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The Communicating and Marketing of Radicalism: A Case Study of ISIS and Cyber Recruitment

The Communicating and Marketing of Radicalism: A Case Study of ISIS and Cyber Recruitment

David H. McElreath (University of Mississippi, Oxford, USA), Daniel Adrian Doss (University of West Alabama, Livingston, USA), Leisa McElreath (Mississippi Crime Stoppers Board, Jackson, USA), Ashley Lindsley (Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, USA), Glenna Lusk (University of Mississippi, Oxford, USA), Joseph Skinner (University of Mississippi, Oxford, USA), and Ashley Wellman (Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, USA)
Copyright: © 2020 |Pages: 23
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-2466-4.ch039
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Abstract

This article considers social media as a radicalization venue within the context of terrorism. The 2016 extremist/terrorist attack in Orlando, Florida showed the potential of an ISIS type extremist organization to leverage social media toward a lethal outcome within American society. While the ISIS organization originated overseas in a culture of which mainstream American society is unfamiliar, it is in many ways remarkable the level of success they quickly achieved connecting globally. Their efforts reflect the potential of social media to market a message of radicalism worldwide toward generating murderous converts who are willing to travel to join the fight or attack at home. Given these notions, this article considers the use of social media as an extremist cyber-recruitment tool.
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Framework

Chatfield, Reddick, & Brajawidagda (2015) introduced an extremist network communication framework that incorporated social media as its technological foundation. Within the paradigm, social media networking facilitated extremist propaganda, radicalization, and recruitment with respect to the overall goals of the extremist activities (Chatfield, Reddick, & Brajawidagda, 2015). Social media platforms invoke iterations of the communications cycle (Schreck & Keim, 2013). Typically, the communications cycle involves processes of crafting, encoding, transmitting, receiving, decoding, and providing feedback for intended messages throughout a continuum permeated by various forms of noise (Doss, Glover, Goza, & Wigginton, 2014). Within the context of the communication process, social media may be used to personalize messaging and communicating between participating entities whereby feedback responses may be generated (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012; Leonardi, Huysman, & Steinfield, 2013; Williams & Chinn, 2010). Radicalization involves a human process wherein someone experiences a changed mindset and behavior. Blackwell (2016) considered radicalization with respect to human needs and Maslow’s Hierarchy. Blackwell (2016) indicated that ISIS was successful in its radicalization effort because it responded to human needs and provided a means whereby individuals perceived their needs could be fulfilled. Given these notions, coupled with extremist messaging via communication networks, the framework herein incorporates considerations of Maslow’s Hierarchy with respect to human attempts of satisfying needs through affiliation with terrorist entities. In other words, the radicalization process contains a mixture of human needs that people perceive may be satisfied through some type of affiliation with terrorism.

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