Running head: EXTREMIST AND COUNTER-EXTREMIST LANGUAGE Differentiating Act from Ideology: Evidence from Messages For and Against Violent Extremism Extremist and Counter-Extremist Language

Although researchers know a great deal about persuasive messages that encourage terrorism, they know far less about persuasive messages that denounce terrorism, and little about how these two sides come together. We propose a conceptualization that distinguishes a message’s support for an act from its support for the ideology underlying an act. Our prediction is tested using corpus-linguistic analysis of 250 counter-extremist messages written by Muslims and UK officials, and a comparison set of 250 Muslim extremist messages. Consistent with our prediction, Muslim extremist and Muslim counter-messages show disagreement on terrorist actions but agreement in ideological aspects, while UK officials’ counter-messages show disagreement with both Muslim extremists’ acts and ideology. Our findings suggest that countermessages should not be viewed as a homogenous group, and that being against violent extremism does not necessarily equate to having positive perceptions of Western values. Extremist and Counter-Extremist Language 3 Differentiating Act from Ideology: Evidence from Messages For and Against Violent Extremism The rhetoric of those who seek to promote religiously or politically motivated violence has long been of interest to social scientists (Caton, 1987; Winter, 1993). Early research tended to conduct in-depth qualitative analyses of isolated aspects of texts, such as the use of fantasy in vision statements (Duffy, 2003) or imagery in predictions of apocalyptic times (Blazak, 2001). More recently, there has been a surge of quantitative content analyses of the arguments and ‘persuasive levers’ that authors use to promote violence (Pennebaker & Chung, 2008; Prentice, Taylor, Rayson, Hoskins, & O’Loughlin, 2011; Salem, Reid, & Chen, 2008; Zhou, Reid, Qin, Chen, & Lai, 2005). These studies typically conceptualize messages as a series of persuasive acts that seek to change an audience’s beliefs, attitudes, or behavior (Perloff, 1993). They have also provided insights into both the construction and organization of messages that aim to promote ideological violence, and the personal and social levers that such messages address. The growth in studies of messages promoting violence has not been matched by a growth in studies examining ‘counter-messages’ that denounce such acts. There is some experimental research examining the extent to which attitude change is resistant to, or can be inoculated against, individual counter-arguments (Martin, Hewstone, & Martin, 2007; Tormala, Clarkson, & Petty, 2006). However, this experimental research focuses more on the contextual variables (e.g., source status) that mediate the influence of counter-messages than on the ideological or persuasive content of such messages. As a result, we know little about the different kinds of narratives and persuasive devices that are put forward to challenge messages promoting extremist violence. In the absence of an understanding of counter-messages, a definitive account of how proand counter-messages interrelate or ‘engage’ with one another is lacking. Extremist and Counter-Extremist Language 4 Persuasion and Counter-Persuasion as Opposites One reason why so few studies of counter-messaging exist is the assumption that proand counter-messages are direct opposites of one another. Early research on persuasive communication has typically examined the impact of proand counter-messages that varied, for example, in message strength and target involvement (e.g., Petty & Cacioppo, 1979). More recent work has continued this tradition by examining how the impact of proand countermessages are mediated by factors outside of the message itself (e.g., the majority vs. minority status of the source; Martin, Hewstone, & Martin, 2007). This ‘opposites’ conceptualization is endemic in the literature and appears in other research areas where persuasion might be seen to play a role. For example, theories of prejudice reduction seek to reduce violent or prejudiced outcomes between groups by moving individuals from a prejudiced to a tolerant mindset (Wright & Lubensky, 2008). In all of these examples, the underpinning conceptualization is one of a message changing a person’s position along a singular ‘attitude’ or ‘position’ dimension that encompasses thought and act. Indeed, in many of these studies, the ‘single-dimension’ assumption is made explicit by the fact that message impact is measured using a dependent variable that comprises a nominal (linear) measure (e.g., a Likert scale). Although the prevalence of this ‘opposites’ conceptualization may stem from the need to run controlled experiments, it is a view not confined to experimental research. In the domain of ideological violence, political commentaries center on the need to win “hearts and minds” by delegitimizing political violence and the actors who pursue it (Chowdhury & Krebs, 2010; Halafoff & Wright-Neville, 