Digital Extremisms: Readings in Violence, Radicalisation and Extremism in the Online Space
September 18, 2023
This book explores the use of the internet by (non-Islamic) extremist groups, drawing together research by scholars across the social sciences and humanities. It offers a broad overview of the best of research in this area, including research contributions that address far-right, (non-Islamic) religious, animal rights, and nationalist violence online, as well as a discussion ...
Fighting Words: The Persuasive Effect Of Online Extremist Narratives On The Radicalization Process
September 18, 2023
What causes an individual to take up violence against civilians for the sake of a political, religious, or social goal? Of course, there are many possible answers to this question. But, one view suggests that narratives may play an especially important role in changing the beliefs, attitudes, and intentions that are precursors to terrorism. There ...
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 ...
Social Media Mechanisms For Right Wing Political Violence In The 21st Century, Discursive Opportunities, Group Dynamics, And Coordination
September 18, 2023
This article maps mechanisms by which online social media activities may contribute to right-wing political violence. High-impact studies on the wave of right-wing and racist violence in the 1990s and early 2000s established that mass media discourse on immigrants and previous violent incidents had a significant influence on the prevalence of radical right violence. This ...
Assessing Outcomes of Online Campaigns Countering Violent Extremism: A Case Study of the Redirect Method
September 18, 2023
The number of programs dedicated to countering violent extremism (CVE) has grown in recent years, yet a fundamental gap remains in the understanding of the effectiveness of such programs. This is particularly the case for CVE campaigns, which are increasingly conducted in the online space. The goal of this report is to help CVE campaign ...
Taking North American White Supremacist Groups Seriously: The Scope and Challenge of Hate Speech on the Internet
September 18, 2023
This article aims to address two questions: how does hate speech manifest on North American white supremacist websites; and is there a connection between online hate speech and hate crime? Firstly, hate speech is defined and the research methodology upon which the article is based is explained. The ways that ‘hate’ groups utilize the Internet ...