Books and publications
Index / Activities / Books and publications / Weapons of Mass Seduction
Weapons of Mass Seduction
June 21, 20177:00 p.m.
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62).
7:00 p.m.
Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
In Spanish.
Casa Árabe and Ediciones Península are presenting this work by Javier
Lesaca, a visiting researcher from George Washington University.
The presentation will include participation by the author himself, as well as interventions by Félix Sanz Roldán, director of the National Center for Intelligence, and Ramón Perelló, director of publishing at Ediciones Península. Presented by Pedro Villena, General Director of Casa Árabe.
In the summer of 2014, a video went viral on the Internet. In the video, a hooded man with a clear British accent cuts the throat of American journalist James Wright Foley, kidnapped two years earlier, in the name of the Islamic State. This was the “calling card” for a new terrorist group which was trying to make itself known around the world, not only through bombs and bullets, but also through trans-media communication products: elegantly filmed videos, well-designed magazines and carefully plotted hashtags on Twitter.
Since then, these terrorists have produced and broadcast more than 1,300 videos in order to construct a tale of their own to fascinate and mobilize their audiences. The Islamic State has forever changed the way in which terrorism thinks and acts, and these new weapons of mass seduction are forcing States and modern institutions to fully redesign their policies on security and public and institutional communication.
Javier Lesaca (Pamplona, 1981) is a consultant and visiting researcher at George Washington University, where he studies the construction of public opinion and its implications in governance, security and development. Since 2014, he has combined his professional activity with research on the public opinion strategies of extremist groups. He has a degree in Journalism from the University of Navarre, where he has been an associate professor, and a Master’s degree in Arab Studies from Georgetown University, where he was a Fulbright scholar. He has worked with entities like the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, Casa Árabe and the Government of Navarre. He forms part of the network of experts against radicalization at the United Nations and has taken part in forums such as the UN Security Council and UNESCO’s Euro-Arab Dialogue. His research has appeared in the New York Times, on CNN and in Der Spiegel, as well as other media, and at the United States Congress.
In the summer of 2014, a video went viral on the Internet. In the video, a hooded man with a clear British accent cuts the throat of American journalist James Wright Foley, kidnapped two years earlier, in the name of the Islamic State. This was the “calling card” for a new terrorist group which was trying to make itself known around the world, not only through bombs and bullets, but also through trans-media communication products: elegantly filmed videos, well-designed magazines and carefully plotted hashtags on Twitter.
Since then, these terrorists have produced and broadcast more than 1,300 videos in order to construct a tale of their own to fascinate and mobilize their audiences. The Islamic State has forever changed the way in which terrorism thinks and acts, and these new weapons of mass seduction are forcing States and modern institutions to fully redesign their policies on security and public and institutional communication.
Javier Lesaca (Pamplona, 1981) is a consultant and visiting researcher at George Washington University, where he studies the construction of public opinion and its implications in governance, security and development. Since 2014, he has combined his professional activity with research on the public opinion strategies of extremist groups. He has a degree in Journalism from the University of Navarre, where he has been an associate professor, and a Master’s degree in Arab Studies from Georgetown University, where he was a Fulbright scholar. He has worked with entities like the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, Casa Árabe and the Government of Navarre. He forms part of the network of experts against radicalization at the United Nations and has taken part in forums such as the UN Security Council and UNESCO’s Euro-Arab Dialogue. His research has appeared in the New York Times, on CNN and in Der Spiegel, as well as other media, and at the United States Congress.
