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VOX-Pol Blog post.

VOX-Pol Blog Post.

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.

This study explores the synergies between two complementary interventions for countering online extremism: deplatforming, a “hard” intervention that involves removing extremist users from online platforms, and inoculation, a “soft” intervention that exposes users to weakened forms of extremist arguments to build resistance. We developed an agent-based model to simulate the diffusion and control of online extremism, using data from systematic reviews and empirical studies. The model focuses on a population of Bayesian agents within an anti-immigration Facebook group, where these agents form beliefs about far-right content spread by extremists. We introduce both deplatforming and inoculation as interventions in the model to control the spread of extremism and find strong evidence that inoculation has a synergistic effect on deplatforming. This synergy stems from inoculation’s ability to stabilise opinion dynamics at the group level, leading to more effective containment of extremist beliefs. The findings suggest that a combined approach involving both deplatforming and inoculation is more effective than implementing either intervention in isolation. We deploy a cost–benefit analysis to show that the existence of synergies at a structural level enables the identification of efficient resource allocation. Our article demonstrates the potential of applying agent-based modelling to the study of counter-extremism policies.

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.