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With the rise of the Islamic State (IS), a great deal of attention has recently been drawn to two issues that have come to be seen as intricately linked: the role of women within pro-jihadist networks (Lahoud 2014; Hoyle, Bradford and Frenett 2015; Saltman and Smith 2015) and the use of social media as an indoctrination and recruitment tool by terrorist organizations (Weimann 2008; Bloom 2013; Klausen 2015). The present working paper is an attempt at improving our understanding of women’s participation in online jihadist networks through examination of the nature and scope of their activities within pro-IS and pro-AQ Twitter networks. To explore that participation, we look at women’s activities online through two different methodological lenses: a. by looking at gender in relation to female tweeting patterns; and b. by examining the content of women’s posts within and across two distinct pro-jihadist networks, one associated with IS, and the other comprised of women from various al-Qaeda (AQ)-affiliated groups.

The increased influx of refugees and migrants to the EU in 2015 has been followed by a noticeable presence of online hate speech against migrants in many countries across Europe. The article presents the results of a study of hate speech proliferation on Facebook in the Czech Republic during the summer of 2015. Its goal is to identify the producers of hate speech and determine their social background, explore the main channels of hate speech proliferation, determine the specific groups of migrants targeted by hate speech, put the hate speech in the context of online political communication, and discuss the role of media and politicians in the process of hate speech proliferation. With regard to the works of Castells, Skocpol or Bennett and Segerberg, online hate speech can be perceived as an extreme variety of new, rapidly evolving modes of political communication as such. Social and political activism has been shifting from membership-based organizations and parties towards flexible movements and initiatives with strong emphasis on the logic of identity politics. People may or may not engage in hate speech production as lone independent actors, but they still perceive their actions as part of larger collective efforts. When we focus on hate speech as a form of civic activism or networking, new interesting patterns can emerge.

The article focuses on the role of social media platforms in the radicalization of domestic right-wing terrorists. It discusses a specific case of a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, where the shooter was radicalized online. It highlights the shooter’s use of social media platforms like 4chan, known for hosting extremist content, and the livestreaming of the attack, which is becoming a popular tool among terrorists to publicize their crimes.

Emerging research on the etiology of violent radical political behavior has begun to explore the role of empathy in shaping an individual’s beliefs, attitudes, and intentions that culminate in radicalization. The existing studies focus on persuasive influence upon an individual, but they overlook the centrality of empathy and that in the absence of empathy, persuasion is not salient. If an individual empathizes with a message then when it is processed by the receiver, the message is more likely to be considered realistic, relatable, believable, and therefore, persuasive. However, very little is known as to how messages should be designed to stimulate empathy in order to optimize their persuasive impact, which is particularly relevant to terrorist and extremist messaging given the lethal outcome of successful persuasion. This study examines the neurocognitive process of radicalization, specifically as it occurs within virtual online space, and how message content and production features have the potential to arouse empathy and generate radical-persuasive outcomes among the target audience. The findings of this research demonstrate how emotions, specifically that of empathy, can be stimulated in order to facilitate the process of radicalization, thus increasing the potential for violent radical political behavior.

Recent studies suggest that empathy induced by narrative messages can effectively facilitate persuasion and reduce psychological reactance. Although limited, emerging research on the etiology of radical political behavior has begun to explore the role of narratives in shaping an individual’s beliefs, attitudes, and intentions that culminate in radicalization. The existing studies focus exclusively on the influence of narrative persuasion on an individual, but they overlook the necessity of empathy and that in the absence of empathy, persuasion is not salient. We argue that terrorist organizations are strategic in cultivating empathetic-persuasive messages using audiovisual materials, and disseminating their message within the digital medium. Therefore, in this paper we propose a theoretical model and analytical framework capable of helping us better understand the neurocognitive process of digital radicalization.