ISIS’s COVID-19 Messaging on Twitter: An Analysis of Tweet Sentiment and Emotions

Terrorist groups have integrated social discourse into their narratives to exploit public fear. The COVID-19 pandemic has provided an opportunity to measure how ISIS modified narratives, stimulated group communication, reinforced enemy hatred, and employed new mobilization/recruitment strategies. Us...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Lee, Claire Seungeun (Author) ; Colautti, John D. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2022
In: Crime & delinquency
Year: 2022, Volume: 68, Issue: 8, Pages: 1347-1370
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Keywords:
Covid-19
Isis
Twitter
Emotion
online extremist activity
sentiment
Description
Summary:Terrorist groups have integrated social discourse into their narratives to exploit public fear. The COVID-19 pandemic has provided an opportunity to measure how ISIS modified narratives, stimulated group communication, reinforced enemy hatred, and employed new mobilization/recruitment strategies. Using Significance Quest Theory, this study examines ISIS?s Twitter activity related to COVID-19 (N = 630,201) and how the group leverages the psychological effects and the social disruption. This study employs a two-stage analysis of tweet sentiment and emotion with a statistical analysis of retweet-motivating factors to explore how ISIS manages its narrative, needs, and network. Results show content with higher negative sentiment scores had more retweets across all sample sets. Insights include deeper understanding of extremist activity and group adaptation to external changes.
ISSN:1552-387X
DOI:10.1177/00111287221083881