www.forum.terror.net: An Examination of Spikes in Online Extremist Activity
Abstract
Current literature has extensively noted the sizeable Islamic Extremist online media
campaign, but has not studied the relationship of this online world with the violent
extremist activities of the actual world, and more importantly, what real world events
contribute to activity on these forums. Thus, this thesis examines the relationship
between the offline and online world by examining whether these forums are incited
by successful terrorist actions whether offensive US actions, measured by drone strikes,
contribute to forum activity. Using a regression analysis, this thesis tests for correlation
between spikes in post counts from 27 Islamic extremist forums and drone strike occurrences
and spikes in global Islamic extremist-caused casualties measured in the Global Terrorism
Database. Following the regression, I present three case studies of specific spikes,
which examine the drone strikes, terrorist attacks, and forum content during the spike.
I find that there is significant correlation between spikes in terrorist-caused casualties
and forum posts, but that there is no significant relationship between drone strikes
and spikes in forum posts.
Type
Honors thesisDepartment
Public Policy StudiesPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8300Citation
Schwenke, Robinson (2014). www.forum.terror.net: An Examination of Spikes in Online Extremist Activity. Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8300.Collections
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