Monday, January 2, 2023

Examining ISIS's Turkish Sympathizers on Twitter

Abstract

Social media platforms have become a part of people's daily lives. However, developing social media technologies have affected not only people but also terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and social media has become an essential part of ISIS's strategies. ISIS effectively uses many social media platforms, especially Twitter, for propaganda, recruitment, and creating fear among people. ISIS also actively uses Twitter in Turkey. However, the number of academic studies focusing on the behavior, structure, communication, and relationship networks of ISIS sympathizers in Turkey is limited. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to reveal the structure, behavior, communication, and relationship networks of ISIS's Turkish sympathizers. Accordingly, this study focuses on the structure, behavior, communication, and relationship networks of ISIS's Turkish sympathizers. I will analyze them within four main analytical steps. The basic characteristics, structures, behaviors, and relationship networks of 2079 Turkish ISIS sympathizers are examined with the R computer program, and many remarkable findings are reached as a result of the analysis.

Keywords: ISIS' Turkish Supporters, Twitter Analysis, Network Analysis, Correlation Analysis, Social Media


LINK: https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/icps/issue/74445/1183919

Sunday, July 17, 2022

THE IMPACT OF THE SOFT TERRORISM CONCEPT ON KOREANS AND JAPANESE

The development of social media and Internet technologies has increased the speed of news, and people have gained immediate access to information on many issues. However, it has also affected terrorist organizations by changing their methods, strategies, and visions. With these new methods and strategies, today’s terrorist organizations negatively affect the psychology of South Koreans and Japanese, who are not targets of global terrorism. Recent studies have shown that a significant proportion of Japanese and South Koreans are worried about terrorism despite their limited history of terrorism compared with the rest of the world. This research suggests that the fear of terrorism in these countries could be explained using the concept of soft terrorism. This study performed a quantitative analysis of the seventh wave of the World Values Survey using the ordinal logistic regression (OLR) method, finding that the fear of terrorism is attributed to active media sources such as the Internet for South Koreans and passive media sources such as social media for the Japanese.



Monday, July 4, 2022

ARE TAIWANESE AFRAID OF TERRORISM? THE IMPACTS OF HARD AND SOFT TERRORISM ON TAIWANESE

Technological developments in the last 20 years have affected people's daily lives and caused many innovations. The internet and social media are among the most important developments, and these developments have led to an increase in the speed of news and people's rapid access to information on various topics. However, progress in technology has also affected terrorist organisations. This effect has changed the methods, strategies, and visions of terrorist organisations. With these new methods and strategies, terrorist organisations could negatively affect the psychology of the people who are not directly affected by global terrorism. The best example of this is Taiwan. In this study, I focus on the impact of hard and soft terrorism on the Taiwanese. In this direction, I use the mixed-method approach in this study. I analyse the 7th wave of the World Values Survey with the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression method. Qualitative face-to-face interviews with Taiwanese will support the quantitative results.

Keywords:

The Soft Terrorism Strategy; The Hard Terrorism Strategy; Taiwan; Social media; Mass media

