Recruitment
The Lernaean Hydra on the internet: Deplatformization-resistant media ecosystem of the Islamic State
December 3, 2024While 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) ...
How Do Those Vulnerable to Terror Recruitment Respond to YouTube Counter-Narrative Videos?
August 9, 2024VOX-Pol Blog Post. ...
Is It Just a Game? Exploring the Intersection Between (Violent) Extremism and Online Video-Gaming
August 9, 2024VOX-Pol Blog Post. ...
A semi-supervised algorithm for detecting extremism propaganda diffusion on social media
September 18, 2023Extremist online networks reportedly tend to use Twitter and other Social Networking Sites (SNS) in order to issue propaganda and recruitment statements. Traditional machine learning models may encounter problems when used in such a context, due to the peculiarities of microblogging sites and the manner in which these networks interact (both between themselves and with ...
Virtual and Physical Realities: Violent Extremists’ Recruitment of Individuals Associated with the US Military
September 18, 2023In an era of social media, the lines between physical and virtual realities have become blurred. This is especially evident in recruitment activities by violent extremists. This article compares five case studies from the white power and militia movements to learn how extremists attract new members. The findings suggest that recruitment occurs through iterative interactions ...
Brothers in arms: Visual commonalities between US and IS recruitment strategies
September 18, 2023This article claims that the visual image contributes to, reflects and supports the dominant discourse of two powerful armed groups that have operated in Iraq and Syria: the US military and the Islamic State (IS). This research uses multimodal discourse analysis to explore two crucial insights into the ideological power of the visual image: the ...
Motivational Imbalance in Jihadi Online Recruitment
September 18, 2023The Internet and online platforms have become a useful instrument for modern terrorists’ recruitment. Numerous studies explored the online recruitment of Jihadi groups and especially of the Islamic State (ISIS) that managed to recruit over 40,000 fighters from as many as 90 countries. Yet, these studies, focusing mainly on the online platforms and the appeals ...
Selling terror: a multidimensional analysis of the Islamic State’s recruitment propaganda
September 18, 2023The Islamic State (ISIS) early became infamous for its broadcasts of extreme violence. However, within months, the group’s initially dominant images of combat and executions had been subsumed into a broader propaganda platform more focused on state-building and community engagement. Drawing on a close reading of Abu Bakr Naji’s Management of Savagery, this article conceptualises ...
Research Note: More Bucks, Still No Bangs? Why a Cost-Benefit Analysis of Cyberterrorism Still Holds True
September 18, 2023Taking as reference a cost-benefit analysis of cyberterrorism published in 2004 by Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, this article briefly reviews what happened in the last 15 years in cyberterrorism research, what was correctly forecast, what was wrong and what may happen in the future. Some of the analyses published in during this period have ...
Disrupting the Digital Divide: Extremism’s Integration of Online / Offline Practice
September 18, 2023In its offline aspect the broader right-wing movement is comprised of a range of groups and idealogical variances that have traditionally had difficulty coalescing into a coherent movement with broad appeal. In its online aspect, right-wing extremist practice is focused on spreading ideaology, recruiting and radicalization, and building transnational communities. ...