Volume XII, Issue 3 June 2018 PERSPECTIVES on TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue3
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ISSN 2334-3745 Volume XII, Issue 3 June 2018 PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue3 Table of Contents Welcome from the Editors Articles Studying Jihadists on Social Media: A Critique of Data Collection Methodologies.....5by Deven Parekh, Amarnath Amarasingam, Lorne Dawson, Derek Ruths Jihadi Beheading Videos and its non-Jihadi Echoes.................................................24 by Ariel Koch Public Opinion on the Root Causes of Terrorism and Objectives of Terrorists: A Boko Haram Case Study.....................................................................................................35 by Adesoji O. Adelaja, Abdullahi Labo (Late) and Eva Penar Mounting a Facebook Brand Awareness and Safety Ad Campaign to Break the ISIS Brand ......................................................................................................................50 by Anne Speckhard, Ardian Shajkovci, Claire Wooster and Neima Izadi Research Notes How Hezbollah Uses Dreams to Inspire Jihad and Sanctify Martyrdom...................67\ by Kendall Bianchi Special Correspondence A Primer on Boko Haram Sources and Three Heuristics on al-Qaida and Boko Haram in Response to Adam Higazi, Brandon Kendhammer, Kyari Mohammed, Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos, and Alex Thurston.................................................................74 by Jacob Zenn Resources Terrorism Bookshelf 50 Capsule...............................................................................92 reviews by Joshua Sinai Bibliography: Terrorism and Ideology......................................................................119 compiled and selected by Judith Tinnes Recent Online Resources for the Analysis of Terrorism and Related Subjects..........159 compiled and selected by Berto Jongman Announcements Conference Monitor/Calendar of Events.................................................................186 compiled and selected by Reinier Bergema About Perspectives on Terrorism ISSN 2334-3745 i June 2018 PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue 3 Welcome from the Editors Dear Reader, We are pleased to announce the release of Volume XII, Issue 3 (June 2018) of Perspectives on Terrorism, available at our new online home: https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/pot. Please note that the journal’s old website (http://www.terrorismanalysts.com) will remain online as an archives only site for a while longer, but will eventually be closed down. Readers will want to update bookmarks and reference links accordingly. Our free and independent online journal is a publication of the Terrorism Research Initiative (TRI) and the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) of Leiden University’s Campus The Hague. Now in its twelfth year, Perspectives on Terrorism has over 7,900 regular subscribers and many more occasional readers and website visitors worldwide. The Articles of its six annual issues are fully peer reviewed by external referees while its Research and Policy Notes, Special Correspondence and other content are subject to internal editorial quality control. Here is a brief look at the contents of the current issue: The first article by Deven Parekh, Amarnath Amarasingam, Lorne Dawson and Derek Ruths offers a detailed critique of Twitter data collection methods and propose suggestions for improving the collection of data in future research on terrorists use of social media. Then Ariel Koch examines the impact of Islamic State beheading videos among jihadists and other extremists. Next, Adesoji Adelaja, Abdullahi Labo and Eva Penar examine how the Nigerian public’s views about the root causes and objectives of Boko Haram differ from those of the government. And in our final article of this issue a team of researchers at the International Center for Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE’s) report on their recent Facebook ad-campaign aimed at raising awareness about the realities of living under ISIS and protecting vulnerable potential recruits from considering joining. This issue of Perspectives on Terrorism also features a Research Note by Kendall Bianchi, examining how Hezbollah uses interpretations of dreams as a source of inspiration and justification for martyrdom. The issue also contains a Special Correspondence by Jacob Zenn, responding to a critique of his work published in the April 2018 issue of the journal. In the Resources section readers will find a column of 50 short book reviews by Joshua Sinai, followed by an extensive bibliography compiled by the journal’s Information Resources Editor, Judith Tinnes. This is followed by a detailed list of recent online, open-source publications on terrorism and counterterrorism, compiled by web analyst Berto Jongman, and a new conference monitor/calendar of events compiled by our new Assistant Editor for Conference Monitoring Reinier Bergema. The current issue of Perspectives on Terrorism was jointly prepared by Editor James J.F. Forest and Associate Editor Bart Schuurman, with assistance from Prof. em. Alex P. Schmid, the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. ISSN 2334-3745 IV June 2018 PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue 3 Articles Studying Jihadists on Social Media: A Critique of Data Collection Methodologies by Deven Parekh, Amarnath Amarasingam, Lorne Dawson, Derek Ruths Abstract In this article, we propose a general model of data collection from social media, in the context of terrorism research, focusing on recent studies of jihadists. By analyzing Twitter data collection methods in the existing research, we show that the methods used are prone to sampling biases, and that the sampled datasets are not sufficiently filtered or validated to ensure reliability of conclusions derived from them. Alternatively, we propose some best practices for the collection of data in future research on jihadist using social media (as well as other kinds of terrorist groups). Given the similarity of the methodological challenges posed by research on almost all social media platforms, in the context of terrorism studies, the critique and recommendations offered remain relevant despite the recent shift of most jihadists from Twitter to Telegram and other forms of social media. Keywords: jihadist, terrorism, data collection, graph sampling, network sampling, dataset, Twitter, social media Introduction In recent years, jihadist terrorist movements have used varying social media platforms to organize, coordinate operations, and spread propaganda. Significant research has focused on understanding these online activities. Such research naturally requires the collection and analysis of social media data produced primarily by jihadist users. The findings of such studies are only as valid as the data they are based on – which is the topic of the present study. In a comprehensive survey of the largest body of research on online jihadist activity – that of jihadist activity on Twitter – we find a wide array of data collection methods. In the majority of cases, we find that these studies fail to acknowledge limitations of the data collection methods, raising serious concerns about the validity of their findings. Similar issues exist in studies that consider other social media platforms. There are known standards of practice and established methodologies for addressing these issues in the field of computer science that it would be useful for scholars of terrorism to become familiar with and apply to future work. In order to ground our discussion, we first present a generalized framework for data collection, which can be used to understand the methods used by any study of terrorist behavior on a social media platform. We then show how decisions within this framework yield specific kinds of systemic biases in downstream analysis. In this article we extensively consider the case of Twitter – primarily, because it is the platform on which most studies have been run. However, our framework and conclusions are also useful for researchers working and doing research on other platforms, such as Facebook, Gab.ai, or Telegram. The latter, particularly, has been extensively used by a variety of jihadist groups around the world since at least 2015.[1] In this article, we make three core contributions. First, we identify common methods of data collection found in the existing literature that studies jihadists on Twitter. As part of this exercise, we propose a general framework of data collection that consists of four phases - initialization, expansion, filtering, and validation – which impact the properties (and quality) of data produced. Our second contribution uses this four-phase formalization to analyze limitations of the data collection methods of existing terrorism research and their implications for their results/findings. Finally, based on these analyses, we recommend best practices to improve the quality of sampled social media data, and accordingly derived results, in terrorism research. We believe that it would be helpful to clarify some of the terminology used throughout this article. First, the research we examine in this article focuses on different groups involved in terrorism, such as ISIS fighters in ISSN 2334-3745 5 June 2018 PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue 3 Syria, or ISIS foreign fighters from Europe – in this article we use general terms such as “jihadists” to include all groups or entities involved in extremist or radical activities and propaganda related to Islamism on Twitter. “Irrelevant accounts” are non-jihadist accounts, such as news reporters, researchers and ordinary Twitter users that may follow or be related to