Blog

By Daniel Falkiner Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate provides detailed answers to a number of pressing questions: What exactly is ISIS? Where did it come from? Who is behind it? How does it function? What are the reasons for its success? Daniel Falkiner welcomes the rich description and analysis and finds Abdel Bari Atwan does an admirable job of explaining the ways Islamic ...

Identifying key knowledge gaps in the area of preventing violent extremism was the main focus of a recent EU Radicalisation Awareness Network Centre of Excellence (RAN CoE) research seminar in Vienna (12-13 April 2016). The seminar brought together the RAN editorial board, leading researchers, and practitioners to discuss and debate the latest radicalisation research findings ...

Title Python for Social Scientists Date and time Wednesday, 22 June at 9:00am Conveners Prof. Padraig Cunningham, Dr. Derek Greene, and Dr. Tania Malik – School of Computer Science, University College Dublin Workshop Descriptor This workshop will provide an introduction to Python and Python Notebooks for Social Scientists. At the end of the workshop participants will have ...

By Matteo Vergani We (myself and Ana-Maria Bliuc) just published a brief research-paper in the Italian magazine “Security, Terrorism and Society“. We used the computerized text analysis program LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count) to investigate the evolution of the language across the first 11 Issues of Dabiq. Our paper shows ISIS’ increasing concern with ...

Title Human Reasoning Meets Machine Learning: Hands-on Workshop Using Mixed-Media Analytics Tools on Violent Online Extremism Data. Date and time Wednesday, 22 June from 2:00pm to 6:00pm Convener Heather Griffioen-Young – A social psychologist and manager of TNO’s Dark Web programme, Dr. Griffioen-Young has been involved in multiple projects involving radicalisation and violent extremism. Recent focus is ...

By Prof. Keith Martin Since so much of life has moved online, a clash has emerged between the opposing values of internet freedom, and internet control. Should the internet be a public arena free of all interference and influence from the authorities? Or does too much freedom result in anarchy, turning the internet into a ...

By Javier Lesaca The so-called Islamic State (ISIS) has emerged in less than two years as one of the major security challenges for the global community. At the same time, this terrorist group has become one of the most important phenomena in digital public communication since the beginning of the century. In fact, the analysis of ...

Dr. Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, Head of Research and Information at VOX-Pol partner ICSR, had said more needs to be done on a region/country specific basis as part of the West’s de-radicalisation strategy. Dr. Hitchens made the comments while addressing the fourth annual Sulaimani Forum at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS), Iraq, which took place 16 – ...

Researchers from VOX-Pol Coordinator institution Dublin City University made a series of contributions at the International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, which took place from 16 – 19 March 2016. ISA (established in 1959) is the world’s largest academic organisation dedicated to the study of international affairs. Its annual convention attracts 5,000+ participants ...

By Matthew Francis and Emma Barrett Terrorists and criminals, like the rest of us, need to communicate and, like the rest of us, they look out for ways of communicating that meet their particular needs. Some features of messaging applications may make them more attractive than others to terrorists when co-ordinating and planning their activities or ...