Preventive Storytelling against Extremist Narratives

Linda Schlegel successfully defends her dissertation

Linda Schlegel success­fully defended her disser­tation “Storytelling against Extremism” on Sep­tember 30, 2024.

Extremist narra­tives play a major role in radicalization processes. Both jihadist and right-­wing extremist narratives are integral parts of modern propaganda, especially in its digital distri­bution and via so­cial media. Against this background, work concerned with the prevention of extremism is in­creasingly turning to counter-narratives. In her disser­tation project, Linda Schlegel is exa­mining an aspect of digital narrative campaigns against extremism that has received little atten­tion so far: How can good storytelling strengthen the impact of narra­tive campaigns against extre­mism? The aim is to explain how narrative campaigns can be im­proved by using persuasive elements and good narrative qua­lity.

Following on from her doc­torate, Linda Schlegel is working together with Julian Junk as project manager of the PRIF project RadiGaMe, which investigates the role of gaming plat­forms and messengers in radi­calization processes and in prevention work. Through her doctorate, Linda Schlegel contri­butes to addressing central deficits in the under­standing of digital extremist activities and to de­signing more effective prevention approaches.

We warmly congra­tulate Linda on her successful defense.