Online Library

Large amounts of jihadi video content on YouTube along with the vast array of relational data that can be gathered opens up innovative avenues for exploration of the support base for political violence. This exploratory study analyses the online supporters of jihad-promoting video content on YouTube, focusing on those posting and commenting upon martyr-promoting material from Iraq. Findings suggest that a majority are under 35 years of age and resident outside the region of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) with the largest percentage of supporters located in the United States. Evidence to support the potential for online radicalisation is presented. Findings relating to newly formed virtual relationships involving a YouTube user with no apparent prior links to jihadists are discussed.

This article argues that similarities between jihadism and far-right radicalism are increasing, particularly with regard to the spectacularisation of violence. Spectacularisation means representing and performing violence in the form of a show, for instance through live-streaming, with a renewed emphasis on captivating symbols and much less attention paid to the ideological foundations on which the radical project is supposed to rely. After the March 2019 shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, the spectacularisation of racist, anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic violence increased, thus consolidating that event as a turning point in the evolution of the contemporary far right and the history of jihadism—which has far-right affinities. Lured by the performance of violence, the number of contemporary far-right sympathisers is steadily growing in a virtual environment that closely resembles that of jihadists, where patterns and mechanisms of online recruitment and grooming are proliferating.

Brief analysis of how terrorists use the Internet, implications of Jihadism online, recruitment and radicalisation on the Internet, and counterterrorism and Jihadism online.

The Internet is of major importance to the global jihadist movement today. It facilitates ideological cohesion and network-building within a geographically scattered movement, and all levels of the jihadist network are present on the Internet. The jihadist websites differ enormously in nature and are run relatively independently of each other. However, many sites are inter-related in the sense that they frequently redistribute and circulate the same material. This indicates that despite a large number of sites, the scope of new material that appears on these sites every day is not necessarily very large. Concerning the functions of the jihadist Internet, it fulfils different objectives, most importantly of communicative character. The much feared cyber terrorism, i.e. destructive attack on information systems, does not, so far, seem to be a main objective for the jihadist use of the Internet.

[Chapter in, “New Approaches to the Analysis of Jihadism: On and Offline”, Rüdiger Lohlker (ed.)] Jihadism has been an important issue of public discussions since 9/11. Internet media have been used by Jihadis as means of communication, propaganda, recruitment, and even training purposes. In this volume, the processes of interaction on Jihadi internet sites are analysed. Particular attention lays on the mechanisms of spread of propaganda via the internet by diverse technical means. The process of transformation of Islamic knowledge into Jihadi knowledge, the rhetorics of videos, the development of South Asian Jihadi organisations and some conceptual issues are discussed.

The jihadi movement paradigm, along with jihadi terrorism, has been transformed over the last decade into a new reality, since it entered our daily lives with the 9/11 attacks. This process of change was due largely to the strengthening of the caliphate movement, carried out by the Islamic State. It is no longer possible to understand jihadi terrorism, violent action and recruitment without look for the roots, new characters, models and new dimensions of a radicalization process that happens in a global society where the Internet functions as a key media channel in everyday communications. The next pages aim to understand an Informational Jihad Age, where the role of networked communication, through social media, is a main feature. Communication through the Internet plays a vector function for diffusion of general favorable content related with the caliphate movement, through multiple forms, including official magazines, propaganda videos and the presence of charismatic preachers online. In addition, it was also included in this research the analysis of unfavorable content, in the form of opinion or news content. Hence, it was conducted a Content Analysis in Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube using Crimson Hexagon software platform, that allowed the quantification and characterization of these contents between January 2012 and April 2017.

O paradigma do movimento jihadista, e com ele o terrorismo jihadista, evoluiu ao longo da última década para novos contornos, desde que entrou no nosso quotidiano com os ataques de 11 de setembro de 2001. Esse processo de mutação deveu-se em grande parte ao fortalecimento do movimento do califado, protagonizado pelo Estado Islâmico. Não é hoje possível perceber o terrorismo jihadista, a ação violenta e o recrutamento de jihadistas, sem compreender as raízes, os novos atores, modelos e dimensões de um processo de radicalização que acontece numa sociedade global, na qual a Internet se tornou um meio de comunicação quotidiano. As próximas páginas procuram compreender melhor essa “Era da Jihad Informacional”, onde a comunicação em rede, via redes sociais, é uma caraterística central. A comunicação através da Internet assume-se como um vetor de difusão generalizada de conteúdo favorável ao movimento do califado, assumindo múltiplas formas, entre as quais revistas oficiais, vídeos de propaganda e a presença de pregadores carismáticos online. Para além dessas formas e vetores de difusão, procurou-se também contemplar na análise o conteúdo desfavorável presente na rede, seja ele noticioso ou de opinião. Para isso foi conduzida uma Análise de Conteúdo no Twitter, Facebook, Instagram e Youtube, através da plataforma de “software” Crimson Hexagon, que permitiu a quantificação e caraterização da presença destes conteúdos entre janeiro de 2012 e abril de 2017.