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This article seeks to re-ontologize online radicalization. Individuals becoming terrorists after being exposed to online content have become a prescient concern for academics, policy makers, and journalists. Existing theoretical contributions to the concept have assumed that there are two ontological domains—online and offline—that can be meaningfully separated. This article will draw from several arguments from other fields which critique this position; the contemporary information environment enmeshes the two inseparably. This argument is then advanced to demonstrate that online radicalization is a redundant concept by drawing on empirical research as well as recent case studies of terrorism. Instead, scholars should consider holistic theories which account for a range of other factors beyond online communication technologies.

This book explores how ordinary Arab-speaking social media users have reacted to propaganda from the Islamic State, rather than how IS propaganda has targeted ordinary users, thus providing a change in perspective in the literature. The authors provide a comprehensive account of the evolution of the Arabic discourse on IS, encompassing all phases of the Caliphate’s political evolution, from the apogee of the Islamic State in October 2014 to the loss of its unofficial capital of Raqqa in September 2017. Taking into account key events, the book also considers the most recurrent topics for IS and its opponents who engage in the Twitter conversation. The analysis is based on around 29 million tweets written in the Arabic language, representing a random sample of around one-third of all Arabic tweets referring to IS over the 2014-2017 timeframe.

As a consequence of numerous extreme-right terror attacks in which the perpetrators posted their manifestos and attack life streams on online platforms adjacent to the video gaming community, as well as radicalized within that environment to a significant degree (e.g., Christchurch, New Zealand; Halle, Germany), increasing scholarly and policymaker interest is focusing on far-right radicalization and recruitment within online video game environments. Yet little empirical insights exist about the specific engagement between right-wing extremists and their potential recruits on these platforms. This study presents findings from a qualitative exploration of German police-investigation files for two children who radicalized on gaming platforms to become involved in extreme-right criminal behavior, including the plotting of a terrorist attack. The study demonstrates the importance of online and offline factor interaction, especially regarding the role of familiar criminogenic factors, as well as the social–emotional bonding between potential recruits and extremist gamers created through shared gaming experiences that lead to high-intensity extremist radicalization aimed at offline behavioral changes. The study did not find evidence for strategic organizational far-right recruitment campaigns, but rather multidirectional social-networking processes which were also initiated by the potential recruits.

Since the 2016 US Presidential Election, extreme right-wing communities have gained extensive popularity on YouTube, spreading discourses of white supremacy and conspiracy. This paper focuses on how methods drawn from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) can be used to analyze this communication and contribute to research interests within the field of media and communication studies. SFL is a social semiotic model of language concerned with systematic analysis of language choices in terms of their social context. More specifically, this paper draws upon the Appraisal and Affiliation frameworks developed within SFL, in order to understand how patterns of evaluation are expressed in language and how these function in terms of aligning ambient audiences with particular values. YouTube videos and comments about the Notre Dame Cathedral Fire are used as a case study. The aim is to illustrate how this approach can offer an additional perspective on the issues of information disorder and hate speech that does not attempt to homogenize the multiple reasons why people engage in such hateful behavior.

The purpose of the study is to identify the role of social media in spreading radicalization among Bangladeshi youth and the factors behind them. The concepts of radicalization and violent extremism have become increasingly prevalent in global politics and development programming during the last few decades and the youths are getting involved through social media from the contents published by the extremist groups. The authors have used qualitative method to understand and scrutinize the findings of the study. In these processes, they have chosen secondary data analysis from articles, journals, books, newspaper etc. in order to collect and analyze data. Finally, they have tried to find out the factors behind the involvement of youths in radicalization and extremist acts through social media, the preventive measures taken by the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) and further possible initiative to boost up the preventive techniques to safeguard the youths. In the consequences, the authors assumed that lack of religious knowledge, adventurous nature, economic factors, cultural factors and identity crisis could be the reasons behind the vulnerability of youths involving in radicalization in Bangladesh.

The jihadi movement paradigm, along with jihadi terrorism, has been transformed over the last decade into a new reality, since it entered our daily lives with the 9/11 attacks. This process of change was due largely to the strengthening of the caliphate movement, carried out by the Islamic State. It is no longer possible to understand jihadi terrorism, violent action and recruitment without look for the roots, new characters, models and new dimensions of a radicalization process that happens in a global society where the Internet functions as a key media channel in everyday communications. The next pages aim to understand an Informational Jihad Age, where the role of networked communication, through social media, is a main feature. Communication through the Internet plays a vector function for diffusion of general favorable content related with the caliphate movement, through multiple forms, including official magazines, propaganda videos and the presence of charismatic preachers online. In addition, it was also included in this research the analysis of unfavorable content, in the form of opinion or news content. Hence, it was conducted a Content Analysis in Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube using Crimson Hexagon software platform, that allowed the quantification and characterization of these contents between January 2012 and April 2017.

O paradigma do movimento jihadista, e com ele o terrorismo jihadista, evoluiu ao longo da última década para novos contornos, desde que entrou no nosso quotidiano com os ataques de 11 de setembro de 2001. Esse processo de mutação deveu-se em grande parte ao fortalecimento do movimento do califado, protagonizado pelo Estado Islâmico. Não é hoje possível perceber o terrorismo jihadista, a ação violenta e o recrutamento de jihadistas, sem compreender as raízes, os novos atores, modelos e dimensões de um processo de radicalização que acontece numa sociedade global, na qual a Internet se tornou um meio de comunicação quotidiano. As próximas páginas procuram compreender melhor essa “Era da Jihad Informacional”, onde a comunicação em rede, via redes sociais, é uma caraterística central. A comunicação através da Internet assume-se como um vetor de difusão generalizada de conteúdo favorável ao movimento do califado, assumindo múltiplas formas, entre as quais revistas oficiais, vídeos de propaganda e a presença de pregadores carismáticos online. Para além dessas formas e vetores de difusão, procurou-se também contemplar na análise o conteúdo desfavorável presente na rede, seja ele noticioso ou de opinião. Para isso foi conduzida uma Análise de Conteúdo no Twitter, Facebook, Instagram e Youtube, através da plataforma de “software” Crimson Hexagon, que permitiu a quantificação e caraterização da presença destes conteúdos entre janeiro de 2012 e abril de 2017.