Journal Article

This article compares two universes of official Islamic State media that were compiled 18 months apart. It explores the nuances of the group’s worldview and illustrates the extent to which external and internal situational exigencies impacted the Islamic State’s brand during its formative years as caliphate. It finds that the organization’s media infrastructure was about ...

Compared to the more spectacular elements of its media repertoire—the slick recruitment campaigns on social media, the artfully composed battlefield footage, the grisly executions—I.S.I.S.’s infographics may seem dull, even trivial. Indeed, these data visualizations have gone largely unremarked, eliciting more bemusement than serious consideration. Against the tendency to discount these images, however, I argue that ...

The Internet is harnessed as an ideal means for organization and promotion of protest ideology, which does not require special institutional facilities for maintenance and development. Radical right-wing extremism is reckoned to be among the public sentiments employing this global network. Consequently, Russia is experiencing the tightening of Internet controls. The objective of our study ...

Analyses of extremist video messages typically focus on their discursive content. Using the case of ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), this study instead draws upon the emerging subfield of genosonic analysis to understand the allure of extremist videos, as well as the ineffectiveness of US video messages designed to ‘counter violent extremism’ ...

Book review: This edited volume offers a collection of essays on the timely topic of online violent extremism, including: terrorists’ wide ranging use of online platforms, the appeal of online platforms, internet use in terrorism trials, online extremist narrative and counter-narrative studies, the need for and the challenges associated with online violent extremism research particularly ...

In our interview, Brian Fishman, Facebook’s Counterterrorism Policy Manager, provides a detailed description of how Facebook is using artificial intelligence and a dedicated team of counterterrorism specialists to remove terrorism content from its platform. Given the emergence of a new generation of leadership within al-Qa`ida, it is critical to understand the evolving threat from the ...

Combatting violent extremism can involve organizing Peer-to-Peer (P2P) preventing violent extremism (PVE) programs and social media campaigns. While hundreds of PVE campaigns have been launched around the world in recent months and years, very few of these campaigns have actually been reviewed, analyzed, or assessed in any systematic way. Metrics of success and failure have ...

Women participate extensively in armed, Islamist struggle. In recent years, foreign women have travelled from the West to join Daesh. Their participation perplexes policymakers, government officials, and researchers who call attention to the group’s gendered regulation, violence, and widespread use of rape. Consequently, observers often argue that women are deceived by the organisation or seduced ...

John Mueller examines the degree to which the cybercoaching of terrorists should be cause for concern, arguing that in many cases cybercoaches have little control over their amateurish charges. ...

The study aims to capture links between the use of encrypted communication channel -Telegram and lone wolf attacks occurred in Europe between 2015-2016. To understand threads of ISIS communication on Telegram we used digital ethnography approach which consists of the self-observation of information flows on four of ISIS’s most celebrated telegram Channels. We draw on ...