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The spectre of a retrograde, puritanical and belligerent ideology may seem anachronistic in the twenty-first century. However, Jihadism (as opposed to the classical reified conception of Jihad) is a thoroughly modern phenomenon. The Internet, that most contemporary of media, is increasingly its medium of choice: Jihadist websites, forums and blogs flourish. Prominent Jihadist ideologues like Ayman al-Zawahiri argue
that: We must get our message across to the masses of the nation and break the media siege imposed on the jihad movement. This is an independent battle that we must launch side by side with the military battle. The Jihadists’ marginalized status vis-à-vis the mainstream media is a consequence of what Phillip Hammond refers to as ‘the media war on terrorism’. Bemoaning this ‘media siege’, they have turned to the Internet as their principal ideological battlefield. Virtual propagation of Jihadism proceeds apace, with an exponential growth in Jihadist websites from fourteen to over
4,000 between 2000 and 2005 alone. The audiences of this virtual corpus of Jihadist media are extremely difficult to ascertain, unless users willingly disclose this information. Audience demographics are however dictated to a large degree by extraneous factors pertaining to accessibility of the medium itself such as age, gender, location, socio-economic status, and so on. In addition, the audience profile is further limited by the content available, in particular its linguistic demands. The overwhelming majority of virtual Jihadist forums are published in Arabic alone and so inaccessible to a large proportion of Muslims as well as other Internet users. British Muslim audiences are
predominantly (74 per cent) South Asian and are therefore more likely to speak Urdu, Punjabi, or Bengali, than Arabic. This article focuses on English-language Jihadist fora, as these are readily accessible to British Muslim audiences.

Within the last 10 years, the internet has become the principal platform for the dissemination and mediation of the culture and ideology of jihadism. The exponential growth of jihadist fora, with their increasingly ‘high-end’ production values, sophisticated critiques of prevailing narratives and ostensive attempts at impartiality, do not occur in a vacuum. To a great extent they are reactive, their raison d’etre supplied by the mainstream media’s perceived collusion with governmental (mis)information, or at least its uncritical acceptance. The jihadist media are far from alone in these critiques and there has been a growing convergence of interests with other non-mainstream and media outlets which are also challenging conventional modes of mediation. This article seeks to explore the functions of the new jihadist media, the ways in which it is granted legitimacy, and the compelling issue of radicalizing efficacy and recruitment.

E-learning on the Internet is constituted by the options that this global technology gives the user. This article explores these options in terms of the lifestyle choices and decisions that the learner will make about the virtual worlds, textual meanings and cultural groupings that they will find as they learn online. This is a non-linear process that complicates dualistic approaches to e-learning, such as those which propose real/virtual distinctions. It also sets up the notion of virtual terrorism, which is explained in terms of the political forces that have come about due to e-learning. This article uses the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze as a best fit in order to understand the ways in which the e-learning of the Internet options is apparent in contemporary society. Deleuze made a division between unconscious learning and apprenticeship learning, that makes sense in terms of the virtual and cultural worlds that inform the lifestyle choices on the Net. This is because the navigation of virtual worlds involves imaginative processes that are at the same time an education of the senses of the type that the apprentice will receive. Furthermore, in his work with Félix Guattari, he developed the notion of the plane of immanence, which is used to pinpoint the presence of virtual terrorism in e-learning practices.

This thesis explores the ways in which civil and uncivil groups in Northern Ireland use the Internet to generate soft power. This research assesses whether the Internet creates a critical multiplier effect for marginal groups, such as terrorists and interface communities. A coding scheme, adapted from previous studies of political part websites, is used to determine whether these groups have realised the potential of the Internet as a tool for political mobilisation. The dissertation considers whether there are any qualitative differences between the online framing of terrorist-linked parties and the constitutional parties in the region.

While the threat of terrorists utilizing the Internet to execute a cyberterrorist attack is of prominent concern there exist great misconceptions and factual errors in the media as to the nature of this threat (Conway, 2002; Embar-Seddon, 2002; Weimann, 2005). This thesis examined media exposure, knowledge of cyberterrorism, fear of terrorism and perceived seriousness of cyberterrorist events in a sample of college students. Generally, participants had little knowledge of cyberterrorism. Women were found to be more fearful of terrorism and cyberterrorism than men. A positive relation was found between media consumption and fear of terrorism among women. Finally, fear of terrorism was positively related to perceived seriousness of cyberterrorist events.

Based on numerous high level concerns that the cyber threat is expected to increase, as well as the already documented uses of cyber warfare, it is necessary to ensure our naval ships are hardened against such attacks. In doing so, an influence net model was designed to discover the likelihood of a successful cyber attack. However, first it was necessary to establish what the best mitigation tools are in defense of cyber attack methods. In order to do so, an expert opinion survey was designed and completed by individuals currently working in the field of network security. In combination with the expert opinion surveys and in looking at research and established security techniques it should become apparent whether or not ships are taking all the required steps to best secure themselves against an attack. Though the initial model was designed around a theoretical Naval Station Everett ship, with modification the model can be utilized for any naval asset throughout the United States and the risk for each particular U.S. asset can be evaluated. Additionally, this tool can also facilitate security funding as well as establishing a means of prioritizing the tools for protection if the network needs to be hastily re-established after an attack. Ultimately, the protection of a ship’s computer networks against cyber terrorist threats is fundamental in ensuring continued effective command and control and ultimately the security of this nation.