Online Library

Social media platforms have profoundly transformed cultural production, in part by restructuring the terms by which culture is distributed and paid for. In this article, we examine the YouTube Partner Program and the controversies around the “demonetization” of videos, to understand these arrangements and what happens when they shift beneath creators’ feet. We use the testimony of YouTubers, provided in their own videos, to understand how creators square the contradiction between YouTube’s increasingly cautious rules regarding “advertiser-friendly” content, its shifting financial and algorithmic incentive structure, and its stated values as an open platform of expression. We examine YouTube’s tiered governance strategy, in which different users are offered different sets of rules, different material resources, and different procedural protections when content is demonetized. And we examine how, especially when the details of that tiered governance are ambiguous or poorly conveyed, creators develop their own theories for why their content has been demonetized—which can provide some creators a tactical opportunity to advance politically motivated accusations of bias against the platform.

The level of influence and interference by Russian-linked social media trying to engineer social division in the UK, including through Russian Twitter accounts, is considerably more extensive than has been reported to date.

Is the U.S. making headway in the fight against the Islamic State group? Judy Woodruff talks to retired Col. Derek Harvey, a former Army intelligence officer, and Brendan Koerner of Wired Magazine about the military offensive against ISIS, including the killing of a senior leader, and the resiliency of the group on social media.

This is the first in a series of papers that draws on information from this database. It examines the question of how foreign fighters in Syria receive information about the conflict and who inspires them.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

The Jihadist phenomenon has a privileged space in Web 2.0 where contents can be created, networks can be global and all exchanges of information have significance. The emergent Jihadist organizations have been profiting from these digital communication features to enlarge, diversify and connect with their audience. On the one side, the virtual framing of Jihad through the manipulation of the sacred Islamic texts and its transformation into an ‘authentic’ religious discourse has given the Jihadists an opportunity to justify any religious violence associated with the performance of Jihad. On the other side, the virtual performance of Jihad through a ritualization process that combines ritualistic innovation with the use of cyber tools has allured individuals to engage and participate in Jihadist acts, both online and offline. Moreover, and in the light of the Jihadist warfare in the Middle East, the article will reveal the importance of e-Ritualization of Jihad into shaping these individual representations into a community both offline and online.