John Martino - Drumbeat: New Media and the Radicalization and Militarization of Young People

As the twenty-first century unfolds society is confronted with the normalization of warfare and political violence and their growing allure for the young. Current global political events highlight the extent to which young people have become the target of both State and non-State actors in the prosecution of war and terror. The conduct of what we can refer to as social war has increasingly come to target the young through media (social media, the internet and video games) and more directly through acts of violence (the massacre of children, the reliance on child soldiers, and the use of children in martyrdom operations) as legitimate forms of conduct. The appropriation of the young as political and military materials through the processes of both radicalization and militarization warrants close examination. Drumbeat examines these issues within the context of the ongoing process of militarization and the establishment of a state of perpetual warfare. The book distinguishes between radicalization, which refers to the application of propaganda and ideological methods by non-State agents, and militarization, which refers to the application of propaganda and ideological methods by State agents in order to effectively prosecute war. The focus of this book will be an examination of the mechanisms through which forms of media and other digital and web-based artefacts social media, video and video games assist in the militarization and radicalization of the young.

There is a growing body of evidence which points to the effectiveness of various forms of media in both the recruitment of young people and the promotion of ideological frames. For example, non-State actors (extremist religious groups and the Alt-Right) have been highly effective in appropriating new media to project their propaganda messages and their appeal to young people.

The book also argues that militarization has become a powerful societal force, which is re-configuring the daily conduct of life in the West. Just as radicalization seeks to prepare the young for the conduct of war, militarization also functions to position the broader society for war. This is a new form of the civilizing process to which Norbert Elias referred. In this context new media provides the conduits through which this process is legitimized, celebrated and promulgated.

John Martino is a Senior Lecturer in the College of Education at Victoria University, Australia. He is the author of War/Play: Video Games and the Militarization of Society (2015).

First published 2021

by Routledge

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Martino, John (Lecturer in education), author.

Title: Drumbeat : new media and the radicalization and militarization

of young people / John Martino.

Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. | Includes bibliographical

references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020049669 | ISBN 9781138043268 (hardback) |

ISBN 9781138043275 (paperback) | ISBN 9781315173245 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Internet and youthPolitical aspects. | Internet and

terrorism. | YouthPolitical activity. | Violence in video games

Social aspects. | Radicalization. | Militarization.

Classification: LCC HQ799.9.I58 M37 2021 | DDC 004.67/8083dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020049669

ISBN: 978-1-138-04326-8 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-04327-5 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-17324-5 (ebk)

Typeset in Garamond

by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Recently I revisited a classic depiction of warfare, Stanley Kubricks 1987 film Full Metal Jacket (Twentieth Century Fox). It reminded me of how hard it has traditionally been to break down the civilian persona and to then replace it with a mental framework that one character in the film describes as signifying being born again hard. The opening sequence of the film depicts the initial stages of the process the military calls soldierization. Kubrick begins his movie on Parris Island, South Carolina a Marine Corps Recruit Depot, where Marines are Made. He chose to begin the first third of his film with a depiction of the initial stages in the creation of a Marine, we follow the process of dismantling the civilian mental framework of the recently arrived military recruit. The film is set in 1968, at the height of an increasingly unpopular South East Asian conflict the Vietnam War. In the films opening sequences, we see the main characters, as well as the other members of the unit having their civilian haircuts literally shorn off like sheep. This is the beginning of a process of de-humanization, of breaking down the civilian sense of self, only to be replaced by the Marine psyche.