Jihacktivism: the Islamic State’s model of digital resistance
December 5, 2024
This study explores the main building blocks of participatory activism utilised by sympathisers of the Islamic State within their online media networks. The organisation has named this militant practice “media jihad” or militancy (munasara), which is built on the cultural patterns of traditional ground-based jihad. The practice involves transferring cultural values and war manoeuvres into ...
The Lernaean Hydra on the internet: Deplatformization-resistant media ecosystem of the Islamic State
December 3, 2024
While certain areas of the Islamic State’s activities (propaganda, recruitment, etc.) are well researched, there have been few studies covering the efforts of the organization to neutralize deplatformization, even though its inclusion in a unified system makes it possible to successfully fight against the organization. The present study investigated the Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) ...
Studying the Impact of ISIS Propaganda Campaigns
October 29, 2024
Over the past decade, a large number of extremist and hate groups have turned to internet platforms to inspire mass violence. Currently, there is little reliable evidence on how such campaigns radicalize targeted audiences. We provide systematic, large-scale, microevidence on the effect of Islamic State propaganda on social media. We use several machine learning algorithms ...
Media Matters: How Operation Shujaa Degraded the Islamic State’s Congolese Propaganda Output
October 24, 2024
Just three years ago, the Islamic State’s Central Africa Province was the poster child for the Islamic State’s efforts to maintain a constant and lingering threat across the globe. That year, the group conducted a series of regional terrorist attacks across Central and East Africa, and expanded inside the Democratic Republic of the Congo. More ...
Following in the Trail of Islamic State: The Rise of Media Platforms in the Jihadist Ecosystem
October 20, 2024
This article examines the role of media platforms in the jihadist propaganda ecosystem. It presents a case study of the Muntasir Media platform which achieved extensive media impact in Spain during the period 2018–19. A descriptive analysis is provided of the emergence, evolution and demise of the platform, which can be viewed as an archetypal ...