Background
For over five years, ICSR has been at the forefront of understanding the nexus between radicalisation, political violence and new technologies. (For major ICSR-authored research and policy papers, see here and here.)
Our latest contribution is the groundbreaking research on social media use among Western foreign fighters in Syria, which has been covered extensively by national and international media.
As part of our deep and ongoing commitment, ICSR is proud to announce its membership of the VOX-Pol Network of Excellence(NoE), a new European Union-funded academic research network focused on researching the prevalence, contours, functions, and impacts of Violent Online Political Extremism, and responses to it.
Inaugural Conference
The inaugural VOX-Pol conference will be held at King’s College London on 28-29 August 2014.
It will feature panels discussing new and cutting-edge research on violent extremism and the Internet, pushing the frontiers of knowledge in the social sciences and related disciplines.
The conference will include hands-on workshops on using free/open-source software packages for social network analysis, content analysis, and data collection.
VOX-Pol is open to perspectives from any academic discipline, including communications, computer science, cultural studies, information science, international relations, internet studies, law, media studies, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology.
Topics
VOX-Pol welcomes papers or panel proposals in the following areas, especially where they report significant new results:
• online radicalisation;
• the Internet and recruitment into violent political extremist groups;
• methodologies for terrorism-related Internet research;
• network analysis and violent online political extremism;
• the content and functioning of violent political extremist Internet forums;
• the role of video in violent online political extremism;
• children/youth, violent extremism, and new media;
• women/gender, violent extremism, and new media;
• sexual orientation, violent extremism and new media;
• case studies of particular groups’ use of new media;
• case studies of the manifestation(s) and workings of violent political extremism on specific online platforms (e.g. Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, etc.);
• policy/legislative responses to violent online political extremism;
• critical responses to research on, reporting of, and governmental responses to the conjunction of violent extremism and the Internet;
• ethical issues surrounding online extremism-related research;
• innovative methodological papers are especially welcome.
Authors of individual papers should submit a 300-word abstract at our proposal submission page by 16 May 2014. Panel proposals should include a 200-word abstract and confirmed list of at least 3 panelists.
A selection of papers will be considered for publication in the journals Policy and Internet, and Perspectives on Terrorism.
Deadlines
• Coming soon: registration
• 16 May: abstract deadline (300 words)
• 16 June: decision on abstracts
• 13 July: early bird deadline
• 14 August: registration Deadline
Travel Funding
The conference organisers are able to provide a number of travel grants for PhD students, early career researchers, end-users, and colleagues from the developing world. Further details will be provided when decisions are made on selected papers.
For more information, visit http://www.voxpol.eu; for conference-related queries, email [email protected].