Blog

by Philip Seib The State Department is trying hard to counter online propaganda from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The information battleground includes Twitter and video messages, terrain that ISIL knows well. In addition to having too little money and too few people, the department is forced to conform to federal rules requiring that its ...

Dear Reader, Welcome to the third issue of the VOX-Pol Newsletter! The VOX-Pol Network of Excellence is a European Union Framework Programme 7 funded academic research network focused on researching the prevalence, contours, functions, and impacts of Violent Online Political Extremism and responses to it. It is a five-year programme which commenced on 1 January, 2014. ...

by Elizabeth Buchanan When news of the Facebook contagion study hit, I was presenting a session on research ethics to the VOX-Pol summer school at Dublin City University. I had intended to discuss the Belfast Project as an example of social, behavioural, and educational research gone badly—indeed, this project had international intrigue, raised serious issues ...

by Anne Stenersen In Jihadi Culture on the World Wide Web, Gilbert Ramsay challenges existing assumptions about the phenomenon of ‘online jihadism’. He argues that a clear distinction be drawn between the offline and online activities of al-Qaida’s supporters. Consumption of ‘jihadi’ content online is not necessarily a step towards engagement in real-world violence, but a cultural ...

Did the Internet play a decisive role in Anders Behring Breivik’s violent radicalisation? In a recent study of Breivik’s online activities, I went through his posts on various message boards between 2002 and 2011, in addition to a collection of more than 7,000 of his private e-mails forwarded by Norwegian hackers to a Norwegian journalist ...

On 19-20 January 2015, the VOX-Pol network is organising a workshop in Brussels on the ethics and politics of the day-to-day monitoring of the Net for material promoting violent extremism — by police, intelligence agencies, the Internet industry, and private groups and individuals. It will be a fully participative event, with short keynotes from leading experts ...

This workshop will revolve around ongoing VOX-Pol funded research being carried out at University College London’s Department of Security and Crime Science. Over the past few years, a number of concerns have been raised about the nature of the Internet’s relationship with terrorism. Despite these growing concerns, both literatures have lacked somewhat an empirical focus.The ...

Participants at VOX-Pol’s inaugural conference at King’s College London in August shared exciting and innovative new research into the process of online radicalisation, and into social media behaviour of violent political extremists. We are now inviting all speakers to publish the research you presented by submitting papers to one of the two special issues of ...

by Cristina Archetti ISIS is winning the propaganda war, it’s been said, and top brass from the European Commission, EU member state governments, and representatives of Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft have met to discuss what to do about extremist online content. They have yet to announce their decision, but it’s likely to involve some form ...

We are compiling a bibliography of research related to the topics of violent online political extremism and radicalisation. We aim to make the bibliography as extensive as possible and are inviting you to contribute by sending us details of any published research that you think should be included. Research published in all media formats—print, video, and audio—are ...