Islamic State’s English-language Magazines, 2014-2017: Trends & Implications for CT-CVE Strategic Communications
September 18, 2023
Islamic State (IS) has used English-language magazines as a crucial component of its propaganda strategy, particularly targeting Muslims living in the West. This paper provides a quick reference guide to IS’s English-language magazines released between June 2014 and September 2017 examining key themes and propaganda strategies deployed across three issues of Islamic State News, four ...
Tweet… If You Dare: How Counter-Terrorism Laws Restrict Freedom of Expression in Spain
September 18, 2023
Social media users, journalists, lawyers and musicians have been prosecuted under Article 578 of the Spanish Criminal Code, which prohibits “glorifying terrorism” and “humiliating the victims of terrorism”. Although this provision was first introduced in 2000, it is only in recent years, following its amendment in 2015, that prosecutions and convictions under Article 578 have ...
The Mediums and the Messages: Exploring the Language of Islamic State Media through Sentiment Analysis
September 18, 2023
This study applies the method of sentiment analysis to the online media released by the Islamic State (IS) in order to distinguish the ways in which IS uses language within their media, and potential ways in which this language differs across various online platforms. The data used for this sentiment analysis consist of transcripts of ...
Counter Conversations: A Model for Direct Engagement with Individuals Showing Signs of Radicalisation Online
September 18, 2023
This report outlines the results of a programme trialling a methodology for identifying individuals who are demonstrating signs of radicalisation on social media, and engaging these individuals in direct, personalised and private ‘counter-conversations’ for the purpose of de-radicalisation from extremist ideology and disengagement from extremist movements. This is the first programme globally which has trialled ...
Watching ISIS: How Young Adults Engage with Official English-language ISIS Videos
September 18, 2023
Research on jihadist online propaganda (henceforth JOP) tends to focus on the production, content and dissemination of jihadist online messages. Correspondingly, the target of JOP – that is, the audience – has thus far attracted little scholarly attention. This article seeks to redress this neglect by focusing on how audiences respond to jihadist online messaging. ...
Black-boxing the Black Flag: Anonymous Sharing Platforms and ISIS Content Distribution Tactics
September 18, 2023
The study examines three anonymous sharing portals employed strategically by the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) to achieve its political ends. This study argues that anonymous sharing portals such as Sendvid.com, Justpast.it, and Dump.to have been instrumental in allowing individual jihadists to generate content, disseminate propaganda and communicate freely while routing around filtering ...
Antisemetic content on Twitter
September 18, 2023
This report presents an analysis of the production and propagation of online antagonistic content related to Jews posted on Twitter between October 2015 and October 2016 in the UK. ...
Propaganda for Kids: Comparing IS-Produced Propaganda to Depictions of Propaganda in The Hunger Games and Harry Potter Film Series
September 18, 2023
The Harry Potter and The Hunger Games films are wildly popular with adolescents and adults alike, despite touching on themes that parallel the horrors in our own world’s geopolitical climate. The Islamic State (IS) promotes its own messages of violence, brutality, and even utopia through sophisticated propaganda disseminated via social media. This article discusses the ...
Virtual Terrorism and the Internet E-Learning Options
September 18, 2023
E-learning on the Internet is constituted by the options that this global technology gives the user. This article explores these options in terms of the lifestyle choices and decisions that the learner will make about the virtual worlds, textual meanings and cultural groupings that they will find as they learn online. This is a non-linear ...
The Language of Radicalization: Female Internet Recruitment to Participation in ISIS Activities
September 18, 2023
Why do young Muslim women radicalize and undertake high-risk political behaviors, and what factors influence their sociopolitical transformation? The process of radicalization happens because of individual, social, and political dynamics, and is facilitated by the availability of computer-mediated communication. Some young Muslim women keep detailed records of their radicalization process via social media, which we ...