Militant’s Strategy of Communication
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Date
2017
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Abstract
This study is based on population of Swat valley which had been under the control of militants mainly Maulana Fazlullah’s group from 2002 to 2007. Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah, (Mullah Radio) established FM radio station in Swat and killed all the other pre-existing modes of mass communication including other radio channels. Through his radio programs and speeches he influenced the people of Swat, Pakistan and gained popularity and dominance. These transmissions proved to be most noteworthy when it comes to paving a way for fulfilling militants’ plan for regional hegemony and domination. Developing an understanding of the communication strategies used in these transmissions that made it notoriously operative and famous is the main objective of this study.In-depth interviews and structured questionnaire were used as research instruments in order to observe the response of the study population. The respondents were divided into different strata’s and selected through the non-random sampling from the valley of Swat. Through in-depth interviews, it was found out that Fazlullah wanted to carry out a Jihad against the government of Pakistan and used radio technologies as a medium of conveying his messages to the people of the Valley of Swat. He chose this medium as people in the rural areas in general did not have access to TV or other means of mass communication, but almost everyone had a radio in their homes. He began his transmissions with very soft messages like Quranic sayings, their translations and harmless lessons about daily life which took a turn two years later when he began recruiting Taliban members through extremist sermons
Description
Supervised by: Dr. Farasat Rasool
Keywords
Media, Militancy, FM Radio, Communication, Strategy, Taliban, Swat, Fazlullah.