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Daesh’s centralized media operations provide a steady stream of media products to citizens living in and around its controlled territories, with the result that several nations occupied or adjacent to the group have emerged as many of the most fruitful recruiting grounds for new members. To better understand the argumentation strategies targeting such audiences, this study examines the 119 infographics in the first 50 issues of Daesh’s official weekly Arabic newsletter, al-Naba’. The findings suggest that through a patterned application of statistical, historical, religious, and scientific arguments from authority to predictable topical areas, the infographics in al-Naba’ reinforce Daesh as a key source of information for the citizenry of the proclaimed caliphate.

Graph analytics has become instrumental in uncovering insights across various domains, specifically in social networks. It serves as a crucial tool for analyzing the relationship between users in different online platforms. In this research, we apply methods of social network analysis to examine the communication patterns among participants in an online forum recognized for far-right extremism. Our study demonstrates the actors’ relationships and activities through different aspects of applications over networks. In extensive analysis, we identify the influential actors and map their relationships throughout the course of 76 monthly networks. Moreover, we illustrate the evolution of networks over that period, and their connections with significant events. The findings of this analysis aim to understand the nature of interactions and networks, and to allow practitioners to take necessary precautions to mitigate far-right activities on various online platforms.

This article describes and discusses a comparative semiotic analysis of online text collected from eight extreme right websites and four violent jihadi groups’ online magazines. The two datasets, which comprise just over 1 million words each, were analyzed using LIWC software. The core issues explored were the shared and different linguistic patterns used among extreme right and violent jihadi extremists and the emotional, cognitive, psychological, and social dimensions of the online textual discourses of each ideological grouping and what function these played in their overall political rhetoric. The findings bring to light some nuanced differences and similarities in the cognitive, social, psychological, and temporal dimensions of language used by each. For example, while both types of ideological text showed the same level of certainty in arguments as a cognitive process, the language depicting social and emotional processes, and religion were used more often by the violent jihadi extremists (VJEs) than the extreme right. The findings also point to the fact that VJEs were more likely than right-wing extremists to discuss the future and promise change as motivational incentives.

This article examines how Da‘esh utilizes anashid (“Islamic songs” or “recitation”) as soundtrack elements within its video messaging, focusing primarily on a sample set of 755 videos released in 2015. The authors also present the development of an automatic content recognition (ACR) tool that enabled them to engage this large data set. The article then explores the possibilities of ACR for the identification of terrorist audio and video, utilizing the conclusions drawn from the trends of audio usage in Da‘esh video messaging to support the validity and promise of such an approach.

This study investigates how a far-right extremist group, The Base, enacts communicative resilience (CR) strategies across digital platforms despite deplatforming efforts. In our empirical analysis, we conducted a content analysis of 69 conversations about bans that occurred in The Base’s encrypted chatrooms on Matrix and Wire between 2018 and 2020. We examined if and how the CR processes outlined in the communication theory of resilience (CTR) applied to far-right extremists groups operating online. Our analysis shows that deplatforming, while disruptive, triggers CR processes that activate collaborative discovery of new methods to remain resilient. Additionally, we discovered an additional, online performative process of persistent presence in response to a perceived constant, existential threat. That strategy demonstrates operational capacity, reinforces group-based identities, accrues social capital, and performs a proven capacity to challenge detractors. By assessing The Base’s online dynamics, this study contributes to broader conversations on mediated CTR, deplatforming, extremism, and the role of CR in political legitimation.

VOX-Pol Blog Post.