Welcome to Volume 9, Issue 3 of the VOX-Pol Newsletter.
TASM CONFERENCE 2022
The Terrorism and Social Media Conference 2022 took place at Swansea University in June. Highlights from the conference can be watched on YouTube, along with the keynotes from Jonathan Hall QC and VOX-Pol’s Professor Maura Conway.
Jonathan Hall QC is a barrister in independent practice and presented his work as an Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation in 2019. Prof Maura Conway, of Dublin City University and Swansea University, discussed the past and future of VOX-Pol, and how the online extremism and terrorism landscape has changed over time.
The ARC Steering Committee wrote a VOX-Pol Blog post, Our Takeaways from TASM 2022, to summarise some key points from the conference.
SWANSEA UNIVERSITY LEADS VOX-Pol
At the Terrorism and Social Media 2022 conference, it was announced that Professor Stuart Macdonald of the Swansea University Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law will take on the coordinating role in the VOX-Pol network.
Stuart Macdonald, Professor of Law and Director of the University’s Cyber Threats Research Centre, will take over leadership from Maura Conway, the founder of VOX-Pol. Prof Conway is quoted in the press release:
“I’m very pleased to be handing over leadership of VOX-Pol to Prof. Macdonald at Swansea University. While I will continue to be involved with the work of the network, the transition to new leadership is a great opportunity to reinvigorate our efforts across research, partnering, events, and policy. I look forward to VOX-Pol’s continued scholarly and practical impact under Swansea’s stewardship.”
A new section on the VOX-Pol website shows the people and institutions in the reconstituted VOX-Pol Network.
THE TOP FIVE MOST READ BLOG POSTS OF THE YEAR
The most-read VOX-Pol Blog posts of the year were highlighted on Twitter throughout August and published on the website. A range of topics are represented in the most read posts: the Taliban, incels, gaming, and the potential of the Metaverse. You can see the previous years’ most-read from 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018.
If you’d like to submit your work to the VOX-Pol Blog, the submission instructions are HERE.
IN THE MEDIA
- Far-right Extremism and Gun Violence: Reimagining Prevention, Southern Poverty Law Center, 16 August 2022.
- Jihadi terrorists use humor to reinforce identity, The Jerusalem Post, 14 August, 2022.
- White Nationalism, Stormfront, and the Extremist Politicisation of Science, Global Network on Extremism & Technology, 20 July 2022.
- Why far-right groups are increasingly targeting the LGBTQ community, PBS News Hour, 14 June 2022.
- The global rise of white supremacist terrorism, The Brookings Institution, 10 June 2022.