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This study seeks to understand the community’s perceptions towards detecting signs of online radicalisation and examine whether different community members would exhibit different levels of understanding. A 57-item survey was administered to 160 undergraduates from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and 160 Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers. Based on the ratings of the 42 online radicalisation indicators identified by Neo (2020), two-factor analyses were separately conducted using oblique rotation to undercover a four-factor structure for the NTU sample and a three-factor solution for the MTurk sample. The results revealed valuable insights into how community members would identify terrorist threats. Furthermore, the survey revealed differences in the participants’ views on the role of the internet in radicalisation pathways and their perceptions regarding various counter-terrorism strategies. Together, the findings would contribute to the discussion of how law enforcement could better engage and work together with the community members to detect terrorist threats.

In an effort to better understand the risk of individuals being radicalised via the internet, this paper re-examines the phenomenon of online radicalisation by focusing on four considerations of interest: individual, online environment, interactions between individual and the online environment, and protective elements. A key premise of the discussion presented is that the different theoretical assumptions and linkages underlying each consideration are not only reconcilable but that together they provide a more comprehensive understanding of assessing risk of radicalisation via the internet than any perspective by itself. Implications for operationalising these four considerations and their associated factors to identify individuals at risk of being radicalised via the internet will also be discussed.

As new developments occur everyday in technology, terrorists are easily adjusting themselves to this change. In this new age of terrorism, terrorism is transnational, institutionalized, technologically advanced, and global. In this respect, today’s terrorist organizations are using the Internet for different purposes. The Internet has become the new and main source of communication in terms of disseminating propaganda for terrorist activities. Almost all terrorist organizations are exploiting the Internet for their terrorist purposes and broadcasting propaganda through their Web sites. This study is focused on the exploitation of Internet by terrorist organizations for their activities and as a case study interviews were conducted to find out the solutions to overcome terrorist networks in terms of terrorist use of Internet. Terrorism in general, Internet, and propaganda terms were studied and some solutions were proposed in terms of Internet usage of terrorist organizations.

This study is the first to explore the twin influences of online propaganda and news media on Islamists. We conducted 44 in-depth interviews with cognitively and behaviorally radicalized Islamist prisoners in Austria as well as former Islamists in Germany and Austria. We found that online propaganda and news media had interdependent influences on Islamists’ rejections of non-Muslims and Western politics, as well as on their willingness to use violence and commit suicide. Cognitively radicalized individuals were influenced by propaganda that blamed non-Muslims for opposing Islam; this was reinforced by online mainstream news reports of right-wing populism and extremism that propagandists selectively distributed via social media. Among behaviorally radicalized individuals, exposure to propaganda and news reports depicting Muslim war victims contributed to the radicalized individuals’ willingness to use violence. Moreover, propaganda and media reports that extensively personalized perpetrators of violence strengthened radicalized individuals’ motivations to imitate the use of violence.

An interview with Peter Neumann of VOX-Pol partner ICSR by David H. Schanzer, Associate Professor of the Practice for Public Policy and Director, Triangle Center of Terrorism and Homeland Security, focusing on the power of online radicalisation. Originally uploaded by D Schanzer on 31 January 2014

An Interview with Peter Neumann by David H. Schanzer, Associate Professor of the Practice for Public Policy and Director, Triangle Center of Terrorism and Homeland Security. Originally uploaded by D Schanzer on 31 January 2014 (Part 1)