The internet permeates all aspects of modern life and violent extremism is no exception. Although the level of importance is sometimes disputed, few would deny the role that online communication has in driving people towards violent extremist groups. While there are various perspectives on the exact nature of this process, it is increasingly agreed upon ...

In this article, the authors theorize the communicative logic of ISIS online death videos—from the burning and shooting of individual hostages to mass battleground executions. Drawing on Adriana Cavarero’s reflections on contemporary violence, they demonstrate how ISIS’ digital spectacles of the annihilated body confront Western viewers with horror— or rather with different “regimes of horrorism” ...

Some scholars and others are sceptical of a significant role for the Internet in processes of violent radicalisation. There is increasing concern on the part of other scholars, and increasingly also policymakers and publics, that easy availability of violent extremist content online may have violent radicalising effects. This article identifies a number of core questions ...

Seit Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts besteht innerhalb der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung der Konsens, dass die technologischen Möglichkeiten des Internets von vitaler Bedeutung für den islamistischen Terrorismus sind (Corman 2011; Cornish& Lindley-French&Yorke 2011; Fink&Barclay 2013). Verschiedene Studien bewerten die Existenz des Internets gar als Voraussetzung dafür, dass eine terroristische Organisation wie Al Qaida bereits länger als 20 ...

Public interest and policy debates surrounding the role of the Internet in terrorist activities is increasing. Criminology has said very little on the matter. By using a unique data set of 223 convicted United Kingdom–based terrorists, this article focuses on how they used the Internet in the commission of their crimes. As most samples of ...

Dounia Mahlouly puts to task online radicalisation by understanding it as a goal to create transnational audiences, using a comparative approach to discuss the cases of europe, the mena region and Southeast asia. ...

The Redirect Method​ uses Adwords targeting tools and curated YouTube videos uploaded by people all around the world to confront online radicalization. It focuses on the slice of ISIS’ audience that is most susceptible to its messaging, and redirects them towards curated YouTube videos debunking ISIS recruiting themes. This open methodology was developed from interviews ...

Anno Bunnik explores the ramifications of Big Data for countering terrorism, extremism, and radicalisation. With the recent rise of jihadists and other extremists groups in the Middle East and Europe, how do state agencies respond through the use of Big Data? This chapter critically engages with questions such as the extent to which Big Data ...

This paper explores the risk that virtual currencies (VCs) may become involved in the financing of terrorism at a significant scale. VCs and asso- ciated technologies hold great promise for low cost, high speed, verified transactions that can unite coun- terparties around the world. For this reason they could appear appealing to terrorist groups (as ...

Terrorist groups are increasingly using encryption to plan and coordinate terrorist acts, leading to calls for the banning or backdooring of encrypted messaging apps. This would be misguided. It would not remove the ability of terrorist groups to access this technology and may push them to communicate in ways that are more difficult for Western ...