MA Thesis

Advances in Computer Science continue to provide more tools, each time more efficient, to aid us in our everyday lives with everything from work to entertainment, from health to management of natural resources. Technology has made our lives better and continues to facilitate progress. But just as it can benefit us, it is only a ...

Each day approximately 6,800 members of the private security workforce are deployed across Kansas City to provide protection services at venues, many of which have been identified as being critical infrastructure and/or key resources. While these guards are tasked with providing the first line of defense at these locations, there is currently no mechanism or ...

The idea of homegrown terrorism is not a new concept, especially considering the history of challenges faced by the United States and other Western countries. However, the current violent jihadist problem has overshadowed those past misfortunes in terms of its objective and volatility. What is emergent is the means by which the individuals involved in ...

Within the short timeframe of a few months, a new terrorist group managed to solidify its presence in the Middle East in order to begin radicalizing and recruiting foreigners to fight jihad and declare an overarching goal of creating a purely Islamic State. DAESH quickly established their brand and a media strategy and became known ...

This thesis asks why and how terrorist organizations use the Internet to achieve three strategic goals: 1) the dissemination of propaganda, 2) recruitment and 3) fundraising. It is immediately apparent that the Internet offers a number of advantages, including low cost, global reach, and anonymity. Nonetheless, terrorist organizations vary in their exploitation of these advantages ...

This paper outlines the results of a two-month study in which a series of extremist Islmnist websites – registered, hosted or given datacentre services by Canadian internet companies- were empirically observed. The results of this project are inserted into a framework which explores the issue and wrongful application of the “terrorist signifier to substance or ...

The study monitors the evolution of perceptions and opinions of the terrorist group the Islamic State (ISIS) during its involvement in Syria and Iraq in 2013-2014. Data is drawn from a web-forum discussing current Islamic affairs that followed ISIS as early as September 2013. These data are used to answer the question of whether or ...

This dissertation is a critical discourse analysis of how anti-Islamic rhetoric in prominent online forums is articulated within the context of popular discourses of multiculturalism and tolerance. According to Melanie McAlister, perceptions of Muslims within the United States are unique in comparison to other minority groups in that they are almost entirely mediated, whether it ...

This thesis argues that Hamas and the Islamic State, two non-state armed groups located in the Middle East, each carefully calibrate their own war-fighting activities with their communications approaches in order to achieve their respective political objectives. Drawing on scholarship focusing on non-state armed groups and political communication, as well as other secondary sources such ...

This thesis is an examination of the backgrounds of twenty-five individuals who conducted a ‘jihad’ inspired terrorist attack within the United States between the years of 2001 and 2016 to determine if terrorists use physical training camps or online training camps as the main method of training to prepare for their attacks. The debate about ...