Online Library

It is only a matter of time before terrorists begin routinely using Twitter, Instagram, and other services in ongoing operations. We have already seen this in a limited manner from al-Shabaab, which tweets its #JihadDispatches on recent battles. But those delivery mechanisms are unlikely to replace the forums as the main environment for conversation and information distribution among jihadis. Twitter and the like provide a more public platform than a password-protected forum, but one critical utility of forums for jihadis is the ability to have relatively private conversations.

All over the world, extreme right activists and neo-nazis are using the Internet as a tool for communication and recruitment in order to avoid national laws and police investigations. The last 10 years have seen both the diffusion of CMC environments and the rise of extreme right movements in several European countries. This study investigates the structure of the Italian extreme right network, taking into account the latest trends in the social psychology of CMC to describe the nature of ties among Italian extreme right websites.

With the advent of social media, terrorist organisations have seized an unprecedented opportunity to engage wider audiences with their ideologies and actions. This study aims to develop an understanding of this tactic by analysing its use in the 2013 Westgate Mall hostage crisis. During that event, the Twitter account @HSMPress_ provided continuous updates supporting the actions of the terrorist organisation Al- Shabaab. Situating the event within a framework of Jürgen Habermas’s theories of the Public Sphere and Andrew Mack’s theories of asymmetric warfare, this paper employs Kenneth Burke’s dramatistic pentad to perform a rhetorical analysis of the tweets using both artistic and inartistic factors. It does so in order to understand how they engaged the audience of the terrorist event, emphasising the performative nature of the text in accordance with behaviourist objectives. The results of this analysis will demonstrate how terrorist groups may use platforms like Twitter to achieve a strategic political goal by shifting viewer perspectives, with significant implications for future policy governing social media content and censorship.

Efforts to counter online radicalisation must view new technologies and modes of interaction not as a threat but as an opportunity. Relying on government alone is not sufficient. It is vital to capitalise upon the potential contributions of all stakeholders, including internet companies and internet users.

We cannot truly understand terrorism in the 21st century—let alone counter it effectively—unless we also understand the processes of communication that underpin it. The book challenges existing terrorism research showing that current approaches are inadequate and outdated. It exposes the fact that, although we live in an age of interconnectedness shaped by media technologies, both policy makers and security experts know very little about how to make sense of this reality. Among the widespread myths the book dispels are: the idea that new recruits into the ranks of al Qaeda are ‘radicalized’ by a ‘narrative of grievance’; that the removal of extremist websites should be a priority; that ‘we’ can ‘rewrite’ terrorists’ propaganda; that being a ‘global brand’ is a source of strength for al Qaeda. This book will be of interest to researchers and students in terrorism studies, communication and media, politics and security.

The world’s most dangerous jihadists no longer answer to al Qaeda. The terrorists we should fear most are self-recruited wannabes who find purpose in terror and comrades on the Web. This new generation is even more frightening and unpredictable than its predecessors, but its evolution just may reveal the key to its demise.