Political radicalization on the Internet: Extremist content, government control, and the power of victim and jihad videos

Abstract

The role of the internet in radicalizing individuals to extremist action is much discussed but remains conceptually and empirically unclear. Here we consider right-wing and jihadist use of the Internet – who posts what and where. We focus on extremist content related to radicalization to violent action, and argue that victim videos and jihad videos are particularly powerful in moving individuals to radical action. We interpret these two kinds of video as complementary parts of the kind of mobilization frame studied by social movement theorists. Finally we consider various kinds of government effort to control extremist content on the Internet.

Keywords::

• radicalization of opinion
• radicalization of action
• social movement theory
• social movement frame
• framing
• jihad video
• victim video
• Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications

Acknowledgements

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect views of the US Department of Homeland Security.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the United States Department of Homeland Security through the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) [grant number N00140510629].