Terrorism and Social Media: Global Evidence

ABSTRACT

The study assesses the relationship between terrorism and social media from a cross section of 148 countries with data for the year 2012. The empirical evidence is based on Ordinary Least Squares, Negative Binomial and Quantile regressions. The main finding is that there is a positive relationship between social media in terms of Facebook penetration and terrorism. The positive relationship is driven by below-median quantiles of terrorism. In other words, countries in which existing levels of terrorism are low are more significantly associated with a positive Facebook-terrorism nexus. The established positive relationship is confirmed from other externalities of terrorism: terrorism fatalities, terrorism incidents, terrorism injuries and terrorism-related property damages. The terrorism externalities are constituents of the composite dependent variable.

KEYWORDS:

• Social media
• terrorism

Acknowledgments

The authors are indebted to the editor and reviewers for constructive comments

Compliance with Ethical Standards

The authors are self-funded and have received no funding for this manuscript.

The authors also have no conflict of interest.

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by the authors.

Notes

1. Social media and Facebook are used interchangeably throughout the study because of data availability constraints in the other social media indicators.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Simplice A. Asongu

Prof. Simplice A. Asongu is a Senior researcher at the University of South Africa.

Stella-Maris I. Orim

Dr. Stella-Maris I. Orim is Assistant Professor at Coventry University.

Rexon T. Nting

Dr. Rexon T. Nting is Lecturer at the University of Wales.