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VOX-Pol Blog post.

VOX-Pol Blog Post.

The rise of the ‘alt-right’ (alternative right) and their communications on the Internet are not unique to the West. This study follows a mixed-methods approach combining topic modeling, social network analysis, and discourse analysis to analyze the discursive and network structure of an online Chinese alt-right community on Weibo. We summarize the topics Chinese alt-right influencers discuss and examine how these topics are interrelated. We find that the Chinese alt-right discourse can be deemed as both an extension and localization of the global alt-right: they frequently discuss global alt-right issues and also hold alt-right ideologies on domestic issues. Meanwhile, influencers in the community are densely connected, suggesting a high level of coordination and cooperation. We particularly identify two discursive strategies that alt-right influencers employ to reproduce the transnational alt-right discourse, namely invented common crisis of majority culture and transnational metaphor usage. These findings provide insights into the transnational aspect of the rise of global alt-right.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

Globalization with advanced information technologies has changed the life of the people in
the world. When something occurs in one part of the world, other part of the world can be
informed easily within seconds. Current information technologies such as internet, social
media, blogs and news channels have enabled the people to create virtual groups all over the
world and to disseminate the information easily.
Most of the states, governments, public and private institutions have been using the advantage
of the information technologies to serve their citizens and customers. Concurrently, criminals
are also using the advantage of information technologies while committing crime. In other
words, everything including crime and criminals has changed their structures to be compatible
with the advanced information technologies.
Recently, lots of terrorist organizations have erupted especially in the Middle East and their
networks are spreading out with the use of technology. Most of the terrorist organizations
have been using the technology for military training of their militants, preparation, and
recruitment processes. Especially the internet is almost a virtual training slot for terrorist
groups. Recent studies (Weimann, 2006; Rothenberger, 2012) have revealed that the internet
is served as the library for the terrorist groups to provide instruction manuals and videos on
technical and tactical areas such as making a bomb, taking hostages, and guerilla combat. As
it has an appropriate space for interaction activities, potential terrorists use the advantage of
interaction face of the internet to learn how to make a bomb and send instant messages to the
instructors teaching illegal issues.
Thus, security forces in the face of all these developments should take the necessary
precautions to fight against the terrorist organizations by standing one step ahead on the use of
technology. Standing one step ahead can only be achieved understanding the phenomena and
ceaselessly updating the knowledge. Otherwise, security forces will fail if they maintain the
use of old technique and tactic to fight against the terrorist groups in this technology epoch.
Based on this point of view, this study will focus on understanding the use of technology to
fight against the terrorism. Furthermore, this study will also investigate some of the terrorist
organizations using the technology actively to commit crime. This study will also attempt to
shed light to the fact that different technologies have been used against the humanity by
terrorist groups although most of the people are not aware of that reality.

VOX-Pol Blog Post.