Öztürk Y., Öztürk E.
in: Searching for Digital Codes of Danger: Online Extremism, Radicalization and Terrorism, Emre Çıtak,Mehmet Emin Erendor, Editor, Crc Press-Taylor & Francis Group, Florida, 2027
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Publication Type:
Book Chapter / Chapter Research Book
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Publication Date:
2027
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Publisher:
Crc Press-Taylor & Francis Group
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City:
Florida
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Editors:
Emre Çıtak,Mehmet Emin Erendor, Editor
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Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University Affiliated:
Yes
Abstract
Despite the fact that extensive research has been carried out to understand recruitment strategies of terrorist organizations (such as Borum, 2011a, 2011b; McCauley & Moskalenko, 2008; Sageman, 2004), little to no scholarly attention was given to understand how terrorist organizations align their narratives with different stages of radicalization across different online platforms and audience types in a strategic manner. It is true that terrorism studies have increasingly emphasized the role of narrative frameworks in recruitment strategies and radicalization processes, as seen in Ingram (2016) and Presser & Sandberg (2015). However, systematic analyses to link narrative deployments of terrorist organizations to established radicalization models in the literature still remain relatively limited. This lack of research is especially pronounced on online platforms, where terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda, ISIS, and al-Shabaab have demonstrated sophistication in deploying messaging strategies based on the platform and audience type (Conway, 2017; Demirtas & Warsame, 2025; Gilroy, 2024). Recent methodological critiques have also underlined the significance of this research gap. For instance, Schuurman (2019; 2020) has repeatedly emphasized the need for extensive research and called for moving beyond analyses that are descriptive in nature toward more systematic research. In a similar vein, Freilich et al. (2024) highlight the urgent need for research based on evidence that could potentially help with theoretical understanding of terrorist recruitment and therefore counter-terrorism strategies. UNESCO’s comprehensive report on youth extremism has also called for new methodological approaches to analyze narratives of terrorist organizations, which is seen as a critical but underdeveloped research area (Séraphin et al., 2017). Therefore, this study makes an attempt to directly address these scholarly and policy-oriented calls by investigating how narratives of terrorist organizations correspond to different radicalization stages on online platforms and audience types.