2009). For example, in his analysis of the ideological struggle between Al-Qaeda and Western governments, Payne (2009) found that the Al-Qaeda narrative is characterized by the concepts of Islamic utopia, an us-versus-them dichotomy, and jihad as a just Extremist and Counter-Extremist Language 5 response. By contrast, government narratives were characterized by the concepts of undermining Al-Qaeda and building resilience and community cohesion through a sense of ‘Britishness. ’ It is clear from such research that proand counter-messages are perceived most readily as ideological opposites with opposing views on how to act. From this perspective, arguing against extremist violence is a case of adopting the opposite position to that of those arguing for violence. Two or More Dimensions? The one-dimensional ‘opposites’ view is not a universal conceptualization of how proand counter-arguments relate to one another. The possibility of single issues being debated from multiple standpoints is implied in research that considers the different ways that authors’ frame their messages (Taylor & Donald, 2004, 2007; Wilson & Putnam, 1990) and the different persuasive tactics that are used to articulate those positions (Giebels & Taylor, 2009; Prentice et al., 2011). Implied in this research is a disconnection between the underlying position of the author (i.e., their ideology) and the kinds of acts that the author uses to argue for his or her position (i.e., their behavior). Similarly, in social psychological research, a number of authors have recognized that there is no necessary association between group identification and hostility. They have considered whether particular types of identification (Schatz, Staub, & Lavine, 1999) or constructions of the group (Li & Brewer, 2004) impact on the likelihood of beliefs translating to action. Of particular relevance here is Van Zomeren, Postmes, and Spears’s (2008) recent social identity model of collective action. Based on a meta-analysis of 182 independent samples, this model shows that injustice beliefs are translated into collective action only when there exists the expectancy that action will result in the achievement of relevant goals. Although this work was based primarily on normative actions such as demonstrations, more recent work shows that Extremist and Counter-Extremist Language 6 the opposite is true for more extreme non-normative actions (e.g., Tausch et al., 2011). In this research, non-normative actions are primarily driven by a sense of low efficacy, supporting popular beliefs that terrorism is fed by feelings of powerlessness. These studies show that beliefs and actions do not necessarily have a one-on-one relationship and that that act and ideology may be targeted independently by persuasive messages. The possibility that persuasive messages about the act may be distinct from messages about the underlying belief or ideology is consistent with social identity theory. Social identity theory postulates that people conceive themselves as belonging to multiple groups, each of which forms part of their identity based on membership of that group and enforcing boundaries with other groups (Tajfel, 1978; 1982). A person who identifies with two groups that have conflicting interests may experience tension over what aspects of their alternative group norms they choose to enact (Billig et al., 1988; Calhoun, 1994; Tajfel & Turner, 1979). A person identifying as a member of one group may agree with certain aspects of the group’s ideology, but his or her other identities may lead to disagreement over the acts used by the group to pursue the ideology. A person not identifying with either the act or the ideology will experience no such agreement or tension. In the case of violent extremism, it is conceivable that those arguing for and against violence may both identify with aspects of their ideology that is driven by a Muslim identity, but they may distinguish amongst one another in terms of actions (Onishi & Murphy-Shigematsu, 2003; Peek, 2005). Several theoretical accounts in the international relations literature lend support to the proposal that counter-extremists reject extremists’ actions but relate to their ideology. For example, at the center of the integrative theory of peace is the concept of a unity-based worldview (Danesh, 2006), something that both extremists and counter-extremists have been Extremist and Counter-Extremist Language 7 found to hold in common (Payne, 2009). This suggests that there is some agreement along ideological lines, but a disagreement on the nature of peace and the manner in which to achieve it (Danesh, 2006). In a more fine-grained analysis of peace theory, Galtung (1967) argued that the conception of peace varies according to the civilizations involved. Peace in Arabic (i.e., “sala’am”) is conceptualized as justice, whereas peace in Western nations is conceptualized as the absence of violence. Galtung’s suggestion is that Muslim counter-extremists and Muslim violent extremists may hold a similar conception of peace, whereas Wes