A Critical Analysis of the Role of the Internet in the Preparation and Planning of Acts of Terrorism
September 18, 2023
ABSTRACT- The purpose of this paper is to offer a critical assessment of the way in which the internet and online material features as part of the process individuals embark on to plan acts of terrorism. The paper begins by evaluating concepts used to describe the role of the internet in the context of terrorism ...
Criminogenic Qualities Of The Internet
September 18, 2023
ABSTRACT- This paper initially identifies a number of critical distinctions that might help our understanding of the relationship between Internet use and terrorism. It then develops the notion of complex global microstructures as a useful conceptual aid to understanding how people interact with the Internet in general, and to terrorism in particular. Parallels are identified ...
Jean-Paul Laborde (CTED) and Humera Khan (Muflehun) on Terrorism Online – Media Stakeout (17 December 2015)
September 18, 2023
Informal comments to the media by Mr. Jean-Paul Laborde, Assistant Secretary-General and Executive Director of CounterTerrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) and Mrs. Humera Khan, Executive Director of Muflehun, on terrorism online. ...
Mobilisation and Violence in the New Media Ecology: the Dua Khalil Aswad and Camilia Shehata Cases
September 18, 2023
This article examines two cases in which political groups sought to harness the new media ecology to mobilise and justify acts of violence to public audiences and to supporters. In each case, a woman’s suffering is presented and instrumentalised. However, the new media ecology offers an increasingly irregular economy of media modulation: digital footage may ...
‘Don’t Talk to Me’: Effects of Ideologically Homogeneous Online Groups and Politically Dissimilar Offline Ties on Extremism
September 18, 2023
This study analyzes cross-sectional data obtained from respondents in neo-Nazi online discussion forums and textual data from postings to these forums. It assesses the impact of participation in radical and homogeneous online groups on opinion extremism and probes whether this impact depends on political dissimilarity of strong and weak offline ties. Specifically, does dissimilarity attenuate ...
The Hidden Face of Jihadist Internet Forum Management: The Case of Ansar Al Mujahideen
September 18, 2023
This article offers a descriptive analysis of the private interactions which took place on the jihadist Internet forum known as Ansar Al Mujahideen between 2008 and 2010. The analysis of the non-visible part of the forum contributes to a more robust underpinning of some current assumptions regarding the jihadist Internet infrastructure and its hierarchical dependence ...
The Dark Side of the Web: Italian Right-Wing Extremist Groups and the Internet
September 18, 2023
Focusing on extreme-right organisations in Italy, this article addresses the specific use of the Internet by extremist groups and its potential role for the formation of collective identity, organisational contacts and mobilisation. The analysis includes both political parties and non-party organisations, even violent groups. Through the combination of Social Network Analysis (SNA) of web linkages ...
Differential Online Exposure to Extremist Content and Political Violence: Testing the Relative Strength of Social Learning and Competing Perspectives
September 18, 2023
The present study applies Social Learning (Differential Association) Theory to the explanation of political violence, focusing on exposure to extremist content through new social media (NSM) and controlling for key variables derived from rival theories. Data are gathered using (a) a paper-and-pencil study among high school students, and (b) a web survey targeting youths between ...
Irresponsible Radicalisation: Diasporas, Globalisation and Long-Distance Nationalism in the Digital Age
September 18, 2023
The growing scholarship on ethnic diasporas has prompted various off-shoots. Two significant directions are the relationship of diasporas with globalisation and their role in the expansion and radicalisation of ethnic conflict. The corporate enthusiasm of the 1990s for globalisation has been followed by sombre reflections on its destructive impact upon a vast array of areas, ...