Hatred She Wrote: A Comparative Topic Analysis of Extreme Right and Islamic State Women-Only Forums
Radicalization and Counter-Radicalization
ISBN: 978-1-83982-989-5, eISBN: 978-1-83982-988-8
Publication date: 9 September 2020
Abstract
Purpose – In order to explore how gender and sexual politics are played out in everyday practice within both the extreme right and jihadi-Salafist movements online, this chapter analyzes the content of two women’s only forums: The Women’s Forum on Stormfront.org and Women Dawah, a Turkish language pro-IS group chat on Telegram.
Methodology – The Women’s Forum and the Women Dawah data sets were analyzed using structural topic modeling to uncover the differences and similarities in salient topics between White Nationalist and Islamic State women-only forums.
Findings – The cross-ideological and multi-linguistic thematic analysis suggests that the safety of online spaces enables women to be more active, and serves digital support network for like-minding individuals. It also highlights that religion and ideology, whilst interwoven throughout posts on both platforms, they were more explicitly discussed within Women Dawah data.
Originality/Value – This research uses a unique data set which was collected over one year to conduct a cross-ideological and multi-linguistic thematic analysis, a relatively uncommon approach.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
This research is partly funded by the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security, and Society’s Major Research Project, titled Misogyny, Gender and Engagement in the Extreme Right Movement, and the Minerva Research initiative “Documenting the virtual caliphate,” Minerva #N00014-16-1-3174, and the US Office of Naval Research. All opinions are exclusively those of the authors, and do not represent those of the funders. The authors thank Mia Bloom for leading the “Documenting the Virtual Caliphate” project and for her support.
Citation
Lokmanoglu, A. and Veilleux-Lepage, Y. (2020), "Hatred She Wrote: A Comparative Topic Analysis of Extreme Right and Islamic State Women-Only Forums", Silva, D.M.D. and Deflem, M. (Ed.) Radicalization and Counter-Radicalization (Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, Vol. 25), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 183-205. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1521-613620200000025011
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020 Emerald Publishing Limited