Welcome to Volume 11, Issue 9 of the monthly VOX-Pol Newsletter.
VOX-Pol ON LINKEDIN
VOX-Pol is now on LinkedIn. Please like and follow our new page!
We are still on X @VOX_Pol with live updates, and check out our YouTube channel for videos of our events and workshops.
VOX-Pol UPCOMING EVENT
You are invited to an open source intelligence (OSINT) workshop, being held online at 15:00 (UK time) on Wednesday 25 September 2024. The workshop, OSINT: Practice and Ethics, will cover:
- Basic OSINT techniques
- Researcher’s safety
- Data integrity
See the event page on our website for information on how to register.
VOX-Pol GUEST LECTURE SERIES 2024
Four lectures from the VOX-Pol Guest Lecture Series 2024 are now available to watch on the VOX-Pol YouTube channel. They are:
- Studying Right-Wing Extremism with Sam Jackson
- Data Collection in Online Terrorism & Extremism Research with Ryan Scrivens and Steven Chermak
- Researching Terrorist Websites and Forums with Ashton Kingdon
- Misogynistic Violent Extremism – Incels and the Manosphere with Lisa Sugiura
More lectures are still to come, so watch this space!
VOX-Pol MEMBERS’ PUBLICATIONS
Stephane Baele and colleagues published a new paper this August in the journal, Terrorism & Political Violence, titled, Is AI-Generated Extremism Credible? Experimental Evidence from an Expert Survey.
Ashton Kingdon and Aaron Winter published the paper, Digital Reconstruction: A Critical Examination of the History and Adaptation of Ku Klux Klan Websites in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.
Joe Whittaker appeared on BBC Radio 4 programme, ‘Anti Social’, talking about the Manosphere.
VOX-Pol MOST-READ BLOG POSTS OF THE YEAR
The VOX-Pol Blog publishes weekly on a Wednesday, and takes a break in August, when we share the top 5 most-read post of the year. This year, VOX-Pol has published a total of thirty-two posts, covering the online far-right, incels, online jihadism, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). We also featured Blogs on legislation and research methodology.
The Top 5 Most Read Blogs of the Year were:
1. Hamas Telegram in the Immediate Wake of Their 7 October Terrorist Attack(s): Part 2 – Propaganda content by Sean McCafferty & Kamil Yilmaz.
2. Hamas Telegram in the Immediate Wake of Their 7 October Terrorist Attack(s): Part 1 – Activity Levels by Sean McCafferty & Kamil Yilmaz.
3. Exploiting Political Crises: How Terrorists’ Polarize the Public and Garner Support in their Propaganda Campaigns by Mor Yachin & Rebecca Wilson.
4. The Passive Extremism of Social Media in the Bronx Drill Scene by Matthew K. Carter.
5. Understanding Incels’ Psychology, Ideology, and Networking by Joe Whittaker, William Costello, and Andrew Thomas.
Want to submit a blog post? Click here.
VOX-Pol IN THE MEDIA
A spotlight on recent news items featuring VOX-Pol Members and their research:
- Algorithmen treiben Aussenseiter ins «Recherche-High»: Wie sich Jugendliche online radikalisieren, Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), 31 August 2024.
- Islamic State utilizes AI to amplify propaganda, sparking new terrorism concerns – analysis, The Jerusalem Post, 23 August 2024.
- Gamergate’s Aggrieved Men Still Haunt the Internet, Wired, 14 August 2024.
- The far right roots in the tradwife trend, Newstalk, 12 August 2024
- The hypermasculine far right: how white nationalists tell themselves they are ‘protecting’ women and children when they riot, The Conversation, 7 August 2024.
- Decoding a public health approach to social media, Medical Independent, 21 July 2024.
- Why Kamala Fandom is Rocking the Internet – and the Trump Assassination Isn’t, Offline with Jon Favreau, 21 July 2024
