Seminar 6: Is Violent Online Radicalisation Really Occurring? And, If So, How?
Tuesday December 8th 1230-1400 (Please note the change of day, location and time for this event)
Houses of Parliament, Committee Room 3
Maura Conway, VOX-Pol Coordinator and Senior Lecturer, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, discusses how we could determine if violent online radicalisation is really occurring and, if so, how it may work.
This research is funded by VOX-Pol.
*Please note that there is no charge for attendance.
Abstract
Is violent online radicalisation really occurring? Dr. Conway will argue ‘yes.’ She will focus in her presentation on three things:
1. What we know about online radicalisation to-date, including arguments in favour of a significant role for the Net in contemporary radicalisation and terrorism and those against;
2. How it’s happening, with an emphasis on the dynamics of crowdsourcing and the workings of online social influence;
3. What we need to do to improve our knowledge of the so-called ‘Islamic State’s’ online strategy and determine the significance of the Internet, and social media in particular, in its radicalisation processes and, ultimately, terrorism.
Speaker Biography
Dr. Maura Conway is Senior Lecturer in International Security in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University (DCU) in Dublin, Ireland and Coordinator of VOX-Pol. Dr. Conway’s principal research interests are in terrorism and the Internet, including academic and media discourses on cyberterrorism, the functioning and effectiveness of violent political extremist online content, and violent online radicalisation. She is the author of over 40 articles and chapters in her specialist area(s). Her research has appeared in, amongst others, Current History, Media, War & Conflict, Parliamentary Affairs, and Social Science Computer Review. Maura is the co-author (with colleagues Paul Gill, Emily Corner, and Amy Thornton, all at UCL) of the VOX-Pol report What are The Roles of the Internet in Terrorism?: Measuring Online Behaviours of Convicted UK Terrorists. She tweets as @galwaygrrl.