Recent Publications

Colloquium Brief: Visual Propaganda and Online Radicalization
July 2, 2012 — Key Insights: Visual images have real power that is separate from the words with which they appear and need to be studied distinctly from those words, using methods developed specifically for dealing with images. The study of visual images is especially important in the online environment, where most terrorist and extremist groups of concern to the U.S. produce a great deal of material that is primarily visual in nature... MORE

The Impact of Visual Images: Addendum
March 6, 2012 — Dr. Cori E. Dauber In briefings and presentations to military audiences over the last several years, I have offered one simple piece of advice: film everything. In a digital age, data storage is cheap. What is expensive is not being able to prove that propaganda claims about a particular mission, perhaps made months or years after the fact, distort... MORE

Op-Ed: Weekend at Osama’s
February 6, 2012 — Dr. Cori E. Dauber Even before Osama bin Laden was killed, the Obama administration began arguing that al-Qaeda was close to final defeat because so many of its senior leaders were now dead largely as a result of drone operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But that assessment depends on an awfully narrow definition of “al-Qaeda” — and of “dead.”... MORE

The Importance of Images to America’s Fight Against Violent Jihadism
January 24, 2012 — Dr. Cori E. Dauber Americans were surely equally dismayed about a video circulating at viral speed whether they found out about the story via email, discovered it on You Tube, on Twitter, on Facebook, or simply heard about it the old fashioned way; when a network news anchor reported it. The video appeared to show a group of U.S. Marine Corps... MORE