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This report concerns itself with terrorist technical innovation, particularly with regards to terrorists’ incorporation of emerging technologies into their practices. More specifically, it investigates, through the elaboration of a theoretical learning framework, how terrorist groups can adopt the practices of ideological enemies operating in different security, ideological and political environments. It does so through a study of three cases of emerging technology use by Islamic State (IS) and racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists (REMVE), which shed light on why ideologically diverse groups might adopt practices from each other.

Disrupting the emergence and evolution of potentially violent online extremist movements is a crucial challenge. Extremism research has analyzed such movements in detail, focusing on individual- and movement-level characteristics. But are there system-level commonalities in the ways these movements emerge and grow? Here we compare the growth of the Boogaloos, a new and increasingly prominent U.S. extremist movement, to the growth of online support for ISIS, a militant, terrorist organization based in the Middle East that follows a radical version of Islam. We show that the early dynamics of these two online movements follow the same mathematical order despite their stark ideological, geographical, and cultural differences. The evolution of both movements, across scales, follows a single shockwave equation that accounts for heterogeneity in online interactions. These scientific properties suggest specific policies to address online extremism and radicalization. We show how actions by social media platforms could disrupt the onset and ‘flatten the curve’ of such online extremism by nudging its collective chemistry. Our results provide a system-level understanding of the emergence of extremist movements that yields fresh insight into their evolution and possible interventions to limit their growth.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

This paper examines aspects of violent, traumatic terrorist video propaganda produced by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) within the theoretical confines of abjection and the use of utopian/dystopian themes. These themes have been present in a number of studies that have examined consumption of the dark dystopic variety. We seek to elucidate on the use of specific techniques and narratives that are relatively new to the global propaganda consumerspace and that relate to horrific violence. Our work here is centered on interpretative analysis and theory building that we believe can assist in understanding and interpreting post-apocalyptic and abject-oriented campaigns in the age of social media and rapid transmission of multimedia communications. In the present analysis, we examine eight ISIS videos created and released in 2015 and 2016. All of the videos chosen for analysis have utilized techniques related to abjection, shock, and horror, often culminating in the filming of the murder of ISIS’s enemies or place-based destruction of holy sites in the Middle East. We use inductive content analytic techniques in the contexts of consumer culture, “cinemas of attraction,” and pornography of violence to propose an extension of existing frameworks of terrorism and propaganda theory.

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.