ONLINE JIHADISM: PROPAGANDA, RECRUITMENT AND HOMEGROWN RADICALIZATION

This paper seeks to address current gaps in literature surrounding terrorist use of the internet. The new and rapidly changing nature of the internet, combined with the limited field of research on terrorism studies presents a problem for experts trying to understand these two phenomenon together. Qualitative case studies of terrorist members and groups are examined in order to understand the use of the internet by terrorist organizations and individuals. Results show that the internet has increasingly been used by terrorist organizations to export propaganda, recruit, and radicalize new members. The internet allows terrorist groups and individuals to connect to one another globally, and promote their ideas, networks and propaganda instantaneously across time and space. This negates the physical separation between an organization and a potential recruit, which helps to explain the growing threat of the homegrown attacks in Western countries inspired by jihadist or other organizations abroad. Chapter one focuses on the academic concept of a lone wolf terrorist, and shows that these individuals are not radicalized within a vacuum, but often interact with other people and media through the internet as part of this process. Chapter two is a comparative study of ISIS and Al-Qaeda’s online recruitment strategies and use of the internet, which highlights the differences between the two organizations and the unprecedented capabilities of the former. The third chapter analyzes ISIS’s social media and online recruitment strategies by looking at the differences between homegrown jihadists and foreign fighters. The new and evolving terrorist use of the internet demands further scholarly research to examine the nature of this threat