Qualitative
Daesh Propaganda, Before and After its Collapse
September 18, 2023This report compares two archives of official Daesh media that were compiled four years apart. It explores the nuances of the group’s worldview and tracks how external and internal situational exigencies impacted them during its formative years as a caliphate. It finds that the organisation’s media infrastructure was about one-tenth as productive in mid-2019 as ...
Hard(Wired) For Terror: Unraveling the Mediatized Roots and Routes of Radicalization
September 18, 2023(Hard)Wired for Terror is divided into two parts. In the first part, (the ‘Roots’ ) we provide a historical, semantic analysis of the concepts of radicalism, extremism and terrorism, and how they are interconnected. Furthermore, a comprehensive overview is presented of the state of the art in which the current radicalization and terrorism research is ...
Cyberterrorists: Their Communicative Messages and the Effect on Targets
September 18, 2023This qualitative study provides a semiotic perspective on cyberterrorism and its opportunity to cause maximal damage while using terrorist propaganda. The very definition of cyberterrorism refers to Internet use, technology, and computer-based networks against critical infrastructures. The application of Stamper’s Semiotic Ladder– morphological, empirical, syntactical, semantic, pragmatic and social world –to the various methods of ...
New Zealand Government And Critical Infrastructure Ready Reaction To Cyber Terrorism
September 18, 2023The purpose of this research is to obtain input from government agencies, elements of the critical infrastructure and cyber space, to determine what level of knowledge on cyber terrorism exists. Furthermore, are there ready reaction plans in place, and is staff-awareness training conducted on a regular basis? This probably won’t prevent or stop an attack ...
An Analysis Of International Agreements Over Cybersecurity
September 18, 2023Research into the international agreements that increase cooperation over cybersecurity challenges is severely lacking. This is a necessary next step for bridging diplomatic challenges over cybersecurity. This work aspires to be push the bounds of research into these agreements and offer a tool that future researchers can rely on. For this research I created, and ...
Cyberterrorism: A Postmodern View Of Networks Of Terror And How Computer Security Experts And Law Enforcement Officials Fight Them
September 18, 2023The purpose of this study is to investigate how cyberterrorists create networks in order to engage in malicious activities against the Internet and computers. The purpose of the study is also to understand how computer security labs (i.e., in universities) and various agencies (that is, law enforcement agencies such as police departments and the FBI) ...
The Emergence Of Violent Narratives In The Life-Course Trajectories Of Online Forum Participants
September 18, 2023Drawing from Life Course Theory (LCT) and General Strain Theory (GST), the current study sought to address the development of negative affect in the online context, specifically whether the turning point of entrance into adulthood was associated with a change in the sentiment expressed online. A mixed-methods approach was employed, whereby 96 individuals were sampled ...
Mapping Extremism: The Network Politics Of The Far-Right
September 18, 2023In recent decades, political parties espousing extreme nationalist, xenophobic, and even outright racist platforms have enjoyed variable success in national elections across Europe. While vibrant research literature has sought to better understand the sources of support for such parties, remarkably little attention has been paid to the interplay between parties and the broader social networks ...
Reconciling Impact And Ethics: An Ethnography of Research in Violent Online Political Extremism
September 18, 2023Gathering empirical evidence from interviews and focus groups, this study highlights some of the ethical dilemmas faced by the academic community tasked with developing new methodological tools and conceptual frameworks for the study of violent online political extremism. At the same time, it examines how academics position themselves in relation to a broad range of ...
Engaging With Online Extremist Material: Experimental Evidence
September 18, 2023Despite calls from governments to clamp down on violent extremist material in the online sphere, in the name of preventing radicalisation and therefore terrorism research investigating how people engage with extremist material online is surprisingly scarce. The current paper addresses this gap in knowledge with an online experiment. A fictional extremist webpage was designed and ...