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VOX-Pol Guest Lecture Series, Spring 2024: Data Collection in Online Terrorism and Extremism Research

There has been a growing interest among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to analyze the online activities of extremists and terrorists. As studies in this research area have increased, various data collection techniques have emerged to address key research questions, ranging from manual extraction to computational tools to collect online information. This lecture examines the strengths and limitations of commonly used data collection methods in online terrorism and extremism research. We draw from our research experiences and highlight ethical dilemmas with collection methods in practice. We then set forth suggestions for progressing research in this space. For more information on data collection in online terrorism and extremism research, see our recent article in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism as part of a special issue on the strengths and struggles of different methods of research on radicalization, extremism, and terrorism: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2024.2361957?src=exp-la

Ryan Scrivens is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. He is also an Associate Director at the International CyberCrime Research Centre at Simon Fraser University and a Research Fellow at the VOX-Pol Network of Excellence. He is the recipient of the 2022 Early Career Impact Award from the American Society of Criminology’s Division on Terrorism and Bias Crimes.

Steven Chermak is a Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. He is the co-creator of several databases including the Extremist Crime Database (ECDB), the Extremist Cybercrime Database (ECCD), and The American School Shooting Study (TASSS). He is the recipient of the 2021 Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology’s Division on Terrorism and Bias Crimes.

To see the Internet as only a ‘tool’ or ‘resource’ for disseminating ideas and products, as much of the literature has done, is to miss an even more significant aspect of online venues. The Internet is also a site of important ‘identity work’, in which collective identities can be accomplished interactively. This chapter explores how collective identities are constructed by white supremacists who specifically exploit the web as a venue for expressing ‘white pride worldwide’. Drawing on social movement literature around the building of collective identities, we examine the online identity work of the ‘globalizing’ right-wing extremist movement through four key frames: alternative media/alternative messaging; identity borders; shared identity; and mobilizing hate. Here, we explore the Internet not as a tool, but as site for the active construction of collective white identity.