Are Counter Violent Extremism Interventions Effective?
Social media still offers a promising platform for CVE messaging, particularly when targeted at young people who use social media as an important source of news and information. However, creators will need to continue to tease out which messages are most effective.
Philippines
In the Philippines study, RAND recruited 1,200 participants in Mindanao and randomly assigned them to listen to Saranggola, a 48-episode CVE radio show that seeks to promote women’s empowerment and support of and participation in good governance—or to a control condition (locally aired basketball matches). Afterward we surveyed participants about the program’s intended themes.
Ultimately, a series of challenges undermined confidence in the study results. Gender differences between groups revealed selection bias. A series of earthquakes that shook Mindanao in the study’s initial weeks affected several data integrity measures. And although analyses of attitudinal and knowledge outcomes were positive, the effects were the same in both the treatment and control groups.
In the Philippines we also conducted in-depth interviews with participants in a “Peace Promotion Fellowship” program that helped local representatives of civil society design and run their own CVE programs. The report offers recommendations to improve future programming.
The Potential and Challenge of Rigorous Impact Evaluations
These studies suggest both the potential and the challenge of rigorous impact testing of CVE interventions. In terms of potential, the Nigeria and Indonesia studies successfully recruited a large sample of participants using non-traditional methods of data collection—text message and Facebook advertisements—and retained a significant share of the participants throughout the study. Both also showed that small financial incentives could motivate participants to listen to or view the CVE content routinely, thereby ensuring maximum exposure to the treatment.
Some of the challenges, such as the earthquakes in Mindanao, were outside researcher control; but some were not. The Indonesia study suggests that content creators could use pretesting to improve the likelihood of a positive effect on the target audience. Future impact evaluations of online content could also use alternative study designs to mimic more realistic exposure to campaign content. The Philippines study shows that greater oversight of data collection may have helped address the selection bias problem and that making the study logistically simpler—and less ambitious—might have helped. In particular, it may have been advisable to perform more qualitative testing as was conducted with the Peace Promotion Fellowship program.
Where CVE Intervention Research Goes from Here
The demonstrated effectiveness of Ina Mafita suggests that policymakers should continue to support radio programming that is designed to promote peace and address root causes of violence. But because overall, results of CVE interventions were mixed, it is critical to conduct more research to tease out which programs are most effective.
To start, researchers should supplement rigorous impact evaluations with qualitative process evaluations that take advantage of focus groups and other audience insights. The programs themselves should further follow best practices for program development and draw on formative research, pretesting of content, and other practices routinely advised by communication experts.
Todd C. Helmus is a senior behavioral scientist and Elizabeth Bodine Baron is an information scientist specializing in complex networks and systems at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.This article is published courtesy of RAND.
