New Media and Extremism: My Summary from Thesis "TROLLING NEW MEDIA: VIOLENT EXTREMIST GROUPS RECRUITING THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA" by Mark D. Chang

Since terrorism and extremism are arose now, regarding Ivanka Trump do a speech in Saudi Arabia, when she and his father, the President of USA, Donald Trump about Social Media and counter-Terrorism and Extremism. It is so interesting for me to look for a thesis or article about these things Social Media and Terrorism (include Extremism). And I just got a good thesis from the internet named "TROLLING NEW MEDIA: VIOLENT EXTREMIST GROUPS RECRUITING THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA" by Mark D. Chang.

His work is so good with detail explanation about the role of new media that affected by extremism and terrorism. He explained many things about how these extremist and terrorist organizations use new media as a communication media and strategic. Two main organizations which discuss here are ISIS and Al Qaeda.

To remain effective, violent extremist groups must recruit new members continuously. Counterterrorism authors Deborah Browne and Andrew Silke argue that “whoever communicates the most compelling message significantly improves their chances of winning” the battle for hearts and minds of new recruits.

Extremist organizations’ recruiting messages are important, but the method and mode of communication are equally critical. To maintain an advantage over agencies that counter them, violent extremist groups have incorporated social media completely into their recruiting repertoire.

New media allows violent extremist groups to actively connect with and recruit from vast and globally distributed audiences. it illustrates how violent extremist groups have adapted their communication structures to utilize social media networks for distributing propaganda, biased information used to influence beliefs or behavior. Furthermore, this thesis details how violent extremist groups use social media to identify popular topics or collect individual preferences.

In the social media, violent extremist groups use the skewed reality that echo chambers create to portray terrorism as a normal, desirable act. For them, framing is a key component to a successful propaganda strategy. They attempt to frame terrorism as a justifiable act committed by a devout Muslim. By using religious affiliation helps to portray acts of terrorism positively, attracts new media users, and potentially entices them to join the group or commit terrorism in the name of jihad.

There are many advantages by using new media to spread these violent extremist organizations' ideas.

•              Easy access 

•              Little or no regulation, censorship, or other government controls

•              Potentially huge audiences spread around the world

•              Anonymity of communication

•              Fast flow of information

•              Inexpensive development and maintenance of a web presence

•              Multimedia environment (ability to combine texts, graphics, audio, and video—allows users to download films, songs, books, posters, etc

•                     Ability to shape coverage in the traditional [old] mass media, which increasingly uses the Internet as a source of stories.

There are some facilities in New Media used by these violent extremist organizations, for instances social media, blog, website, video sharing, and even the game online. Social media is using for spreading their narrowcast propaganda to attract their audiences who have the same interests and preferences, especially in religious stuff. 

Blogs, social media, or mobile devices allow violent extremist groups to quickly communicate and widely distribute recruiting propaganda globally. Violent extremists can share seemingly benign posts or links to harmless sounding videos throughout social media networks.

For game online, these extremist groups made their initial video game— Ummah Defense—was an online hit, al Qaeda produced and released Ummah Defense II. Al Qaeda continues to advertise their online games, and both games remain available for free download on the Internet.

The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism explains how ISIS tailored its video game after the popular game called Grand Theft Auto.

Several violent extremist groups have developed games to interact with these large online communities. In the anti-Israeli game entitled Under Ash. Another game, The Resistance, sets players as the Islamic resistance in South Lebanon. Rebecca Armstrong from The Independent relays that the resistance defends homelands against the “invading Zionists.”

Violent extremist groups’ ability to broadcast and narrowcast recruiting propaganda depends upon social media users’ comments on videos, television shows, or other types of media. Violent extremist groups rely on social media to recruit new members. After the hypothesis is reviewed, counterterrorism recommendations are offered that can potentially degrade the effectiveness of violent extremist groups’ online recruiting strategies. The final area of this chapter offers future areas of study that would likely increase the limited amount of empirical data that explains the effectiveness of violent extremist groups’ new media recruiting strategies.

Maybe that's all. Anyway, this writing is much here is copying from Thesis "TROLLING NEW MEDIA: VIOLENT EXTREMIST GROUPS RECRUITING THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA" by Mark D. Chang.

Reference Chang, M. D. (2015). Trolling New Media: Violent Extremist Group Recruiting through Social Media. California: Naval Postgraduate School

His work is absolutely great. For further and detail writing you can go to this link https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=790313

Ritme Kerja

*Curhatan mengenai dunia akademis ini tidak ilmiah dan tidak bermaksud untuk menyinggung siapapun. Di dalam curhatanku ini hanya berisi sebatas perasaanku saja.

