Assessing Outcomes of Online Campaigns Countering Violent Extremism: A Case Study of the Redirect Method
Abstract
While the number of programs dedicated to countering violent extremism (CVE) has grown in recent years, a fundamental gap remains in the understanding of the effectiveness of such programs. A 2017 RAND Corporation report documented that only a handful of such programs have been subject to rigorous evaluations of impact. Such evaluations are critical because they help ensure that programming funds are dedicated to the most-effective efforts. Evaluations also play a critical role in helping individual programs improve the quality of service provision. CVE campaigns are increasingly moving to the online space, and such campaigns are no less in need of assessment and evaluation. However, assessment of online CVE campaigns presents some unique opportunities and challenges. Many such campaignswhether implemented on YouTube, Facebook, or Twitterhave at their disposal a tailored set of analytics provided by the social media platform being employed. Such analytics can identify the number of individuals that view, like, share, or comment on campaign content. Some platforms even provide information about campaign audience demographicsa wealth of data that can greatly aid campaign implementation. However, the unique nature of social media can impede conventional approaches to assessing program impact. For example, exposure to social media content is highly self-selective (users are not passively exposed to material; they choose which content to consume), and this can easily bias evaluations. In addition, the rapid flow of social media information across browser screens can reduce the accuracy of exposure recall In this brief report, we investigate some of these and other evaluation challenges for online campaigns.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2018
- Accession Number
- AD1086558
Entities
People
- Kurt Klein
- Todd C. Helmus
Organizations
- RAND Corporation