Journal Article
Prolific, Digital, and Violent: The Far-Right’s Online “Republic of Letters”
September 18, 2023The publication of online manifestos has become a common element associated with far-right terrorist violence in the West. Perpetrators of extremist attacks produce and circulate written materials for inspiration, tactical instruction, and notoriety. This presents policymakers and media organizations with considerable analytical challenges. Each far-right text represents a constituent element within a growing body of ...
Die Rolle des Internets im Radikalisierungsprozess einer jihadistischen Straftäterin – eine Einzelfallstudie
September 18, 2023Anhand der Einzelfallstudie des Radikalisierungsprozesses einer jihadistischen Straftäterin möchte dieser Beitrag die besondere Rolle des Internets bei Radikalisierungen von Extremisten aufzeigen. Die Straftäterin war in den Jahren 2007 bis 2010 einePropagandistin, die über das Internet mehrere terroristische Vereinigungen unterstützte, indem sie deren Videobotschaften online verbreitete. In der Einzelfallstudie wird aufgezeigt, wie sich die Jihadistin durch ...
Hiding hate speech: political moderation on Facebook
September 18, 2023Facebook facilitates more extensive dialogue between citizens and politicians. However, communicating via Facebook has also put pressure on political actors to administrate and moderate online debates in order to deal with uncivil comments. Based on a platform analysis of Facebook’s comment moderation functions and interviews with eight political parties’ communication advisors, this study explored how ...
An Exploration of the Involuntary Celibate (Incel) Subculture Online
September 18, 2023Incels, a portmanteau of the term involuntary celibates, operate in online communities to discuss difficulties in attaining sexual relationships. Past reports have found that multiple elements of the incel culture are misogynistic and favorable towards violence. Further, several violent incidents have been linked to this community, which suggests that incel communities may resemble other ideologically ...
Online influence, offline violence: language use on YouTube surrounding the ‘Unite the Right’ rally
September 18, 2023The media frequently describes the 2017 Charlottesville ‘Unite the Right’ rally as a turning point for the alt-right and white supremacist movements. Social movement theory suggests that the media attention and public discourse concerning the rally may have engendered changes in social identity performance and visibility of the alt-right, but this has yet to be ...
Social media and radicalisation of university students in Bangladesh
September 18, 2023While there is growing research on radicalisation and its countermeasures, in the context of Bangladesh, there is a paucity of academic studies on the role of social media in the radicalisation of university students. This research addresses the gap by using survey data to examine the online behaviour and social media use of the university-going ...
Is IS Online Chatter Just Noise?: An Analysis of the Islamic State Strategic Communications
September 18, 2023The objective of this research is to analyze the potential use of strategic communication, and specifically, strategic brand management and online communications directed to a foreign target by the Islamic State (IS). For this purpose, a review of official the IS online media releases was carried out to determine if they reflect characteristics, components, or ...
Research Note: More Bucks, Still No Bangs? Why a Cost-Benefit Analysis of Cyberterrorism Still Holds True
September 18, 2023Taking as reference a cost-benefit analysis of cyberterrorism published in 2004 by Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, this article briefly reviews what happened in the last 15 years in cyberterrorism research, what was correctly forecast, what was wrong and what may happen in the future. Some of the analyses published in during this period have ...
Uniting the far right: how the far-right extremist, New Right, and populist frames overlap on Twitter – a German case study
September 18, 2023Recent elections in Europe have demonstrated a steady rise in the success of right-wing populist parties. While advancing an anti-immigration agenda, these parties have been adamant to distance themselves from ‘right-wing extremism’. This article analyses a sample of tweets collected from the Twitter accounts of the German AfD, Identitarian Movement and the Autonomous Nationalists by ...
Youth Exposure to Hate in the Online Space: An Exploratory Analysis
September 18, 2023Today’s youth have almost universal access to the internet and frequently engage in social networking activities using various social media platforms and devices. This is a phenomenon that hate groups are exploiting when disseminating their propaganda. This study seeks to better understand youth exposure to hateful material in the online space by exploring predictors of ...