CICERO - Counter-narrative communication campaign aimed at preventing radicalisation

The goal of the CICERO project is to develop and implement a counter-narrative communication campaign aimed at preventing radicalisation leading to violent extremism, accompanied by a methodology for evaluating the campaign’s effectiveness.

The CICERO consortium will, at first, identify the target audiences that are considered particularly susceptible to extremist propaganda. The most prominent radicalisation narratives circulating across the EU will then be collected and analysed. The campaign will rely on both online and offline communication channels for disseminating a wide range of multimedia contents, produced by the consortium, to the different audiences.

CICERO will deal with different kinds of radicalisation narratives, ranging from those related to politico-religious extremism (e.g. jihadist), to left-wing, right-wing and single-issue extremism. The aim is to undermine the appeal of the extremist propaganda, while also providing credible and positive alternatives to the related narratives.

Additional purpose of the campaign is to empower relevant civil society actors in challenging extremist narratives. To this end, online communication efforts will be designed to promote messages that encourage civic engagement and the assimilation of democratic fundamental rights and values embedded in EU society, supported by off-line activities dedicated to amplifying the CICERO counter-narrative message. Civil society engagement efforts, including the organisation of “train-the-trainers” workshops directed at specific stakeholders, will be undertaken to further enhance the ability of civil society to detect and cope with radicalisation leading to violent extremism.

In order to maximise the effectiveness of the CICERO campaign, the consortium will develop and implement a multi-layered evaluation methodology, allowing to progressively monitor and evaluate the campaign’s impact on the designated target audiences.