Online propaganda use during Islamist radicalization

Birds of a Feather Get Recommended Together: Algorithmic Homophily in YouTube’s Channel Recommendations in the United States and Germany

“…Besides the mainstream communities on YouTube such as music and entertainment that make up the majority of content on the platform, we are especially interested in the communities that form around political channels as they have been identified in prior research as some of the most problematic on YouTube (Lewis, 2018;O'Callaghan et al, 2014). The political dimension of YouTube cannot be ignored as Lewis (2018), Munn (2019) and Baugut and Neumann (2020) highlighted that YouTube might play a role in political radicalization and is prone to recommend misinformation (Allgaier, 2019;Kaiser et al, in press). Indeed, if filter bubbles were to exist, the assumed effect would be the worst in the political context.…”

Radicalization and Deradicalization: A qualitative analysis of parallels in relevant risk factors and trigger factors

“…They can also be facets of intergroup interactions, such as direct experiences of discrimination (Frounfelker et al, 2019;King & Taylor, 2011), racism or exclusion, or negative experiences with public authorities (Frounfelker et al, 2019), or they can be reflective of the social environment in general, such as actively cutting social bonds (Doosje et al, 2016) which can result more generally in social alienation (Bélanger et al, 2019), establishing contact with radical groups or individuals, and participating radical group activities such as training camps. Finally, there are possible trigger factors which are more abstract than personal, such as confrontations with propaganda (Baugut & Neumann, 2019;Baugut & Neumann, 2020), perceived attacks on the ingroup, and governmental policies targeting the ingroup or radicalization (Feddes et al, 2015). Finally, a key trigger factor for deradicalization and disengagement (Barrelle, 2014;Bjørgo, 2011) is disillusionment.…”

Online news media and propaganda influence on radicalized individuals: Findings from interviews with Islamist prisoners and former Islamists

“…Its danger is made most obviously apparent by terrorist attacks, which can be considered the endpoint of a process during which the rejection of a political status quo may culminate in the use of violence (Neumann, 2013; Start Background Report, 2019). Given that research has shown that two types of communication—propaganda and mainstream media coverage—are consumed by radicalizing individuals (Baugut and Neumann, 2019c; Neumann, 2019), the field of communication studies has the potential to contribute to our understanding of the radicalization process.…”

“…Numerous previous studies analyzing the variety of Islamist propaganda content suggest that propagandists differentially target individuals and groups who differ in their degree of radicalization (Baines and O’Shaughnessy, 2014; Colas, 2017; Zelin, 2015). Furthermore, studies based on content analyses have provided rough systematizations of the plethora of Islamist propaganda based on (a) the assumed functions of the propaganda, such as intimidation, legitimization, and recruitment (Rieger et al, 2013); (b) the phases of the radicalization process in which individuals are exposed to propaganda (Baugut and Neumann, 2019c); and (c) the occurrence of violence (Salem et al, 2008).…”

“…Studies have found that religious propaganda typically blames the “Western lifestyle” for individuals’ feelings of deprivation, while political victimhood propaganda predominantly emphasizes a narrative that Muslims are victims of Western aggression (Boutz et al, 2019; Payne, 2009; Rane, 2016), but neither type explicitly calls for the use of violence. In contrast, there also exist more violent types of propaganda that promote the “caliphate” (Andersen and Sandberg, 2018; Bloom, 2017; Watkin and Looney, 2018; Winter, 2015), call for revenge (Baugut and Neumann, 2019c), promulgate an upcoming apocalyptic battle (Baugut and Neumann, 2019c; Boutz et al, 2019; Winter, 2015), or give explicit instructions about how to use violence and die as a martyr in order to attain paradise (Baugut and Neumann, 2019c; Lakomy, 2018).…”