#ISIS vs #ActionCountersTerrorism: a computational analysis of extremist and counter-extremist Twitter narratives

The rapid expansion of cyberspace has greatly facilitated the strategic shift of traditional crimes to on- line platforms. This has included malicious actors, such as extremist organisations, making use of online networks to disseminate propaganda and incite violence through rad- icalising individua...

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Main Authors: Zahrah, F, Nurse, JRC, Goldsmith, M
Format: Conference item
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2020
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author Zahrah, F
Nurse, JRC
Goldsmith, M
author_facet Zahrah, F
Nurse, JRC
Goldsmith, M
author_sort Zahrah, F
collection OXFORD
description The rapid expansion of cyberspace has greatly facilitated the strategic shift of traditional crimes to on- line platforms. This has included malicious actors, such as extremist organisations, making use of online networks to disseminate propaganda and incite violence through rad- icalising individuals. In this article, we seek to advance current research by exploring how supporters of extremist organisations craft and disseminate their content, and how posts from counter-extremism agencies compare to them. In particular, this study will apply computational tech- niques to analyse the narratives of various pro-extremist and counter-extremist Twitter accounts, and investigate how the psychological motivation behind the messages compares between pro-ISIS and counter-extremism narratives. Our findings show that pro-extremist accounts often use differ- ent strategies to disseminate content (such as the types of hashtags used) when compared to counter-extremist accounts across different types of organisations, including accounts of governments and NGOs. Through this study, we provide unique insights into both extremist and counter-extremist narratives on social media platforms. Furthermore, we define several avenues for discussion regarding the extent to which counter-messaging may be effective at diminishing the online influence of extremist and other criminal organisations.
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spelling oxford-uuid:c3b6446f-f5e9-48dd-aa75-081b77902cc92022-03-27T06:18:31Z#ISIS vs #ActionCountersTerrorism: a computational analysis of extremist and counter-extremist Twitter narrativesConference itemhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_5794uuid:c3b6446f-f5e9-48dd-aa75-081b77902cc9EnglishSymplectic ElementsIEEE2020Zahrah, FNurse, JRCGoldsmith, MThe rapid expansion of cyberspace has greatly facilitated the strategic shift of traditional crimes to on- line platforms. This has included malicious actors, such as extremist organisations, making use of online networks to disseminate propaganda and incite violence through rad- icalising individuals. In this article, we seek to advance current research by exploring how supporters of extremist organisations craft and disseminate their content, and how posts from counter-extremism agencies compare to them. In particular, this study will apply computational tech- niques to analyse the narratives of various pro-extremist and counter-extremist Twitter accounts, and investigate how the psychological motivation behind the messages compares between pro-ISIS and counter-extremism narratives. Our findings show that pro-extremist accounts often use differ- ent strategies to disseminate content (such as the types of hashtags used) when compared to counter-extremist accounts across different types of organisations, including accounts of governments and NGOs. Through this study, we provide unique insights into both extremist and counter-extremist narratives on social media platforms. Furthermore, we define several avenues for discussion regarding the extent to which counter-messaging may be effective at diminishing the online influence of extremist and other criminal organisations.
spellingShingle Zahrah, F
Nurse, JRC
Goldsmith, M
#ISIS vs #ActionCountersTerrorism: a computational analysis of extremist and counter-extremist Twitter narratives
title #ISIS vs #ActionCountersTerrorism: a computational analysis of extremist and counter-extremist Twitter narratives
title_full #ISIS vs #ActionCountersTerrorism: a computational analysis of extremist and counter-extremist Twitter narratives
title_fullStr #ISIS vs #ActionCountersTerrorism: a computational analysis of extremist and counter-extremist Twitter narratives
title_full_unstemmed #ISIS vs #ActionCountersTerrorism: a computational analysis of extremist and counter-extremist Twitter narratives
title_short #ISIS vs #ActionCountersTerrorism: a computational analysis of extremist and counter-extremist Twitter narratives
title_sort isis vs actioncountersterrorism a computational analysis of extremist and counter extremist twitter narratives
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AT nursejrc isisvsactioncountersterrorismacomputationalanalysisofextremistandcounterextremisttwitternarratives
AT goldsmithm isisvsactioncountersterrorismacomputationalanalysisofextremistandcounterextremisttwitternarratives