Multimedia Content Coding and Analysis: Unraveling the Content of Jihadi Extremist Groups' Videos
2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 31; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/10576100802144072
ISSN1521-0731
AutoresArab Salem, Edna Reid, Hsinchun Chen,
Tópico(s)Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
ResumoAbstract This article presents an exploratory study of jihadi extremist groups' videos using content analysis and a multimedia coding tool to explore the types of video, groups' modus operandi, and production features that lend support to extremist groups. The videos convey messages powerful enough to mobilize members, sympathizers, and even new recruits to launch attacks that are captured (on video) and disseminated globally through the Internet. They communicate the effectiveness of the campaigns and have a much wider impact because the messages are media rich with nonverbal cues and have vivid images of events that can evoke not only a multitude of psychological and emotional responses but also violent reactions. The videos are important for jihadi extremist groups' learning, training, and recruitment. In addition, the content collection and analysis of extremist groups' videos can help policymakers, intelligence analysts, and researchers better understand the extremist groups' terror campaigns and modus operandi, and help suggest counterintelligence strategies and tactics for troop training. This research has been supported in part by NSF/ITR, "COPLINK Center for Intelligence and Security Informatics—A Crime Data Mining Approach to Developing Border Safe Research," EIA-0326348, September 2003–August 2006. The authors thank the staff of the Artificial Intelligence Lab at the University of Arizona who have contributed to the project, in particular Wei Xi, Homa Atabakhsh, Catherine Larson, Chun-Ju Tseng, and Shing Ka Wu. Notes 1. Reuven Paz, "Reading Their Lips: The Creditability of Jihadi Web Sites in Arabic as a Source for Information." PRISM 2006 [cited 4 August 2006]. Available at http://www.e-prism.org/images/Read_Their_Lips.doc 2. 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