The Internet is a transformative technology that terrorists are exploiting for the spread of propaganda and radicalizing new recruits. While al-Qaeda has a longer history, Islamic State is conducting a modern and sophisticated media campaign centered around online social networking. This article introduces and contextualizes the contributions to this Special Issue by examining some of the ways in which terrorists make use of the Internet as part of their broader media strategies.

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Much has been written about information gatekeepers, mostly describing how gatekeepers function within organizations. There has been less consideration of the gatekeeper's activities beyond the organization's boundary, though the gathering of external information is fundamental to gatekeeping. Stuart Macdonald and Christine Williams examine gatekeeping from an information perspective, starting with external information and following it into the organization. With only primitive networking and a range of occasional contacts in the outside world, the gatekeeper is something of a scavenger of external information. The gatekeeper certainly transfers information from the external environment to colleagues within the organization, but primary interest is in personal use of the information gathered. Seniority within the organization may allow the gatekeeper the latitude to function in ways that would not be tolerated in more junior employees. The article is wholly concerned with informal gatekeeping and concludes that organizations may condone or even inhibit such activity, but are constrained by the nature of information, and of organization itself, from encouraging it.

Social-media companies make extensive use of artificial intelligence in their efforts to remove and block terrorist content from their platforms. This paper begins by arguing that, since such efforts amount to an attempt to channel human conduct, they should be regarded as a form of regulation that is subject to rule-of-law principles. The paper then discusses three sets of rule-of-law issues. The first set concerns enforceability. Here, the paper highlights the displacement effects that have resulted from the automated removal and blocking of terrorist content and argues that regard must be had to the whole social-media ecology, as well as to jihadist groups other than the so-called Islamic State and other forms of violent extremism. Since rulebylaw is only a necessary, and not a sufficient, condition for compliance with rule-of-law values, the paper then goes on to examine two further sets of issues: the clarity with which social-media companies define terrorist content and the adequacy of the processes by which a user may appeal against an account suspension or the blocking or removal of content. The paper concludes by identifying a range of research questions that emerge from the discussion and that together form a promising and timely research agenda to which legal scholarship has much to contribute.

I would like to thank all those with whom I have discussed the ideas presented in this article, and in particular Andrew Halpin and the anonymous referees for their invaluable comments on earlier drafts.

This article reports on a recent survey designed to capture understandings of cyberterrorism across the global research community. Specifically, it explores competing views, and the importance thereof, amongst the 118 respondents on three definitional issues: First, the need for a specific definition of cyberterrorism for either policymakers or researchers; Second, the core characteristics or constituent parts of this concept; and, Third, the value of applying the term cyberterrorism to a range of actual or potential scenarios. The article concludes by arguing that while a majority of researchers believe a specific definition of cyberterrorism necessary for academics and policymakers, disagreement around what this might look like has additional potential to stimulate a rethinking of terrorism more widely.

Taking youth anti-social behaviour as its focus, and drawing upon a recently completed study of the operation of the tiered approach to youth anti-social behaviour in Swansea, this article examines the important effects on youth justice of both devolution and the mediation of policy by practitioners. The discussion of the policy agendas of the Westminster and Welsh Assembly Governments and the accounts of stakeholders in Swansea is structured around the following themes: de-escalation and diversion; consistency and avoiding net-widening; inclusionary welfarism and multiagency partnership; and voluntarism, engagement and compliance.Word count (inc. references and table 1 but excluding abstract): 8657

This article explores original empirical findings from a research project investigating representations of cyberterrorism in the international news media. Drawing on a sample of 535 items published by 31 outlets between 2008 and 2013, it focuses on four questions. First, how individuated a presence is cyberterrorism given within news media coverage? Second, how significant a threat is cyberterrorism deemed to pose? Third, how is the identity of ‘cyberterrorists’ portrayed? And, fourth, who or what is identified as the referent – that which is threatened – within this coverage? The article argues that constructions of specificity, status, and scale play an important, yet hitherto under-explored, role within articulations of concern about the threat posed by cyberterrorism. Moreover, unpacking news coverage of cyberterrorism in this way leads to a more variegated picture than that of the vague and hyperbolic media discourse often identified by critics. The article concludes by pointing to several promising future research agendas to build on this work