Measuring the Popular Resonance of Daesh’s Propaganda

Authors

William M. Marcellino, The RAND Corp.Follow
Kim Cragin
Joshua Mendelsohn
Andrew Micahel Cady
Madeline Magnuson
Kathleen Reedy

Author Biography

William M. Marcellino is a behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation, with interests in text and social media analytics as applied to national security issues.

DOI

http://doi.org/10.5038/1944-0472.10.1.1527

Subject Area Keywords

Counterterrorism, Methodology, National security, Nonstate actors, Radicalization, Social media, Terrorism / counterterrorism

Abstract

We describe an innovative approach to social media analysis, combining corpus linguists and statistical methods to measure the resonance of Daesh's propaganda to a sample population (Eqypt). The findings from this research effort demonstrate that: (1) Daesh's messaging is measurable and distinct from other Salafi groups, such as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood; (2) while Daesh’s messaging generally do not resonate with Egyptians, its uptake increased in Upper Egypt and the Sinai regions during 2014; and (3) this method can be applied more broadly to measure the spread of violent extremist messaging across regional populations over time.

Recommended Citation

Marcellino, William M.; Cragin, Kim; Mendelsohn, Joshua; Cady, Andrew Micahel; Magnuson, Madeline; and Reedy, Kathleen. "Measuring the Popular Resonance of Daesh’s Propaganda." Journal of Strategic Security 10, no. 1 (2017) : 32-52.
DOI: http://doi.org/10.5038/1944-0472.10.1.1527
Available at: https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol10/iss1/4