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Both vernacular security studies and critical terrorism studies (CTS) offer constructivist analyses of security couched in understandings of security speak. However, neither adequately take account of the ways in which social media presents important opportunities for greater insight into how terrorism is constructed. This study analyses tweets posted after the 2017 Manchester bombing, exploring how jihadist terror attacks are constructed on social media. To do this, we combine social network analysis, as a sampling method, with discourse analysis. The study finds that Twitter provides a platform for diverse terrorism discourses to be expressed and contested. This indicates a literate lay audience within post-attack narratives, self-aware of dominant social constructions of “Muslim terrorism”. Indeed, it suggests an audience that, on Twitter, is hardly only audience but seeks to speak security itself. Insights are gleaned with respect to depicting, defending, and critiquing Muslims, constructing what it means to be a terrorist, portrayals of victimhood, and how terror events feed into broader critiques of “political correctness” and “liberal” politics. Therefore, the analysis also provides further insights into the portrayal and (self-)positioning of Muslims in the wake of a jihadist attack and nuances accounts of Muslims’ securitisation qua terror.

Societal crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, produce societal instability and create a fertile ground for radicalization. Extremists exploit such crises by distributing disinformation to amplify uncertainty and distrust among the public. Based on these developments, this study presents a longitudinal analysis of far-right communication on fringe platforms, demonstrating radicalization dynamics. Public Telegram communication of three movements active in Germany (QAnon, Identitarian Movement, Querdenken) was analyzed through a quantitative content analysis of 4500 messages posted to nine channels between March 2020 and February 2021. We study the movements’ discourse using several indicators of radicalization dynamics. The increasing prevalence of conspiracy narratives, anti-elitism, political activism, and support for violence indicate radicalization dynamics in these movements’ online communication. However, these dynamics varied within the movements. It can be concluded that, when studying radicalization dynamics online, it is crucial to not just focus on one single indicator, but consider longitudinal changes across several indicators, ideally comparing different movements.

Although many social media users have reported encountering hate speech, differences in the perception between different users remain unclear. Using a qualitative multi-method approach, we investigated how personal characteristics, the presentation form, and content-related characteristics influence social media users’ perceptions of hate speech, which we differentiated as first-level (i.e. recognizing hate speech) and second-level perceptions (i.e. attitude toward it). To that end, we first observed 23 German-speaking social media users as they scrolled through a fictitious social media feed featuring hate speech. Next, we conducted remote self-confrontation interviews to discuss the content and semi-structured interviews involving interactive tasks. Although it became apparent that perceptions are highly individual, some overarching tendencies emerged. The results suggest that the perception of and indignation toward hate speech decreases as social media use increases. Moreover, direct and prosecutable hate speech is perceived as being particularly negative, especially in visual presentation form.

Through existing literature and open-source materials – including academic articles, research reports, policy documents, newspaper articles, investigative journalism, government inquiries and previous relevant Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) Policy Support (PS) deliverables, etc. – this paper will investigate the following key questions: what is gamification of (violent) extremism, what are the current and future threats it presents to the European Union (EU), and how can it be countered?

The paper explores the role of social media on positive youth development and engagement towards peacebuilding in Pakistan. In particular, it recognizes the role of youth within the liberal peace process, hence, sustainably aiding peacebuilding efforts. The paper argues that within developing democracies, media and youth can create an environment to promote dialogue and collaborative problem-solving techniques. Furthermore, it explicates how extreme ideologists exploit social media; hence, negatively influencing the youth. With regards, the paper discusses several aspects of social media that can significantly contribute towards countering violent extremism and related narratives. Such an understanding enables us to classify the potential role of social media in involving youth in contextualized peacebuilding efforts.

This study compares the narratives and language of QAnon groups in the encrypted messaging apps Telegram and Discord to those observed in the manifestos of terrorists. Drawing on our systematic linguistic analysis of fifteen terrorist manifestos that were published in the past decade, we developed a coding scheme which traces the narratives and linguistic markers that occur in the written communication of perpetrators of political violence. In this pilot study we apply our new coding scheme to QAnon content to assess the scale and nature of violence-associated narratives within the movement. Based on 200,000 messages that we collected from the online QAnon group “Great Awakening Community” on the gaming chat application Discord, we quantitatively examine to what degree they carry the trademarks of violent terrorist manifestos that are not found in non-violent texts. We then compared the results for the Great Awakening Community to content from both a non-violent and a violent-terrorist control group. To complement our computational assessment of QAnon narrative and linguistic patterns we share ethnographic observations from ten QAnon Telegram and Discord groups with English, German, and French speaking audiences. Past research has found that identity fusion in combination with a range of mediating and moderating variables is a strong predictor of violence in groups, and this is further supported by our terrorist manifesto analysis. Our study of QAnon messages found a high prevalence of linguistic identity fusion indicators along with external threat narratives, violence-condoning group norms as well as demonizing, dehumanizing, and derogatory vocabulary applied to the out-group, especially when compared to the non-violent control group. The aim of this piece of research is twofold: (i.) It seeks to evaluate the national security threat posed by the QAnon movement, and (ii.) it aims to provide a test of a novel linguistic toolkit aimed at helping to assess the risk of violence in online communication channels.