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In considering how terrorist movements use the Internet, it is becoming increasingly apparent that we must move beyond predominantly descriptive overviews of the contents of websites to examine in more detail the notion of virtual communities of support and the functions of these for their members. Virtual communities in support of terrorist movements are real social spaces where people interact on a regular basis to disseminate their views, share their knowledge, and encourage each other to become increasingly supportive of movements that use terrorism to achieve their goals. Taken from a larger body of comparative qualitative research investigating the content and function of discourses created in virtual communities in support of terrorism, this article presents a thematic analysis of “Stormfront,” a virtual community of the radical right.

In recent years, researchers have shown a vested interest in developing advanced information technologies, machine-learning algorithms, and risk-assessment tools to detect and analyze radical content online, with increased attention on identifying violent extremists or measuring digital pathways of violent radicalization. Yet overlooked in this evolving space has been a systematic examination of what constitutes radical posting behaviors in general. This study uses a sentiment analysis-based algorithm that adapts criminal career measures – and is guided by communication research on social influence – to develop and describe three radical posting behaviors (high-intensity, high-frequency, and high-duration) found on a sub-forum of the most conspicuous right-wing extremist forum. The results highlight the multi-dimensional nature of radical right-wing posting behaviors, many of which may inform future risk factor frameworks used by law enforcement and intelligence agencies to identify credible threats online.

This three-article dissertation focuses on cyber-related topics on terrorist groups, specifically Jihadists’ use of technology, the application of natural language processing, and social networks in analyzing text data derived from terrorists’ Dark Web forums. The first article explores cybercrime and cyberterrorism. As technology progresses, it facilitates new forms of behavior, including tech-related crimes known as cybercrime and cyberterrorism. In this article, I provide an analysis of the problems of cybercrime and cyberterrorism within the field of criminology by reviewing existing literature focusing on (a) the issues in defining terrorism, cybercrime, and cyberterrorism, (b) ways that cybercriminals commit a crime in cyberspace, and (c) ways that cyberterrorists attack critical infrastructure, including computer systems, data, websites, and servers.

In considering how terrorist movements use the Internet, it is becoming increasingly apparent that we must move beyond predominantly descriptive overviews of the contents of websites to examine in more detail the notion of virtual communities of support and the functions of these for their members. Virtual communities in support of terrorist movements are real social spaces where people interact on a regular basis to disseminate their views, share their knowledge, and encourage each other to become increasingly supportive of movements that use terrorism to achieve their goals. Taken from a larger body of comparative qualitative research investigating the content and function of discourses created in virtual communities in support of terrorism, this article presents a thematic analysis of “Stormfront,” a virtual community of the radical right.

The Islamic State’s (IS) online propaganda has been analyzed from various perspectives aimed at defining the role of the Internet, the power of social media networks, and the main narratives processed online by terrorist organizations. Nevertheless, very little research has focused on defining IS’s comprehensive media strategy. To date, IS propaganda has been defined as multidimensional or as a mix of techniques related to moviemaking and video games. In consideration of the highly sophisticated IS online dissemination activity and its impact on Western youth who are already familiar with intensive media consumption, this article explores IS propaganda through a Hollywood-style transmedia approach. I analyze, through a qualitative content analysis of the magazine Dabiq narratives, IS propaganda as a comprehensive transmedia strategy centered on three key assets: synergistic storytelling, imaginary world-making, and semantic triggering.

This article is a systematic large-scale study of the reasons driving political fragmentation on social media. Making use of a comparative dataset of the Twitter discussion activities of 115 political groups in 26 countries, it shows that groups that are further apart in ideological terms interact less, and that groups that sit at the extremes of the ideological scale are particularly likely to have lower patterns of interaction. Indeed, exchanges between centrists who sit on different sides of the left–right divide are more likely than connections between centrists and extremists who are from the same ideological wing. In light of the results, theory about exposure to different ideological viewpoints online is enhanced.