Fitna, the video battle: how YouTube enables the young to perform their religious and public identities

In March 2008, Dutch extreme-right parliamentarian Geert Wilders released a 16 minute anti-Islam movie called Fitna. Wilders had a hard time finding a broadcaster or internet provider willing to air the film, because his mere idea caused an immense global controversy, leading to death treats, violent protest, diplomatic incidents and fierce public debate. One of the reactions consisted of organised and unorganised video protest by young people from all over the world, who uploaded their reactions to websites such as YouTube or LiveLeak. These videos form the material for this research project and enable the description of the visual resources young women and men use to perform their religious and public identities, the articulation of their motives and beliefs with their particular visual styles, and the exploration of the type of arguments that visual culture allows for in religious and public debate.

The research will contribute to academic work on youth and religion in three ways: first it will provide more insight into the mediation and public performance of the young religious self, processes which are usually less publicly visible and restrictred to situated local and religious contexts. Second, most studies about young people and religion have been carried out in the Psychology discipline focusing mainly on Christian religions. While young people of all religious and non-religous backgrounds posted their Fitna-videos, the focus of this study is on Islam, and the political and cultural battle surrounding it, therewith providing a relatively exceptional entry to the study of youth and religion. Third, the Fitna-battle was as much a political and social struggle as a religious one. This combination takes this study into the wider field of public sphere studies amd theories, which assumes traditionally a literate, informed and rational public. The increasing public importance of both religion and visual culture has challenged these assumptions and necessitated the question of whether and how they can be incorporated in public debate.

The research will be carried out in an interpretative research design, in which videos, background information, email interviews and contrasting online written texts will form the body of material, approached through qualitative methods of data gathering, and discursive and semiotic methods of data analysis.

The research team consists of a principal and a co-investigator, and a postdoctoral research assistant, who together will produce seven journal articles, op-ed contributions to newspapers, and a dedicated website with a selection of typical videos and research output.