Jihadi Culture on the World Wide Web

by Ramsay, Gilbert; Horgan, John G.; Currie, Mark; Taylor, Max

• ISBN13: 9781501307676
• ISBN10: 1501307673
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2015-04-23
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2014

This volume examines "jihadi" content on the Internet by drawing on both Arabic and English primary source materials. After examining this content as digital media, the work looks at how it is productively consumed by online communities, including how "jihadi" individuals construct themselves online and how jihadism is practiced and represented as an online activity. The work also discusses the consumption of such jihadi media by those who are hostile to radical Islam and the relation between fantasy, pleasure, ideology, and ordinary life.

This unique survey features case studies, such as the cyberjihadi "Irhabi 007," pro-US and Israeli "patriots" who are often openly Islamophobic, and "Infovlad" --a forum that became the meeting place for radical Islamists and radical freelance "counter terrorists."

This innovative approach to studying violent content on the Internet is a significant contribution to the literature that will appeal to anyone interested in political violence, terrorism, and political communication.

Author Biography

Gilbert Ramsay works at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews, UK. An Arabic speaker, he has previously written reports on terrorism and the Internet for the United Nations and the European Union.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Terror on the Internet?
Chapter 2: Alternative Media, and its Alternatives
Chapter 3: Jihadi Content on the Word Wide Web
Chapter 4: Jihadi Forums in their Own Words
Chapter 5: Disagreeable Disagreements
Chapter 6: Being a Jihadi on the Internet
Chapter 7: Some other 'Jihadi' Consumption Cultures: Crusaderism, War Porn, Shock
Chapter 8: Jihadism between Fantasy and Virtuality: A Tentative Conclusion
Glossary of Arabic Terms
Bibliography
Index