The Narrative Foundations of Radical and Deradicalizing Online Discursive Spaces: A Comparison of the Cases of Generation Islam and Jamal al-Khatib in Germany

Radical/extremist Islamist actors use social media to disseminate uncompromising stories of monist religious political orders and identities. As a reaction, counter-movements online radicalism/extremism emerged in Western societies (and beyond), while uncertainty about effective outcomes remains widespread. In bid understand how inclusionary exclusionary discursive spaces are created, we ask: How do some Muslim create open self-reflection, pluralism liberal-democratic principles, others construct illiberal, particularistic non/anti-democratic spaces? To respond this question, compare two contrasting storytellers, one who agitates for (Generation Islam) offers prevention deradicalization work against that (Jamal al-Khatib). We draw on novel narrative approaches the Discourse Historical Approach (DHA) Critical Studies (CDS), via which text-level context-level narratives disseminated three Muslim-related crises: racist terrorist attacks/genocide represent national, European global level. Our two-layered, DHA-inspired analysis illustrates that, at level text, persuasion varies between both actors. While Jamal al-Khatib disseminates persuasive stories, Generation Islam is much less invested persuasion; it seems address an already convinced audience. These strategies reveal their meaning antagonistic genres: al-Khatib’s “self-reflexive savior” creates space represented self-ironic genre, Islam’s ”crusading manufactures romance featuring nostalgic return Islamic umma.