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Tweeting propaganda, radicalization and recruitment: Islamic state supporters multi-sided twitter networks

Authors:

Akemi Takeoka Chatfield,

Christopher G. Reddick,

Uuf BrajawidagdaAuthors Info & Claims

dg.o '15: Proceedings of the 16th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research

Pages 239 - 249

https://doi.org/10.1145/2757401.2757408

Published: 27 May 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Islamic State (IS) terrorist networks in Syria and Iraq pose threats to national security. IS' exploitation of social media and digital strategy plays a key role in its global dissemination of propaganda, radicalization, and recruitment. However, systematic research on Islamic terrorist communication via social media is limited. Our research investigates the question: How do IS members/supporters use Twitter for terrorism communication: propaganda, radicalization, and recruitment? Theoretically, we drew on microeconomic network theories to develop a theoretical framework for multi-sided Twitter networks in the global Islamic terrorist communication environment. Empirically, we collected 3,039 tweets posted by @shamiwitness who was identified in prior research as "an information disseminator" for the IS cause. Methodologically, we performed social network analysis, trend and content analyses of the tweet data. We find strong evidence for Shamiwitness-intermediated multi-sided Twitter networks of international mass media, regional Arabic mass media, IS fighters, and IS sympathizers, supporting the framework's utility.

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Tweeting propaganda, radicalization and recruitment: Islamic state supporters multi-sided twitter networks

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cover image ACM Other conferences

dg.o '15: Proceedings of the 16th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research

May 2015

369 pages

ISBN:9781450336000

DOI:10.1145/2757401

Conference Chairs:
Karen Mossberger
Arizona State University
,
Natalie Helbig
New York State Department of Health
,
Program Chairs:
Jing Zhang
Clark University
,
Yushim Kim
Arizona State University

Copyright © 2015 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 27 May 2015

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dg.o 2015: 16th Annual International Digital Government Research Conference

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