1st Edition
Islamic State’s Online Activity and Responses
Islamic State’s Online Activity and Responses provides a unique examination of Islamic State’s online activity at the peak of its "golden age" between 2014 and 2017 and evaluates some of the principal responses to this phenomenon.
Featuring contributions from experts across a range of disciplines, the volume examines a variety of aspects of IS’s online activity, including their strategic objectives, the content and nature of their magazines and videos, and their online targeting of females and depiction of children. It also details and analyses responses to IS’s online activity – from content moderation and account suspensions to informal counter-messaging and disrupting terrorist financing – and explores the possible impact of technological developments, such as decentralised and peer-to-peer networks, going forward. Platforms discussed include dedicated jihadi forums, major social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and newer services, including Twister.
Islamic State’s Online Activity and Responses is essential reading for researchers, students, policymakers, and all those interested in the contemporary challenges posed by online terrorist propaganda and radicalisation. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Studies in Conflict & Terrorism.
Introduction: Islamic State's Online Activity and Responses 2014-2017
Maura Conway and Stuart Macdonald
1. Mujahideen Mobilization: Examining the Evolution of the Global Jihadist Movement’s Communicative Action Repertoire
Maxime Bérubé and Benoit Dupont
2. Competition and Innovation in a Hostile Environment: How Jabhat Al-Nusra and Islamic State Moved to Twitter in 2013-2014
Gunnar J. Weimann
3. A Dialectical Approach to Online Propaganda: Australia’s United Patriots Front, Right-Wing Politics, and Islamic State
Imogen Richards
4. Grading the Quality of ISIS Videos: A Metric for Assessing the Technical Sophistication of Digital Video Propaganda
Mark D. Robinson and Cori E. Dauber
5. Women’s Radicalization to Religious Terrorism: An Examination of ISIS Cases in the United States
Lauren R. Shapiro and Marie-Helen Maras
6. “The Lions of Tomorrow”: A News Value Analysis of Child Images in Jihadi Magazines
Amy-Louise Watkin and Seán Looney
7. Disrupting Daesh: Measuring Takedown of Online Terrorist Material and Its Impacts
Maura Conway, Moign Khawaja, Suraj Lakhani, Jeremy Reffin, Andrew Robertson, and David Weir
8. Informal Countermessaging: The Potential and Perils of Informal Online Countermessaging
Benjamin J. Lee
9. Social Media and (Counter) Terrorist Finance: A Fund-Raising and Disruption Tool
Tom Keatinge and Florence Keen
10. A Storm on the Horizon? “Twister” and the Implications of the Blockchain and Peer-to-Peer Social Networks for Online Violent Extremism
Gareth Mott
Biography
Maura Conway is Professor of International Security in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University, Ireland.
Stuart Macdonald is Professor of Law at Swansea University, UK.
