Online Library

In February 2019, Moonshot launched The Redirect Method with funding from the Community Resilience Fund and in collaboration with the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and
Violence Prevention at Public Safety Canada. Canada Redirect was first deployed across all 13 Canadian provinces and territories, and in June 2019 our campaigns were subdivided to incorporate 353 postcodes in Canada’s six largest cities. These localized campaigns enabled Moonshot to collect granular data on extremist search appetite, test experimental messaging, and
explore the viability of providing at-risk users with content and services in their community.

Using the updated Redirect Method, Canada Redirect aimed to reach at-risk users with content that aligned as closely as possible with what they were searching for. Moonshot used subject-matter expertise and in-house knowledge to match relevant counter-narratives to their respective target audiences. This approach taps into a range of content ecosystems, such as music, gaming, and literature, to deliver alternative messaging that contrasts with the extremist content a user may be searching for, such as neo-Nazi manifestos or an ISIS nasheed. Moonshot adapted the Redirect Method to include content specific to the Canadian context in order to increase the relevance and impact of counter-narratives to the Canadian at-risk audience.

This report details Canada Redirect’s project phases, achievements, and findings from our digital campaigns, which were deployed across Canada for over a year, from 21 February 2019 to 23 March 2020.

In this article, Charlie Winter challenges the way in which the word ‘propaganda’ is used in contemporary discourse around war and terrorism. He considers the case of the Islamic State, using it to demonstrate that the term – as it is conventionally understood – is an inadequate tool when it comes to describing the full range of tactical and strategic approaches to communication that are employed by insurgents today. If anything, he contends, ‘propaganda’ refers to an entire information ecosystem in which different media are geared towards different tasks.

This study identifies and compares the methods of recruitment used by three prime jihadist organizations through their online magazines. The successful recruitment efforts and growth as a threat by the Islamic State of Iraq and Shām (ISIS), Al-Qaeda, and Al-Shabaab are attributed, in part, to the widespread popularity and accessibility of Dabiq and Rumiyah (published by ISIS), Inspire (published by Al-Qaeda), and Gaidi Mtaani (published by Al-Shabaab). In order to best examine the techniques of persuasion and propaganda to recruit new followers, the theoretical approach of compliance-gaining theory and methodological approach of narrative analysis are applied. The author analyzed a total of twelve magazine issues to compare how the four magazines use (1) imagery, (2) attrition, (3) intimidation, (4) propaganda, (5) spoiling, (6) outbidding, (7) incitement, and (8) recruitment. To validate each of these themes, the study applies an open-coding instrument to select each label based on specific dimensions. These findings reveal how the same purpose to achieve the Caliphate can be chosen on a similar path by these three different jihadist organizations. This path may take different turns at certain spots, but ultimately the road is based on the same historical context to justify the recruitment process. Overall, this study provides fresh descriptive insights on jihadist organizations’ recruitment methods to gain new followers toward the achievement of the Caliphate (i.e., the global Islamic state). The sample reveals that the online jihadist magazines integrate all analyzed themes to portray their messages. The findings show certain issues implement specific themes more than others. Across the sample, the use of persuasion justified and encouraged violence. Persuasion is found in prideful examples of successful terrorist attacks and aftermath scenes of destruction. The distinct difference between the four online jihadist magazines is the persuasion of recruitment.

The PMC Wagner emerged as a central actor in the Russian power projection. This research consists of an evidence-based analysis to grasp the relationships within the pro-Wagner digital ecosystem. Through Socio-Semantic Network Analysis and hate-speech detection using a machine learning model, the study aims to map the PMC Wagner on Telegram and reconstruct its morphological characteristics. The study demonstrates that some intermediaries are essential in spreading propaganda due to a combination of their position and the violence of their discourse. Targeting the videos of the most relevant intermediaries is an efficient strategy to prevent other violent extremist actors.

This study explores how an extreme far-right alternative media site uses content from pro-fessional media to convey uncivil news with an antisemitic message. Analytically, it rests on a critical discourse analysis of 231 news items, originating from established national and international news sources, published on Frihetskamp from 2011–2018. In the study, we explore how news items are recontextualised to portray both overt and covert antisemitic discourses, and we identify four antisemitic representations that are reinforced through the selection and adjustment of news: Jews as powerful, as intolerant and anti-liberal, as exploiters of victimhood, and as inferior. These conspiratorial and exclusionary ideas, also known from historical Nazi propaganda, are thus reproduced by linking them to con-temporary societal and political contexts and the current news agenda. We argue that this kind of recontextualised, uncivil news can be difficult to detect in a digital public sphere.

Gathering empirical evidence from interviews and focus groups, this study highlights some of the ethical dilemmas faced by the academic community tasked with developing new methodological tools and conceptual frameworks for the study of violent online political extremism. At the same time, it examines how academics position themselves in relation to a broad range of non-academic stakeholders involved in the public debate about where violent extremism, terrorism and the Internet intersect. It argues that these external actors are introducing a multisectoral ‘market’ for research on online violent extremism, which creates both opportunities and limitations for the academic community. Finally, it analyses how academics from across a range of disciplines will be able to secure access to data and competitive research tools, while also engaging in a critical reflection about the ethical considerations at stake.