Related Link: http://global.ir.fisip.ui.ac.id/index.php/global/article/view/715 

Wednesday, June 15, 2022

SRİ LANKA'DA ETNİK KATILIM VE ETNİK BÖLÜNMENİN TERÖRİZM ÜZERİNDEKİ ETKİSİ

 Sri Lanka, birçok farklı etnik ve dinî unsuru barındıran Güney Asya’da bir ada ülkesidir. Bu unsurlar Sinhalalar, Tamiller, Burgherler, Avrupalılar, Hintliler ve Müslümanlardır. Sri Lanka'nın nüfusunun dörtte üçünü Sinhala etnik grubu oluşturmaktadır. Sinhalaların adaya 2000 yıl önce geldiği düşünülmektedir (Chalk 1998: 118-134). Tamiller, adada yaşayan en büyük ikinci etnik grup olup, ada nüfusunun %17'sini Tamiller oluşturmaktadır. Bazı akademik çalışmalar, Tamillerin adaya MÖ 500'de geldiklerini öne sürmektedir (Walter 2000: 40). Sri Lanka, birçok etnik topluluğa ev sahipliği ettiği gibi ada içinde birçok farklı dinin mensubu da yaşamaktadır. Adanın üçte ikisini Budistler, %22’sini Hindular ve Müslümanlar oluşturmaktadır (CIA 2019). Sinhala etnik grubunun mensupları genellikle adanın güney, batı ve orta kesimlerinde, Tamiller ise yoğunluklu olarak adanın kuzey ve doğu bölgelerinde yaşamaktadırlar. Tamil etnik grubu, kendi içinde iki alt gruba ayrılmaktadır. Bunlardan ilki Jaffna Tamilleri olup, adada yaşayan en eski Tamil topluluğudur. Hindistan Tamilleri ise ikinci gruptur. Hindistan Tamillerinin çoğu, Britanya Sömürge Dönemi’nde Hindistan'dan Sri Lanka'ya gelmiştir. Sömürge Dönemi’nde uygulanan birtakım yanlış politikalar, Sri Lanka’nın bağımsızlığı sonrasında ada nüfusunun büyük çoğunluğunu oluşturan Sinhalalar ve Tamiller arasında sorunlar yaşanmasına neden olmuştur (Chalk 1998: 120; Walter 2000: 25). İki etnik grup arasında yaşanan uzun zamanlı sorunların kökleri, Britanya Koloni Dönemi’ne kadar uzanmaktadır. Sri Lanka, 1948 yılında Britanya İmparatorluğu'ndan bağımsızlığını kazandı. Sri Lanka'nın bağımsızlığı sonrasında Tamiller siyasi, kültürel ve ekonomik hakları elde etme konusunda sorunlarla karşılaştılar. Sri Lanka'daki Tamil sorunun resmî başlangıcı da bağımsızlık sonrasında olmuştur. Adanın en büyük iki etnik unsuru arasındaki çatışmalar, sadece etnik farklılıklardan kaynaklanmamaktadır. Etnik farklılıklara ek olarak din, dil ve statü farklılıkları da iki etnik grup arasındaki sorunların nedenleri arasındadır. Bu çalışma, iki ana araştırma sorusuna cevap aramaktadır; “Etnik parçalanma, terörist faaliyetleri ve terör saldırılarını arttırıyor mu?” ve “Siyasi hayata etnik katılımın artması, terör saldırılarını azaltır mı?” Bu makalenin temel amacı ise “Sri Lanka’daki etnik temsil ve etnik parçalanma ile terör saldırıları arasındaki istatistiksel ilişkiyi” doğrudan incelemektir. Bu çalışma, literatürdeki etnik parçalanmanın ve etnik siyasi katılımın terör üzerinde belirleyicisi olup olmadığını soran ve farklı etnik gruplara ev sahipliği yapan ülkelerdeki terörizmin nedenlerini anlamaya yönelik araştırmalardan görece farklıdır. Bu makalede, etnisite ve terörizm arasındaki bağlantı, daha net bir şekilde incelenmektir. Bu çalışmanın ilk bölümünde, Sri Lanka'nın tarihi ve etnik gruplar arasındaki sorunun arka planı anlatılmaktadır. İkinci bölümde, konuyla ilgili akademik çalışmalarda ortaya çıkan farklı görüşler gösterilmektedir. Bu çalışma için nicel veri analizi yapılmış ve üçüncü bölümde bu veri analiz süreçleri açıklanarak veri analizinin sonuçları sunulmuştur. Dördüncü bölüm tartışma bölümü olup, verilerin analizi sonucunda elde edilen bulgular bu bölümde detaylı şekilde açıklanmaktadır.


Related Link: http://apam.ankara.edu.tr/yayinlarimiz-2/ 

Related Link 2: https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/bader/issue/59113/850715 

Saturday, February 5, 2022

Hard and Soft Terrorism Concepts: The Case of ISIS

Nowadays, the development of technology has influenced daily life and caused many innovations. Social media, which is one of the most important developments of recent years, has increased the speed of news and people's access to information has sped up on many issues. Over the last few years, progress in technology, and especially the development of social media, has also influenced terrorist organizations. This effect has changed the methods, strategies, and visions of terrorist organizations. The technological innovations and advancements in modes of communication and social media have produced two distinct yet interrelated facets of terrorism, namely the hard and soft terrorism concepts. In this paper, I will elaborate on these two emerging concepts by taking up the case of the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). This study is based on qualitative research methods. I analyze Google Trends to support my qualitative research. Based on this qualitative research, the paper aims to make some key observations and hopes to provide some thought-provoking analysis. 

