Welcome to Volume 12, Issue 3 of the monthly VOX-Pol Newsletter.
VOX-Pol is now on Bluesky!
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EVENTS
Reminder for 2025 C-REX & VOX-Pol Summer School
This five-day workshop will be held on 9 – 13 June 2025 at the Center for Research on Extremism at University of Oslo, Norway. The workshop is co-organized by C-REX and VOX-Pol and aims to provide PhD students with the foundation skills for studying online right-wing extremism by focusing on methodology, ethics, and personal safety.
Visit the C-REX website to apply to attend. The deadline to apply is 14 March 2025.
The EU Knowledge Hub Research Committee
Prof Maura Conway attended the first meeting of the The EU Knowledge Hub Research Committee on 25 February 2025 in Brussels. The EUKH Research Committee is made up of 15 internationally recognised researchers in the field of radicalisation and plays a vital role in supporting the European Commission in shaping the EU’s approach topreventing radicalisation. Read more about the meeting HERE.
Webinar: Understanding Hate Speech & Non-Radicalization
Dr Kamil Yilmaz presented a webinar on 14 February titled “Understanding Hate Speech & Non-Radicalization: Case Studies from Turkey,” organised by Swiss-based Security Studies and Rule of Law Association. The webinar is available to watch online on YouTube.
PUBLICATIONS
VOX-Pol Members Joe Whittaker, Elizabeth Pearson, Ashley A. Mattheis, Till Baaken, Sara Zeiger, Farangiz Atamuradova, and Maura Conway have published research from the REASSURE project in the journal New Media and Society, looking specifically at the ethics review process.
The article, titled ‘Catch 22: Institutional ethics and researcher welfare within online extremism and terrorism research‘ is freely available to read in full online. The paper reports on: experiences with ethics processes, researcher welfare within the ethics process, and institutions hampering research.
RECENTLY ON THE VOX-Pol BLOG
We’ve featured Early Career Researchers for Next Gen Network month on the VOX-Pol Blog. Posts included:
- A Big Tech race to the bottom is bad news for everyone, 5 March 2025, David Wells
- Being one step ahead: How platforms (can) counter terrorism online, 26 February 2025, Franziska Selzer
- Assessing the Role of GAI Music in the Context of Extremism, 19 February 2025, Jonathan Pieslak
- Examining the Online Posting Behaviors and Trajectories of Incel Forum Members, 12 February 2025, Brenna Helm, Thomas J. Holt, Ryan Scrivens, Thomas W. Wojciechowski, and Richard Frank
Click here for instructions on how to submit an article.
IN THE MEDIA
A spotlight on recent news items featuring VOX-Pol Members and their research:
- Australia struggles to address a surge in antisemitic attacks, NBC News, 16 February 2025
- Third of young people showing signs of social media addiction, TechCentral, 11 February 2025