Dunia akademis itu sangat menantang. Menurutku pribadi, dunia akademis itu penting untuk mempersiapkan individu menjadi individu yang matang dan siap menghadapi realitas dunia yang pada era ini apa-apa serba cepat. Sama juga halnya dengan mengerjakan tugas atau paper, kita harus disiplin dan harus bisa menyelesaikannya tepat waktu. Itu yang namanya tanggungjawab.

Setiap individu juga pasti punya targetlah dalam hidupnya. Aku pun begitu. Di setiap jenjang semester, aku selalu membuat sebuah perencanaan tentang aktivitas yang akan aku lakukan beserta targetnya. Contohnya semester 1 dan 2 aku harus memiliki teman sebanyak-banyaknya, ikut event lah, ikut UKM lah, ikut organisasi, dan lain-lain dengan tujuan mendapatkan teman yang sebanyak-banyaknya, terus semester 3 ikut lomba, dan seterusnya.

Nah, dengan adanya perencanaan dan target-target tersebut, menurutku, aku harus punya ritme kerja yang cepat dan teratur. Sayang gitu loh, kalau kita udah bikin perencanaan dan target, tapi kitanya ga ada niat dan loyo-loyo. Woy bangun! Aku meniatkan diri untuk disiplin dalam tugas dan lain-lain, kalau butuh aku minum kopi 2 gelas. Biar tanggungjawabku terpenuhi dan aku ga menyusahkan dosenku dan orang lain. Di luar itu, kembali lagi demi kebaikanku sendiri.

Untuk mendukung perencanaan dan targetku terpenuhi, ditambah lagi tugas sekolah dan kampus banyak banget tugas kelompok, aku harus pandai-pandai ga cuma ngatur diriku sendiri, tapi juga ngatur orang lain. Sebenernya lebih tepatnya bukan mengatur orang lain, otoriter banget, tapi memanage komunikasi dan ritme kerja agar klop dan berhasil mencapai tujuan bersama.

Tetapi, permasalahannya adalah susah banget cari kolega atau teman kerja yang memiliki ritme kerja yang sama. Secara pribadi aku merasa memiliki ritme kerja yang cepat dan rasanya sebel banget kalau kolega kita tidak bekerja seperti ritme kerja kita. Ya, walaupun setiap orang memang memiliki ritme kerja yang berbeda. Tetapi, tolong ya, kerja cepat dan profesional itu adalah etos kerja yang harus dibangun sejak dini. Kerja cepat bukan berarti kita menyelesaikan kerjaan dengan waktu yang singkat, tapi gimana caranya kerjaan itu bisa selesai dengan hasil yang baik tapi dikerjakan secara menggunakan time-management yang baik. Toh, kalau kerjaannya baik dan time-management nya bagus kembali buat kepentingan dan kebaikan bersama, kan?

Dari semua curcolanku, aku belajar untuk berusaha menerima orang apa adanya. Berusaha, tetapi rasanya hati ini ga mau menyerah begitu aja buat mendorong dan memotivasi orang untuk bekerja on time, contohnya mengingatkan tugas dan berinisiatif. Oh ya, satu kata itu penting, INISIATIF. Itu juga susah carinya.

Tetapi apapun itu kerja individu emang paling enak! Hahaha

Vielen Dank, Tschiao!

Care about you

The real wonderful life is when you gather with those who really care about you!
Think you're exist
Put you in their priority

Those who motivate you when you have been fallen Push you up when you have lost your hope
Strengthen you when you're weak
Come and accompany you when you're sad

They won't ashamed you
They're still your friend whatever you are
They don't use you and go away when you need them

Fake News is Overwhelmed Nowadays (Syrian/ Aleppo case)

It is true. As a communication studies student, I have learned many things about these issues. Those fake news caused by many factors include political interest, business economic interest, religion and sect interest, and much more.

Especially as a PR student I just learned some things about PR and media relations. How their (company/ state) interest is leading to the public, like propaganda (campaign), branding, etc through their medias.

Syria case is one of those. How Western interest is showed and covered really well through #lastcall or "final messages" videos which contain the sadness and the suffering of Syrian people. It has made us immediately accused or blame the Russia and Assad as the enemy.

Those videos have made many medias (western media) moved to broadcast that news world widely.

Whereas, those videos are coordinated PR campaign and a lie.

the conclusion is
THOSE WHO HAVE THE MEDIA ARE THOSE WHO HAVE THE POWER!

How come? Because they are the agenda-setting and framing makers.

So who is the truth? The answer is the Media owner

For evidence, Link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUsb2pBJxXY

Further explanation about this case from Eva Bartlett, Independent Canadian Journalist in UN.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebE3GJfGhfA

The other source from AJ+ (owned by Aljazeera)

https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/899020180239490/?pnref=story