The Communicating and Marketing of Radicalism: A Case Study of ISIS and Cyber Recruitment

Framework

Chatfield, Reddick, & Brajawidagda (2015) introduced an extremist network communication framework that incorporated social media as its technological foundation. Within the paradigm, social media networking facilitated extremist propaganda, radicalization, and recruitment with respect to the overall goals of the extremist activities (Chatfield, Reddick, & Brajawidagda, 2015). Social media platforms invoke iterations of the communications cycle (Schreck & Keim, 2013). Typically, the communications cycle involves processes of crafting, encoding, transmitting, receiving, decoding, and providing feedback for intended messages throughout a continuum permeated by various forms of noise (Doss, Glover, Goza, & Wigginton, 2014). Within the context of the communication process, social media may be used to personalize messaging and communicating between participating entities whereby feedback responses may be generated (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012; Leonardi, Huysman, & Steinfield, 2013; Williams & Chinn, 2010). Radicalization involves a human process wherein someone experiences a changed mindset and behavior. Blackwell (2016) considered radicalization with respect to human needs and Maslow’s Hierarchy. Blackwell (2016) indicated that ISIS was successful in its radicalization effort because it responded to human needs and provided a means whereby individuals perceived their needs could be fulfilled. Given these notions, coupled with extremist messaging via communication networks, the framework herein incorporates considerations of Maslow’s Hierarchy with respect to human attempts of satisfying needs through affiliation with terrorist entities. In other words, the radicalization process contains a mixture of human needs that people perceive may be satisfied through some type of affiliation with terrorism.