Social media interactions, online radicalisation and Conversation Analysis
September 18, 2023
Social media platforms have become extremely popular in the last fifteen years. Almost half of the world population has a social media account. This has made social media extremely attractive to extremist groups. Recent studies have shown that extremists use social media platforms for violent radicalisation. They take advantage of the interactional nature of these ...
Islamic/State: Daesh’s Visual Negotiation of Institutional Positioning
September 18, 2023
In response to calls for more empirical studies in organizational communication to further develop the Four Flows Model of CCO, this analysis examines Daesh’s use of visual messaging strategies as a means of institutional positioning in the global communications environment. To do so, the study analyzes over 2000 religious and state images displayed in the ...
Radicalization in the Social Media Era: Understanding the Relationship between Self-Radicalization and the Internet
September 18, 2023
September 11th was a turning point in the understanding of terrorism and radicalization. The Internet has provided an instrumental change regarding how terrorists communicate and spread their propaganda, proving a cause of concern for counterterrorism units. The increased use of social networking platforms has provided a significant change in the process of self-radicalization, with younger ...
‘Welcome to #GabFam’: Far-right virtual community on Gab
September 18, 2023
With large social media platforms coming under increasing pressure to deplatform far-right users, the Alternative Technology movement (Alt-Tech) emerged as a new digital support infrastructure for the far right. We conduct a qualitative analysis of the prominent Alt-Tech platform Gab, a social networking service primarily modelled on Twitter, to assess the far-right virtual community on ...
Social media corporations as actors of counter-terrorism
September 18, 2023
This article discusses the role of giant social media corporations Facebook, Google (YouTube), and Twitter in counter-terrorism and countering violent extremisms (CT/CVEs). Based on a qualitative investigation mobilizing corporate communications as well as a collection of interviews with European stakeholders, it argues that these firms have become actors in this policy area of what is ...
The Online Intersection among Islamophobia, Populism, and Hate Speech: An Italian Perspective
September 18, 2023
Online radical Islam is a topic widely studied by scholars and notoriously discussed among non- experts as well (; ; ). Because of its intrinsic characteristics (i.e. accessibility, anonymity, or users’ identity dissimulation), the internet has always been a useful tool for propagandists of Islamic fundamentalism (; ; ). However, in the last decade, studies ...
Salafist Third Spaces and Hybridic Purity on YouTube
September 18, 2023
This case study applies aspects of third space theory (; ) to investigate the activism on the YouTube channel Salafimedia UK (smuk) and their claim to be the self-proscribed “truest” and “purest” Islamic sect. This chapter introduces the somewhat paradoxical concept of “hybridic purity” – an emerging ideology that seeks to encompass pre-modern Islamic practices ...
Online Jihadist Propaganda: 2020 in Review
September 18, 2023
The third edition of Europol’s annual report on Online Jihadist Propaganda provides a comprehensive analysis of the major trends and developments in online propaganda of the most prominent jihadist organisations for the year 2020. ...
Content-Sharing Algorithms, Processes, and Positive Interventions Working Group: Part 2: Positive Interventions
September 18, 2023
In setting out the work program for the past 12 months, the shared objective of the group was to collaborate across industry, government, and civil society “to map contentsharing algorithms and processes used by industry that may facilitate consumption of content that may increase user interest in or amplify terrorist and violent extremist content and ...
Content-Sharing Algorithms, Processes, and Positive Interventions Working Group: Part 1: Content-Sharing Algorithms & Processes
September 18, 2023
In setting out the work program for the past 12 months, the group’s shared objective was to collaborate across industry, government, and civil society “to map content-sharing algorithms and processes used by industry that may facilitate consumption of content that may increase user interest in or amplify terrorist and violent extremist content and consider positive ...