Keywords: ISIS, The Hard Terrorism Concept, The Soft Terrorism Concept, Social Media, Media


Related Link: https://nacta.gov.pk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Hard-and-Soft-Terrorism-Concepts-The-Case-of-ISIS.pdf 

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

The Roles and Impact of Mass Media and Social Media in Terrorism in Southeast Asia

 Southeast Asia is home to the world’s many emerging economies. Southeast Asian

countries have democratized over the years. They are rich in natural resources and

offer many opportunities for trade. However, terrorism has come to threaten the

economic opportunities in Southeast Asia in recent years.

The ghost of terrorism is a global problem. It is a ghost that has that

frightened most of the world after coordinated terrorist attacks against the United

States on 11 September 2001 resulted in the collapse of the twin towers of the

original World Trade Center in New York. Following this terrorist attack, many

governments around the world launched a war against terrorism (Güzel 2002). This

war against terrorism is still ongoing today, and has become more intense. Southeast

Asia is part of this war and is committed to the fight against terrorism. Southeast

Asian governments have indeed been suffering from terrorist threats for a long time,

as evinced by the 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia and the Battle of Marawi in the

Philippines. The threat of terrorism in the Southeast Asian region has only grown in

scope and severity over time (Teymur 2007).



LINK: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355488994_The_Roles_and_Impact_of_Mass_Media_and_Social_Media_in_Terrorism_in_Southeast_Asia?_sg=BXTrf4kBHgwquNMtdDQJQq78Mhv4Cxd9Qa0MnaFH23LvEowXcA_lbTxbmqdrb81AbBuLTFC0-k404M-nd3jORgbcZ9H00mmk4ulJ2crN.R9J8DQuc5txCyx5TkhDMdY42jesenxR_R4u2AzKcwEJbFclq0kJ0W012YY60K9qzebGbEdWGdN0DOLvBU1bwMA


Monday, June 28, 2021

SentiStrength

 

SentiStrength is a software program that analyzes sentiment. SentiStrength gives sentiment results in three types. First, it gives us the results in binary form. In other words, it gives the sentiment results as positive or negative. Second, it gives it as a trinary. That is, the results are presented as positive, negative or neutral. Finally, it gives sentiment results as a single scale. In other words, sentiment results are given on a scale between -5 and +5. SentiStrength supports many languages such as German, English, Finnish and Turkish and is capable of sentiment analysis of texts written in these languages. The SentiStrength program is completely free.

10108 tweets about online food ordering services are analyzed with the SentiStrength program to explain this software in depth. The main problem we encounter at this stage is that the SentiStrength program only accepts documents with the ".txt" extension. If the text you want to analyze is ".xlsx" extended, you should deal with this issue first. Unfortunately, the file I would to analyse has the ".xlsx" extension. For this reason, I will first convert the section I want to examine in the excel file to .txt format. In this context, delete the sections except the section we want to analyze, and only the column we want to analyze remains in our file. In the next step, we need to remove the duplicates to avoid recounting the same tweets. In Excel, we can remove duplicates using the “Data-> Remove Duplicates” function. The logo you see marked is the logo that belongs to the "remove duplicates" function.



Then save our excel file, which we cleaned from repetitions, as unicode text (.txt). In the next step, open the SentiStrength program and select the "Analyze ALL Texts in File (each line separately)" function in the "Sentiment Strength Analysis" section.


Next, let's select the .txt file we want to analyze. Before the analysis starts, SentiStrength will ask if you want to add a header line to the resulting file, and we need to select "Yes". SentiStrength will ask us which column to use for analysis and we can directly write "1" here.


If this image occurs, it means that our analysis is complete. However, at this stage, the problem we encountered at the beginning reoccurs. The results are saved on our computer with the .txt extension.



It will be useful to copy and paste the results with .txt extension to the excel file so that we can see the results more clearly.



At the last stage, we will have an excel file with 5 columns such as positive, negative and EmotionRationale. When we look at the results, it is seen that there are many -1 and +1. -1 means not negative or neutral. +1 means not positive or neutral. Between 2 and 4 is positive and 5 is extremly positive. On the other hand, between -2 and -4 is negative and -5 is extremely negative.



Finally, we can add another column named "score" next to the negative and positive columns in the excel file and see the general sentiment result. For this process, we need to use the following formula; "=C2+D2". The results we get with this formula will give the overall result of each tweet we analyzed.