“The Lions of Tomorrow”: A News Value Analysis of Child Images in <i>Jihadi</i> Magazines

Watkin, Amy-Louise; Looney, Seán

doi:10.1080/1057610x.2018.1513696

Cited by 16 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…The field is still dominated by research that assesses the "supply-side"-that is to say, the content with which would-be terrorists could engage (von Behr, Reding, Edwards, & Gribbon, 2013). This includes research on jihadist online magazines (Ingram, 2016a;Watkin & Looney, 2018), social network analyses of sympathizers (Berger & Morgan, 2015;Klausen, 2015), or even examinations into online meme culture (Huey, 2015). These are all undoubtedly important topics that help elucidate the online ecosystem, but one must take a causal inferential leap before understanding how this actually affects those plotting acts of terrorism.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The online behaviors of Islamic state terrorists in the United States

Whittaker

2021

Criminology & Public Policy

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This study offers an empirical insight into terrorists' use of the Internet. Although criminology has previously been quiet on this topic, behavior-based studies can aid in understanding the interactions between terrorists and their environments. Using a database of 231 US-based Islamic State terrorists, four important findings are offered: (1) This cohort utilized the Internet heavily for the purposes of both networking with co-ideologues and learning about their intended activity. (2) There is little reason to believe that these online interactions are replacing offline ones, as has previously been suggested. Rather, terrorists tend to operate in both domains. (3) Online activity seems to be similar across the sample, regardless of the number of co-offenders or the sophistication of attack. (4) There is reason to believe that using the Internet may be an impediment to terrorists' success. Policy Implications: The findings of this study have two important policy implications. First, it is vital to understand the multiplicity of environments in which terrorists inhabit. Policy makers have tended to emphasize the online domain as particularly dangerous and ripe for exploitation. While this is understandable from one perspective, simplistic and monocausal explanations for radicalization must be avoided. Terrorists operate in both the online and offline domain and there is

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The online behaviors of Islamic state terrorists in the United States

Whittaker

2021

Criminology & Public Policy

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“…Denunciation strategies are particularly image-based, like in official propaganda: several images of lethal victims were observed, as well as numerous pictures of injured citizens, particularly children. 81 Unlike denunciations of attacks against the ummah which do not violate Facebook's community standards, the posts focusing on Muslim prisoners' arrest and prison conditions frame them as victims 82 and mostly implicitly praise violent extremism through decontextualization or positive framing. The identity construct also fuels extremism, when extremist figures are framed as being inspiring.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Jihadi Salafists Sometimes Breach, But Mostly Circumvent, Facebook’s Community Standards in Crisis, Identity and Solution Frames

Bouko

Ostaeyen

Voué³

2021

Studies in Conflict & Terrorism

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How jihadi Salafists sometimes breach, but mostly circumvent, Facebook's community standards in crisis, identity and solution framesWe analyzed posts written by Facebook profiles who advocate violent jihad without supporting any terrorist group. They share extremist content in the middle of regular posts, thanks to which they are likely to reach a large audience. We identified to what extent their ingroup-outgroup opposition is constructed in crisis, identity, and solution frames and how they use these frames in posts which sometimes breach Facebook's community standards, but which mostly circumvent them through various strategies of doublespeak. Among them, myth, in the sense of Barthes, and eudaimonic content appeared as particularly powerful to naturalize and spread jihadi ideology on social media.

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“…The now-dissolved heavily online group was allegedly established by a 13-year-old Estonian boy and had other teenage adherents too. 51 Even younger children featured prominently in IS propaganda materials, 52 which showed some of them carrying out atrocities that they had no capacity to consent to. While visual ethics remains a considerably underdeveloped area, 53 researchers should be mindful of sharing unblurred pictures of so-called "cubs of the Caliphate," which may contribute to their revictimization.…”

Section: "Do No Harm": Parsing Harm To Subjects In Online Extremism and Terrorism Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Online Extremism and Terrorism Research Ethics: Researcher Safety, Informed Consent, and the Need for Tailored Guidelines

Conway

2021

Terrorism and Political Violence

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This article reflects on two core issues of human subjects' research ethics and how they play out for online extremism and terrorism researchers. Medical research ethics, on which social science research ethics are based, centers the protection of research subjects, but what of the protection of researchers? Greater attention to researcher safety, including online security and privacy and mental and emotional wellbeing, is called for herein. Researching hostile or dangerous communities does not, on the other hand, exempt us from our responsibilities to protect our research subjects, which is generally ensured via informed consent. This is complicated in data-intensive research settings, especially with the former type of communities, however. Also grappled with in this article therefore are the pros and cons of waived consent and deception and the allied issue of prevention of harm to subjects in online extremism and terrorism research. The best path forward it is argued-besides talking through the diversity of ethical issues arising in online extremism and terrorism research and committing our thinking and decision-making around them to paper to a much greater extent than we have done to-date-may be development of ethics guidelines tailored to our sub-field.

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“The Lions of Tomorrow”: A News Value Analysis of Child Images in Jihadi Magazines

Cited by 16 publications

References 9 publications

The online behaviors of Islamic state terrorists in the United States

The online behaviors of Islamic state terrorists in the United States

How Jihadi Salafists Sometimes Breach, But Mostly Circumvent, Facebook’s Community Standards in Crisis, Identity and Solution Frames

Online Extremism and Terrorism Research Ethics: Researcher Safety, Informed Consent, and the Need for Tailored Guidelines

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