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This Thesis contributes by proposing a method for identifying users believed to be at risk of radicalisation on social media, by utilising the social media networks of already radicalised individuals and a set of indicators derived from related work on radicalisation. In addition, this Thesis provides a new to the field, in-depth analysis of the personality traits of Twitter users at risk of radicalisation and how they may differ from ordinary users. The results show that the proposed data collection and annotation scheme is able to successfully identify individuals at risk of radicalisation, yielding an inter-annotator agreement, measured by Cohen’s Kappa, of 0.83. The analysis of the predicted personality traits shows that users at risk of radicalisation have common profiles for agreeableness and conscientiousness. When comparing the predicted traits to that of ordinary, non-radical Twitter users, the predictions show a marginal difference in distribution for agreeableness, openness, and conscientiousness, indicating a certain difference in personality between the two domains.

On this week’s blog, Professor Gabriel Weimann discusses his new book, published this month, From Theatres to Cyberspace: The Media and Terrorism which examines changing arenas of terrorist communication with a particular focus on emerging trends in the use of social media.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

The use of the internet by extreme right-wing groups is nothing new (see, for example, Conway et al., 2019; Hale, 2012) although its use by extremists has traditionally been in conjunction with activity organised on the ground (e.g. marches, meetings or organised events; Mudde, 2000). While some far-right organisations still operate in this way, the emergence of the Alternative Right (Alt-Right), which operates predominantly online, has redefined far-right extremism and enabled radical white male nationalists to unify (Neiwert, 2017: 258). The affordances of the online environment have similarly united a range of men’s rights groups: from those campaigning against the repression of traditional gender roles to those which define themselves through extreme misogyny, blaming feminism for the perceived emasculation and degradation of men. These collectives are together known as the manosphere (a term coined in 20 09 on the blog The Manosphere).

VOX-Pol Blog post.

VOX-Pol Blog post.