The VOX-Pol Blog has been running for ten years this month and currently contains nearly 500 posts. On it you’ll find book reviews, research article summaries, reflection pieces, cross-posts, and translations.
The Blog publishes short (under 1000 words) articles every week at midday on Wednesdays for our audience of researchers, policymakers, law enforcement, social media company representatives, and the general public.
The first Blog post titled ‘Blocking Islamic State’s Online Propaganda is the Wrong Answer to the Wrong Problem‘ and authored by Dr. Cristina Archetti was published on 23 October 2014. The post touches on a few of the enduring themes of the VOX-Pol Blog over the years: Islamic State, online propaganda and radicalisation, and how platforms respond to extremist content online.
In the first year of the Blog (October 2014 to July 2015), the topic of violent jihadists online made up just over half of all the posts published, and the Islamic State was the specific focus of many of these posts. A third of the posts broadly covered the topic of Internet research and regulation: studying extremist and terrorist content online, and policymaking and practice in the area. There were two posts on the extreme right and four on the issue of online radicalisation.
Because the Blog addresses real-world events and new technologies, its subjects have necessarily changed over time.
To compare the first year’s topics with the most recent year of the Blog (September 2023 to July 2024) a decade on, we find frequent posts on topics such as online misogyny, Artificial Intelligence (AI), propaganda and radicalisation, and preventing/countering violent extremism (P/CVE). Articles relating to violent jihadists online are now only 8% of the year’s Blog posts, and the extreme right is the topic of 16% of all posts. Internet research and regulation remains about a third of all posts.
VOX-Pol Coordinator, Stuart Macdonald, said: “The posts on the VOX-Pol Blog have amassed hundreds of thousands of reads, which is testament to its importance. Contributors to the Blog are some of the leading figures in the field. They provide timely and thought-provoking comment on critical issues of relevance to researchers and the wider community of stakeholders”.
The Blog editorial team said: “VOX-Pol Blog brings together a community of researchers from PhD students to professors from all around the world and it is a delight to be able to share their work in an inclusive and accessible format. Thank you to all who have contributed over the years, helping to build and shape the blog into the informative resource that it is today. We look forward to following the innovative research of our contributors over the next years and would encourage those who are new to the field to reach out with submission ideas.” Click here for instructions on how to submit to the VOX-Pol Blog.
Blog posts in the Online Library
All VOX-Pol Blog posts have now been added to the VOX-Pol Online Library, making it quick and easy to search the Blog archives. Using the Online Library Advanced Search function, you can select ‘VOX-Pol Blog’ under publication type. You can add authors, tags, year(s), keyword, etc. to your search to retrieve relevant blog posts.
