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The process of becoming radicalized and joining extremist groups like Daesh, in countries with a Shi’a majority, such as Iran, is a controversial topic that has not received sufficient attention in the literature. This study examines Daesh’s media content in Farsi and seeks to provide an analysis of Daesh’s main messages, which have the primary objective of profoundly impacting their target audiences in Iran. This study collected data from 16 Iranian members of Daesh to discover how they were radicalized and why they decided to join Daesh. This study seeks to understand whether the media and Daesh’s propaganda are indeed the key reasons behind the radicalization of Daesh’s Iranian members and the creation of others’ perception of their mindsets against Iran and its Shi’a population, and to discover other possible factors that play a role in the radicalization process. While Daesh media and messages hold salience in relation to the Daeshization of some, studying such complex socio-political issues is rooted in an amalgamation of different personal, social, political, economic, and cultural push and pull factors. Such phenomena cannot, therefore, be reduced to only one of the mentioned elements.

Previous studies on the alt-right, a far-right movement based online, focus on its rise in Western countries. Alt-right communities have emerged more publicly in recent years and have contributed to strengthening overt expressions of hate. Such studies, however, have rarely focused on the alt-right beyond Western countries. It is critical to delve into alt-right communities in other parts of the world in order to understand the institutionalized hate of contemporary digital mediascapes. From an online textual analysis, the current study traces the developmental process of Ilbe, a representative alt-right group of Korea: its transition from a digital storehouse for provocative jokes to an influential alt-right group, and finally, to a virtual hideout where people express their hatred toward others, putting aside its far-right ideology. In doing so, the current study investigates how this alt-right group shares significant characteristics of digital media culture and develop them in its own fashion. This research contributes to understanding Asian Internet histories, including an exploration of the alt-right community and its online culture of hate. Moreover, this study demonstrates how such a trend in digital media culture influences the larger society.

A counter-intuitive finding emerges from an analysis of Arabic Twitter posts from 2014 to 2015: Twitter participants who are negative toward the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) are also more likely to hold negative views of the United States. This surprising correlation is due to the interpretations of two sets of users. One set of users views the United States and ISIS negatively as independent interventionist powers in the region. The other set of users negatively links the United States with ISIS, often asserting a secretive conspiracy between the two. The intense negativity toward the United States in the Middle East seems conducive to views that, in one way or another, cause citizens to link the United States and ISIS in a conspiratorial manner.

A partir de un análisis de publicaciones en árabe en Twitter correspondientes al período 2014–2015, surge una conclusión contraria a la intuición: Quienes participan en Twitter y tienen una actitud negativa con respecto al Estado Islámico de Irak y el Levante (EIIL) también tienen más probabilidades de ostentar una opinión negativa con respecto a los Estados Unidos (EE. UU.). Esta sorprendente correlación se debe a las interpretaciones de dos grupos de usuarios. Uno de dichos grupos tiene una visión negativa de los EE. UU. y del EIIL, ya que los considera poderes intervencionistas independientes en la región. El otro grupo de usuarios establece una vinculación negativa entre los EE. UU. y el EIIL, y suele afirmar que existe una conspiración secreta entre los dos. La intensa negatividad con respecto a los Estados Unidos en el Oriente Medio parece propiciar opiniones que, de una u otra manera, hacen que los ciudadanos establezcan una vinculación conspirativa entre los EE. UU. y el EIIL.

Une conclusion contre-intuitive ressort d’une analyse des publications Twitter en arabe de 2014–2015: les participants à Twitter qui ont une opinion négative de l’État islamique en Irak et au Levant sont également plus susceptibles d’avoir une opinion négative des États-Unis. Cette corrélation surprenante est due aux interprétations de deux ensembles d’utilisateurs. Un ensemble d’utilisateurs voit négativement les États-Unis et l’État islamique en Irak et au Levant puisqu’il les considère comme des puissances interventionnistes indépendantes dans la région. L’autre ensemble d’utilisateurs les associe négativement en affirmant souvent qu’il existe une conspiration secrète entre eux deux. L’intense négativité à l’égard des États-Unis au Moyen-Orient semble propice à des points de vue qui, d’une manière ou d’une autre, amènent les citoyens à établir un lien conspirationniste entre les États-Unis et l’État islamique en Irak et au Levant.

This study investigated the phenomena of group polarisation with particular attention to the differences between offline and online settings. Polarisation is a process that leads people to develop extreme ideologies. Three hundred and seven participants were recruited and randomly assigned to different experimental conditions, i.e. antisocial and prosocial polarisation, within groups of 6 people composed of four confederates, participating in discussions about a social dilemma under two different circumstances: face to face and online. The degree of polarisation was assessed considering the final decisions adopted by the participants, as well as the internal dynamics characterising their final attitudes, i.e. compliance versus conversion. Results showed that online groups appeared more susceptible to polarisation and their members reported a greater degree of conformism. In particular, within online environments, the risk of being polarised, both antisocially and prosocially, increased by around 12%. Furthermore, in an online setting, a greater degree of conversion emerged only when the members decided to adopt a pro-social behaviour, while a greater degree of compliance emerged whenever they decided to adopt antisocial behaviour.

Any intervention in the violent acts of terrorist groups requires accurate differentiation among the groups themselves, which has largely been overlooked in their study beyond qualitative work. To explore the notion of terrorist group differentiation, the online communication of six violent groups were collected: Al-Nusrah Front, al-Qa’ida Central, al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula, Hamas, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and Taliban. All six groups embedded their ideology in digitised documents that were shared through multiple online social networks and media platforms in attempts to influence individuals to identify with their beliefs. The way these groups constructed social roles for their supporters in their ideology was proposed as a novel way to differentiate them and key term extraction was used to find important terms referenced in their communication. Experimental classification was devised to find the highest-ranking roles capable of prediction. Role terms produced high accuracy scores across experiments differentiating the groups (95%CI: 95–98%), with varying inter-group and intra-ideological differences emerging from authority-, religion-, closeness-, and conflict-based social roles. This suggests these constructs possess strong predictive potential to separate terrorist groups through nuanced expressions observed in their communication behaviour and advances our understanding of how these groups deploy harmful ideology.

VOX-Pol Blog Post.