Terrorist Groups: Using Internet and Social Media for Disseminating Ideas. New Tools for Promoting Political Change

Abstract

Terrorism is one of the essential problems of our times. Most commonly, terrorist organizations have their origins in social movements that presume that they cannot reach their goal of promoting political change other than through violence. This paper deals with the use of the Internet, and especially social media, by terrorist groups. Social media seem to be an essential part in the groups’ strategic communication concepts. They do not only use it for the groups’ internal organization but mainly for the dissemination of ideas to a broader public. If the government wants to counteract terrorist movements, it also has to counteract their use of social media. Therefore, theoretical concepts of terrorism as communication, PR and propaganda will be presented as well as results of case studies in order to show the interconnectedness of terrorism and social media.