Alternative Narratives and Countering Violent Extremism in the Arc of Instability: Reflections on Post-ISIS Iraq
December 19, 2024
This chapter is a contribution to the debate on information resilience and national security from the perspective of countering violent Islamist extremism in the arc of instability. The narratives crafted by various violent Islamist extremists are a form of information resilience, but in this case, they act as counterforces, hindering state efforts to prepare for ...
Extremism, the extreme right, and conspiracy myths on social media
October 20, 2024
In this chapter, we explore the communication modes and tactics used by extremists across the ideological spectrum to spread their narratives on social media. We argue that a growing body of evidence suggests that extremist movements across the political spectrum make use of similar communication modes and tactics on social media to reach their objectives. ...
Hybrid Movements, Digital Technology, and the Rise and Fall of Far-Right Islamist Protest Mobilization in Indonesia
August 28, 2024
What explains the rise and fall of far-right Islamist protest mobilization in contemporary Indonesia? The 2016-2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election witnessed significant growth in support for and mobilization of the far-right. While far-right Islamist mobilization has occurred regularly since the fall of the authoritarian Suharto regime in 1998, its longevity and impact on electoral politics has ...
The European Far Right and Islamist Extremism on Twitter: From Radicalisation to Political Participation
September 18, 2023
This article explores the results of a study on media participation on Twitter in 2018/2019 perceived as contributing to far right and Islamist radical ideologies, in 7 European countries. By combining online ethnography and big data approaches, we see that online far right extremism in Europe is active and ranks are growing, while Islamist extremism ...
A comparative analysis of right-wing radical and Islamist communities’ strategies for survival in social networks (evidence from the Russian social network VKontakte)
September 18, 2023
This article presents a comparative analysis of online communities of right-wing radicals and Islamists, who are considered to be numerous and dangerous extremist groups in Russian society. The online communities were selected based on the content posted on the largest Russian social networking site VKontakte. The goal of this article is to determine the strategy ...
Modeling Islamist Extremist Communications on Social Media using Contextual Dimensions: Religion, Ideology, and Hate
September 18, 2023
Terror attacks have been linked in part to online extremist content. Although tens of thousands of Islamist extremism supporters consume such content, they are a small fraction relative to peaceful Muslims. The efforts to contain the ever-evolving extremism on social media platforms have remained inadequate and mostly ineffective. Divergent extremist and mainstream contexts challenge machine ...
Online news media and propaganda influence on radicalized individuals: Finding from interviews with Islamist prisoners and former Islamists
September 18, 2023
This study is the first to explore the twin influences of online propaganda and news media on Islamists. We conducted 44 in-depth interviews with cognitively and behaviorally radicalized Islamist prisoners in Austria as well as former Islamists in Germany and Austria. We found that online propaganda and news media had interdependent influences on Islamists’ rejections ...