Introducing ‘Caliphate’, a New York Times audio series, I would like to read more about visual rhetorics analysis
    Of Fathers and Sons (movie)
  • Later: Title is too general, reduce it.
  • Continue research in both directions:
    1- Comparison to popular visual aesthetics
    2- Comparison to historical imagery.
    NOTE: Think about how the relevance of this approach of comparing can be extended? 
  • visual rhetorics analysis

    • MAYBE:
    - For a possible follow-up project: Contact people who consume these images (with appropriate precautions and in consultation with Arne).

    NOTE: For Colloquium 2: Add images in the paper (would help to follow the argument).

    LATER STEPS (?):
    1. origins of images
    2. the popular figures (pop culture) used for other purposes (popular but not too much) - match between audience, cultural context
    3. how things are interpreted differently in different cultures
    4. affective functionality of images
    5. maybe do a photo session showing a number of people to see how it affects them in order to rate them as not affective, intermediate, strong, extremely? Online Survey?
    6. Who stages the photography? (example: for photos with kids)
    7. Who instructs the adult fighters (staging?)
    8. what makes pictures viral? how pictures become successful? (place, time, setting, audience- percentage of matching could be quantified)
    9. Do the same process for magazines in the other languages
    10. Images for other magazines (for other groups)
    11. Do the same process for Dabiq (?) POSSIBLE QUESTION: 
    -What are the visual Rhetorics of the photographs used in ISIS’s online magazines? 
    - Unconventional techniques of representation??!

    FURTHER LITERATURE SOURCES:
    - “The Invention of Tradition” (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983).
    - “Imagined Communities” (Anderson, 1983).

    Overview:
    visually (visual appearance) in order inform counter narrative strategies/campaign PVE preventing Violent extremism
    there is a federal working group for this issue  

    Identitarium check
    • Anthropology supervisor from Bern University: Marta Dietrich (visual Anthropology) and Dr. Michaela Schäuble (Bern University) (Media Anthropology)

    Final product (and not just result analysis):example: software, guideline, educational course (how to design a counter-narrative for Terrorism course) / choose the right term (word)

    Arne: Visual Rhetoric useful to enhance counter narratives to fight violent extremism (important to have different perspectives) - is it a software, an education program/ engine for counter-narrative argumentation (for photos) A book? A service?A search engine

    What is the Design aspect of the problem?
    Visual Dictionary of groups (including cross-referencing such as of comics, pop art)?

    we design an analytical process for terrorism and counter-terrorism: How to analyze graphic design? photographs? (ANALYTICAL METHOD:  VIRAL: Viral Imagery Rhetorical Analysis Lab : the brand name)
    (public, law enforcement agencies, NGO, Activists, Governmental Organizations.. whichever reason, why are they visiting this product?)

    What is the analytical tool kit to look at imagery? Tool kit that can be useful to see the effective functionality of visual aspects in organization.

    targeting violent extremism:
    Police structures, Judicial structures, Social work Structures, Education Structures

    (how do i understand the effective impact of visuals, how do i design the effective impact that I want to have) 

    Reading Recommendation:
    • The Photographer Reader by Liz Wells
    • Amghar, Salim (sociologist). 2013. “L’Islam militant en Europe. “Militant Islam in Europe.” Illico.
    • Holtmann, Philipp. 2013. “The Symbols of Online Jihad.” In Jihadism: Online Discourses and Representations, edited by Rüdiger Lohlker , 9-64. Vienna: V&R unipress.
    • Al Qaeda in Its Own Words by Gilles Kepel and Jean Pierre Milelli
    • Communication Design – Principles, Methods and Practice by Jorge Fascara
    • (??) a book about how torturers are trained in french by Françoise Sironi
      • Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes by Jacque Ellul (the 1958 theory of propaganda laid down by French philosopher Jacques Ellul in this book)
    • Paul Grishman and Gabriel Weimann (Paul Grishman, Cyber terrorism: the use of the Internet for terrorist purpose, Axis Publications: New Delhi, 2010; Gabriel Weimann, Terrorism in cyberspace: the next generation, Columbia University Press; New York, 2015.)
    • Ali Fisher and Nico Prucha, “Tweeting for the caliphate: Twitter as the new frontier for jihadist propaganda”, CTC Sentinel, 25June 2013; Ali Fisher and Nico Prucha, “Eye of the swarm: the rise of ISIS and the media mujahedeen”, US Center on Public Diplomacy Blog, 8 July 2014.
    • RegardingIslamic State’s use of the Internet, in particular, some important contributions have been made, including J.M. Berger and Jonathan Morgan’s extensive assessment of the technical mechanisms by which Islamic State delivers its propaganda on Twitter, and Ali Fisher’s big data analysis of the activity of disseminators of propaganda, in which he introduces the concept of its “user curated Swarmcast”.5 To date, though, there has been little analysis that has studied Islamic State’s propaganda holistically, in the context of its dissemination and strategy.
    • See J.M. Berger and Jonathon Morgan, “The ISIS Twitter Census: defining and describing the population of ISIS supporters onTwitter”, The Brookings Institution (20), March 2015; Ali Fisher, “Swarm cast: how jihadist networks maintain a persistent online presence”, Perspectives on Terrorism (9), June 2015; and “Detailed analysis of Islamic State propaganda video: ‘Although the disbelievers dislike it’”, The Quilliam Foundation and TRAC (Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium), December 2014. • 6 Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: the formation of men’s attitudes, 1965, trans. by Konrad Kellen and Jean Lerner, New York: RandomHouse Vintage Books, 1973.
    • le chercheur Romain Caillet, spécialiste du djihadisme, ancien enseignant à l’Institut français duProche-Orient
    • Le spécialiste de l’islam Mathieu Guidère • think tank britannique Quilliam, spécialisé dans le contre-terrorisme
    • énatrice américaine Dianne Feinstein, co-auteur d’un projet de loi pour faciliter l’obtention d’informations auprès des grandes entreprises américaines du secteur
    • le chercheur Charlie Winter du think tank britannique Quilliam
    • Jürgen Todenhöfer, un journaliste, l’auteur et ancien parlementaire allemand
        • Introduction to the photographer’s eye (john Szarkowski)
        • Looking at photographs (Victor Burgin)
    The lens blog https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/?mcubz=0
    • Susan Sontag - On Photography
    • John Berger, Another Way of Telling
    • Teju Cole, Blind Spot
    • Jacques Ranciere, The Future of the Image
    • Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography
    • Sarah Pink, Doing Visual Ethnography
    • Hardt and Negri readings
    • Gilles Deleuze readings
    • As Deleuze (2007, p.318, 321) states, ‘There has to be a necessity in philosophy or elsewhere; otherwise there is nothing. A creator is not a preacher working for the fun of it. A creator is not someone who works for pleasure. A creator only does what he or she absolutely needs to do’.
    • The protesters of the Gezi Resistance were creators of their own news, this time, with the production of a self-representational mechanism. They were twitting, sending posts to Facebook, uploading photographs and videos to online video platforms such as youtube.
    • Jihadism: Online Discourses and Representations (by Rudiger Lohlker
    • Safer Spaces (by Teal Briggs)

    • use repository to download stuff and to read (eg: Clarion Project)
    • counter-extremism.org
    • counternarratives.org
    • exit-deutschland.de

    Research points to always update:
    o Topic
    o Motivation
    o Relevance and purpose
    o Research question
    o State of the Art: practical and theoretical reference projects and texts
    o own work in the context of this subject
    o Research goals
    o Planned working steps
    o How Do Your Problem-Solving Strategies Differ from Existing Solutions?