Marketing to Prevent Radicalization: A First Attempt at Delimiting the Field

Our world is becoming more polarized than ever before, with a growing number of extremist groups spreading radical worldviews. Here, we adopt a broad definition of radicalization. For the purpose of this special issue, radicalization is viewed as a process leading to one’s socialization into an extremist belief system that then sets the stage for violence or intolerance toward individuals with a different worldview (Baugut and Neumann 2020; Borum 2011; Helfstein 2012). Although there are countless examples of events linked to radicalization, the riots at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, struck the public’s consciousness with extreme sadness and disbelief. On this infamous day, which has changed the United States for generations to come, political radicalization turned deadly as groups of armed individuals climbed up the walls and then poured through the windows of the U.S. Capitol. Although this example is particularly striking, it is not an isolated event by any stretch. Mass media in different countries bring daily examples of radicalization and violence. For instance, in June 2021 in London, Ontario, a brutal attack resulting in the death of a Muslim family sent shock waves across Canadian Muslim communities. In another example of terrorist attack, an 18-year-old white man shot 13 individuals, killing 10 of them, at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, in May 2022. In light of these horror studies, the current special issue aims to start a discussion about the place of marketing—and its related implication for policies—in understanding and preventing violent acts motivated by extremist beliefs. Though extreme, these examples all point to an increasing polarization in public opinion across a wide range of religious or sociopolitical issues. Different state and nonstate actors seem to be losing the notion of compromise and middle ground. A recent survey reports that one in five Americans believes that political violence may be necessary for some issues (Wintemute et al. 2022). Another U.S. survey about political violence indicates that 40% of respondents view retaliatory violence as justified under some circumstances (Carey et al. 2020). This strong support of “occasional” violence is concerning, given the potential of online platforms to quickly disseminate information of a radical nature. Disturbed by this uncomfortable new reality, we set out on a mission two years ago to add marketing voices to the conversations about radicalization issues. The Journal of Public Policy & Marketing (JPP&M) was a natural fit given its editorial orientation of examining issues that “make a difference” (Martin and Scott 2021, p. 1). Because the topic of radicalization has been rarely addressed in our discipline—at least not directly—we asked ourselves the following questions: What can we do in marketing to address radicalization issues? How can marketing help policy makers and society prevent acts of violence, which are motivated by radicalization, especially online radicalization? Where should we start? Answering these questions is the specific purpose of the special issue, titled “Marketing to Prevent Radicalization: Developing Insights for Policies.” In this special issue, we claim in the strongest possible terms that marketing has an important role to play in understanding, preventing, and decreasing the occurrences of events motivated by radicalization. Although marketing is rarely consulted in the study of radicalization issues—letting other disciplines in social sciences “do the talking” (see, e.g., Neumann and Kleinmann 2013)—we believe the time is ripe for the marketing discipline to get involved and be part of the discussion. We have the means to do so given our expertise in social media, persuasion, communication, activism, transformative services, and other fields. So, our intent with this special issue is to get marketing involved in the discussion about radicalization occurring in our society. To do so, we propose a first attempt at organizing the emergent field of “Marketing to Prevent Radicalization” and delimiting its domains. This effort of organization relies on six insightful articles: two invited commentaries from researchers in criminology and political science and four research articles from marketing scholars. These articles are used to identify four specific domains of interest to “get ourselves started” on the topic of radicalization as marketing scholars. These four domains are (1) misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy; (2) violence, hate, and terrorism; (3) discrimination, exclusion, inequity, and racism; and (4) lack of