By Michael Jensen, Patrick James, Gary LaFree, Aaron Safer-Lichtenstein, Elizabeth Yates

Emerging communication technologies, and social media platforms in particular, play an increasingly important role in the radicalization and mobilization processes of violent and non-violent extremists (Archetti, 2015; Cohen et al., 2014; Farwell, 2014; Klausen, 2015). However, the extent to which extremists utilize social media, and whether it influences terrorist outcomes, is still not well understood (Conway, 2017). This research brief expands the current knowledge base by leveraging newly collected data on the social media activities of 479 extremists in the PIRUS dataset who radicalized between 2005 and 2016.[1] This includes descriptive analyses of the frequency of social media usage among U.S. extremists, the types of social media platforms used, the differences in the rates of social media use by ideology and group membership, the purposes of social media use, and the impact of social media on foreign fighter travel and domestic terrorism plots.

We define social media in the PIRUS dataset as any form of electronic communication through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content, such as videos and images. This form of online communication is distinct from other types of internet usage in that it emphasizes online user-to-user communication rather than passively viewing content hosted by an online domain. Additionally, our definition of social media does not include file-sharing sites (e.g., Torrent networks, Dropbox, P2P networks, etc.).

College Park, MD: START, University of Maryland, 2018. 20p.

By Leo Lowenthal and Norbert Guterman.

A Study of the Techniques of the American Agitator. “At this moment in world history anti-Semitism is not manifesting itself with the full and violent destructiveness of which we know it to be capable. Even a social disease has its periods of quiescence during which the social scientist, like the biologist or the physician, can study it in the search for more effective ways to prevent or reduce the virulence of the next outbreak. Today the world scarcely remembers the mechanized persecution and extermination of millions of human beings only a short span of years away in what was once regarded as the citadel of Western civilization.”

NY. Harper. (1949) 182p.

By Diana Rieger; Lena Frischlin; Gary Bente; Deutschland. Bundeskriminalamt.

This book deals with the psychological effects of extremist propaganda videos. Itparticularly asks the question how young adults in Germany respond to right-wing as well as Islamic extremist videos which can be found on the Internet today.This is not a book about terrorism, but about the potential conditions which mightfacilitate a climate of receptivity for radical messages in a young mass audiencewith diverging cultural and educational background and different attitudes and values.

The so-called web 2.0, with its mostly unfiltered, user-created content provides unprecedented opportunities for extremists to present themselves and uncensored ideas to a mass audience. This internet propaganda is created in order to increase attention and interest for extremist ideas and group memberships. It also aims to indoctrinate the recipients and, as a last consequence, to foster radicalization.The radicalizing potential has been feared by international security agencies and mass media. Nevertheless, not even the early stage effects of extremist propaganda in terms of raising attention and interest have yet been analyzed empirically.They are however necessary preconditions in order for propaganda to envelope a radicalizing effect.

The current studies close this gap by focusing on this early stage effects. We ana-lyzed how a non-radicalized audience responds to extremist internet videos. For the first time, based on a content analysis of actual right-wing and Islamic extremistInternet videos, our study used state-of-the-art methods from experimental media psychology for tracking the emotional and cognitive responses of a broad sample of 450 young male adults. As expected, we mostly found rejection and never strong acceptance for the extremist videos. Still, specific production styles and audience characteristics were able to cause at least neutral attitudes underpinning the strategic potential of internet propaganda. In the end, our studies might result in more questions than answers. However, we are confident that the conceptual as well as the methodological way chosen is most promising as to approach a deeper understanding of the first effects of extremist Internet propaganda.

Köln : Luchterhand, 2013. 165p,