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VOX-Pol Blog Post.

Scholars in the field of terrorism and violent extremism often refer to the so-called Al
Qaeda single narrative. This article suggests that the Internet challenges the existence of
a “single narrative,” by arguing that neo-jihadist prosumers may reinterpret Al Qaeda’s
narrative and create hybrid symbols and identities. The article discusses the case study of
an Italian neo-jihadist allegedly killed in Syria, Giuliano Delnevo, presenting research
on his YouTube and Facebook production. Delnevo’s narrative, which emerges from
the diverse messages circulating on the Internet, recasts the Al Qaeda narrative by
hybridizing it with other cultural backgrounds and political symbols.

The research aims to highlight how the forums of the Romanian online publications may often become spaces for right-wing extremist propaganda. The case study includes about 1.000 comments of the readers, expressed on the articles about a protest of several intellectuals against a TV program of the Romanian public Television (TVR), where Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the founder of the Iron Guard, a Nazi organization created in 1927, was presented as a romantic hero. The results of the content analysis of comments revealed the stigmatizing themes, the stereotypes and the extremist ideas identified on the forums of these articles. In addition, the comparison between the electronic platforms of the publications showed the importance of their features and of the characteristics of audiences regarding the content of the comments.

Usually the Internet is seen as a new medium with great potential for enhancing citizenship and democracy. This essay will try to present and to reflect on some of the less well known sides of the world wide web. In this case the ‘dark sides’ of the Internet will not refer to web sites of sex and violence, which have attracted more attention, but rather to two political movements with a high presence in the Internet: on the one hand the neoNazis in Germany and elsewhere, and on the other hand the Taliban in Afghanistan. At first glance a topic like the ‘neo-Nazis and Taliban on-line’ seems to combine very disparate societal movements that are neither new (the Nazis) nor very active in a modern environment (the Taliban). This contribution will show that both the neo-Nazis and the Taliban have important similarities in their structural approaches to society as well as in their presence in the Internet, but there are also of course serious differences. Because of this unusual comparison it will be helpful to sketch some of the context for the activities of the neo-Nazis and Taliban before we turn to the main issue.

At the dawn of mass access to the internet, Douglas Rushkof wrote Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace. In his book, he observed a very special moment in our recent history in which it was possible to imagine the path ahead, before most of what daily users of the internet now
experience even existed.