Branding A Caliphate In Decline: The Islamic State’s Video Output (2015-2018)
September 18, 2023
Although video releases have been central to the Islamic State’s efforts to represent itself to its audiences, an extensive quantitative and qualitative study of these sources over a longer period of time is still lacking. This paper therefore provides an overview and analysis of the entire corpus of official videos released by the Islamic State ...
Dealing With The Dark Side: The Effects Of Right-wing Extremist And Islamist Extremist Propaganda From A Social Identity Perspective
September 18, 2023
Right-wing extremists and Islamist extremists try to recruit new followers by addressing their national (for instance, German) or religious (Muslim) social identity via online propaganda videos. Two studies examined whether capitalizing on a shared group-membership affects the emotional and cognitive response towards extremist propaganda. In both studies, Germans/non-migrants, Muslim migrants and control participants (N = ...
Detection Of Jihadism In Social Networks Using Big Data
September 18, 2023
Social networks are being used by terrorist organizations to distribute messages with the intention of influencing people and recruiting new members. The research presented in this paper focuses on the analysis of Twitter messages to detect the leaders orchestrating terrorist networks and their followers. A big data architecture is proposed to analyze messages in real ...
Facebook jihad: A case study of recruitment discourses and strategies targeting a Western female
September 18, 2023
Recent years has seen a trend towards the increasing specificity of recruitment targets for global jihad. This paper is a case study of the discourses used to recruit a Western female who originally subscribed to an antigovernment, anti-New World Order ideology. Categorising using grounded theory analysis found that female recruiters tapped into the interest of ...
Imagined Communities and the Radicalization of Second Generation Muslim Women in the United Kingdom
September 18, 2023
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) concerns itself with the issue of its citizens becoming radicalized and joining extremist groups. Daesh is one such group that is able to attract people from varying backgrounds to commit violent acts of terror. Moreover, Daesh encourages those in the West to migrate to their ...
Empowerment or Subjugation: An analysis of ISIL’s gendered messaging
September 18, 2023
In recent years, there has been greater recognition of the interplay of issues of gender equality and violent extremism (VE), and of peace and security more broadly. In December 2013, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2129 in which it affirmed ‘the intention to increase its attention to women, peace and security issues in ...
Radical Islamist English-Language Online Magazines: Research Guide, Strategic Insights, and Policy Response
September 18, 2023
This Strategic Studies Institute book provides a comprehensive research guide to radical Islamist English-language online magazines published between April-May 2007 and November 2016, as well as Islamic State eBooks published between November 2012 and November 2015, and a number of assorted radical Islamist news magazines, reports, and pocketbooks. A comparative analysis of Inspire and Dabiq ...
Online Extremism
September 18, 2023
The internet can leave users vulnerable to social challenges, which creates opportunities for extremism to spread. Users can be exposed to extremism in multiple ways, including through recruitment and socialisation. Extremist content may be found on mainstream social media sites and ‘alt-tech’ platforms, which replicate the functions of mainstream social media but have been created ...
“@ me if you need shoutout”: Exploring Women’s Roles in Islamic State Twitter Networks
September 18, 2023
This article investigates the social media content of women who are affiliated with the Islamic State. Throughout one year, ninety-three Twitter accounts were tracked to explore the patterns of engagement by pro–Islamic State women online and examine how these patterns illuminate the roles that pro–Islamic State women occupy on social media networks. The study reveals ...
Explaining Extremism: Western Women in Daesh
September 18, 2023
Women participate extensively in armed, Islamist struggle. In recent years, foreign women have travelled from the West to join Daesh. Their participation perplexes policymakers, government officials, and researchers who call attention to the group’s gendered regulation, violence, and widespread use of rape. Consequently, observers often argue that women are deceived by the organisation or seduced ...