Blog

On 15 May 2017 VOX-Pol’s Coordinator, DCU’s Prof. Maura Conway, gave a keynote address at Dublin’s Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), “Ireland’s leading think tank on European and International affairs.” In her address, Prof. Conway detailed the development of IS’s online strategy from 2014 to the present, with a particular focus on online-offline ...

The mobilisation of women for the jihadist cause emerged in Spain within the framework of the current mobilisation in Western Europe linked to the conflict in Syria and Iraq and the appearance of the so called Islamic State (IS) as a new vanguard of global terrorism. The explicit call from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to women ...

By Jim Killock In a report published last month by the Home Affairs Select Committee brands social media companies as behaving irresponsibly in failing to remove extremist material. It takes the view that the job of removing illegal extremist videos and postings is entirely the responsibility of the companies, and does not envisage a role for courts ...

On 15 May, VOX-Pol Programme Manager Lisa McInerney participated in  the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness’ (NJOHSP) Second Annual Domestic Terrorism Conference. The conference brought together law enforcement officers, intelligence analysts, and academics to discuss the rise of domestic extremism across the United States. The day was organised into two tracks: the ...

Those you fear may not be as dangerous as those who capitalise on your fear. This is what transpires from the on-going debate around mainstream media coverage of recent lone actor terrorist attacks. Regardless of the significance of social media propaganda in emerging forms of radicalisation, commentators are now reminding us of the role that ...

Welcome to Vol. 4 Issue 2 of the VOX-Pol Newsletter. If you have colleagues or friends who may be interested in the content of this newsletter or any events and research carried out by VOX-Pol, please encourage them to subscribe via our website. Follow us on Twitter @VOX_Pol for live updates and releases. Yours sincerely, The VOX-Pol ...

Are Twitter bots driving the success of far right candidates?  While many are still trying to make sense of the election of Donald Trump and the surge in popularity of Marine Le Pen, evidence suggests that public perceptions of these candidates are being manipulated by far right social media activists. Social media can be a ...

By Lorand Bodo, M.A. & Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. As ISIS is rapidly losing its territory in Syria and Iraq they continue to win on the digital battlefield, maintaining a strong recruiting presence in the digital space[1]. As ISIS cadres inspire and even direct terrorist attacks on different continents, the West must realize that it is ...

Our latest report is launched today, May 03, 2017, available now in the VOX-Pol Online Library VOX-Pol has released its latest report in the VOX-Pol publication series, titled ‘Research Perspectives on Online Radicalisation: A Literature Review, 2006—2016’. Other reports in the series have included: Check the Web: Assessing the Ethics and Politics of Policing the ...

By Bharath Ganesh In early March, the Home Office published new counter-terrorism statistics that indicated a significant increase in the arrest of ‘white’ extremists. Tabloids in the UK, including The Daily Mail, ran triumphant headlines claiming a crackdown on far-right extremism. Unfortunately, the data released by the Home Office does not support any such assertion. The ...