Documenting the Virtual Caliphates

July 2018 No Comments

Documenting the Virtual Caliphates

Speaker: Bloom, M. (Georgia State University)

Date: 27 July 2018

Speaker Session Preview

SMA hosted a speaker session presented by Dr. Mia Bloom (Georgia State University) as a part of its SMA DHS Speaker Series. Dr. Bloom spoke about her Minerva-funded research, which examines the themes that emerge in ISIS propaganda, the types of propaganda that are distributed, the mediums in which ISIS members communicate with one another, and the methods in which tactical innovations of actions on the battlefield are promoted within ISIS. She explained that ISIS’s primary methods of communication are via telegrams and online chatrooms. She and her team managed to infiltrate these groups to conduct their research, collecting 18,000 pieces of propaganda for their analysis. She discussed threats that were detected, reported, and prevented as a result of ISIS chatroom infiltration, as well as the types of materials collected (i.e., school books, manuals on how to build explosives, propagandistic materials targeted towards specific audiences, etc.) and what themes were identified in these materials. Dr. Bloom concluded her presentation by outlining areas for further research.