Who is likely to be a target of online hate and extremism? To answer this question, we use an online survey (N = 963) of youth and young adults recruited from a demographically balanced sample of Americans. Adapting routine activity theory, we distinguish between actor-initiated social control (i.e., self-help), other-initiated social control (i.e., collective efficacy), ...

Without recruitment terrorism can not prevail, survive and develop. Recruitment provides the killers, the suicide bombers, the kidnappers, the executioners, the engineers, the soldiers and the armies of future terrorism. The internet has become a useful instrument for modern terrorists’ recruitment and especially of foreign fighters. Online platforms and particularly the new social media (e.g., ...

Cosponsored by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) and the Greater Washington, DC Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC-DC). This Policy Forum is convened by Dr. Susan Aaronson (IIEP/GWU) and Dr. Mark MacCarthy (SIIA). Speakers: – Professor Esther Brimmer, Professor of Practice of International Affairs, GWU, and former Assistant Secretary of State for International ...

The Internet is a transformative technology that terrorists are exploiting for the spread of propaganda and radicalizing new recruits. While al-Qaeda has a longer history, Islamic State is conducting a modern and sophisticated media campaign centered around online social networking. This article introduces and contextualizes the contributions to this Special Issue by examining some of ...

This research centred on three layers of analysis: Firstly, understanding the keywords, or search terms, people use to find information on Google; secondly, looking at the data demonstrating links going into a selection of known extremist websites in order to understand their relationships with other websites; and thirdly, analysing the content of Google search results ...

As Al Qaeda and the Islamic State vie for ascendancy in the jihad movement, policymakers grapple with distinguishing the threat posed by these groups. Proceeding from the terrorists’ view of media as a critical arena of jihad, this study applies content analysis to Al Qaeda- and Islamic State-produced magazines in order to empirically differentiate the ...

This volume reports on the range of papers presented at the Annual Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Research Conference 2014 from 7-8 December 2014 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The Conference was organized and hosted by Hedayah (the International Center of Excellence for Countering Violent Extremism), Curtin University, People Against Violent Extremism (PaVE), and the Australian ...

Blogs, social media, and search engines have democratized information seekers and providers. However, the same affordances of the Internet have also contributed to resurgence and transformation of far-right and racist communities. Despite a growing number of studies of far-right communities, little attention has so far been paid to the mechanisms through which far-right and racist ...

In this article we investigate the evolution of ISIS by analysing the text contained in Dabiq, the official ISIS’ internet magazine in English. Specifically, we used a computerized text analysis pro-gram LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count) to investigate the evolution of the language of the first 11 Issues of Dabiq. First, our analysis showed ...

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