Lawrence Peter Ampofo
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AcknowledgementsThis thesis represents the end of a journey. It is also the culmination of the dedication, patience and encouragement of those who have provided support along the way. Although it is impossible to thank all those who have supported me, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of the following people who deserve special mention. I would like to express my appreciation to my supervisor Professor Ben O’Loughlin who, over four years, has tirelessly fostered my ideas, aspirations and energy towards the completion of this endeavour. I am extremely grateful to him and our colleagues in the New Political Communication Unit and Department of Politics and International Relations, such as Professor Andrew Chadwick, for creating a stimulating environment in which to pursue and realise my academic aspirations. Thanks must also be extended to Professor Marie Gillespie who has provided much enthusiasm and encouragement during the thesis. Her help and support towards my continued professional advancement is something for which I am especially grateful. Russell and Michael also deserve mention for their limitless patience and support over the past four years. It has contributed enormously to the development of my work and has made that endeavour significantly more pleasurable. My deepest thanks also go to Luke and Sandrine who have been great friends during the course of this thesis, making sure I stayed healthy, motivated and focused. Marilyn Ampofo is someone who deserves mention above all others for her contribution to the successful completion of this thesis. She has provided me with support, love and motivation during this journey. She continues to inspire me and her faith, encouragement and pride will help me reach new professional heights. My heartfelt thanks go to Victoria Pounce who has influenced the conceptualisation, development and completion of this thesis immensely. During the most challenging periods, she has always inspired faith in the strength of my ideas and my abilities as a writer, an analyst and an academic. The successful completion of this thesis could not have been achieved without her, and for her support I will always be indebted. This thesis is dedicated to Granny and Leigh who are always in my thoughts and have been steadfast sources of inspiration and strength during trying times. Chapter One: The Socio-Technical Development of the Internet and the World Wide WebIntroductionThe social, cultural and political impacts of the internet1 and the World Wide Web (Web) permeate society as a whole and only a systematic understanding of these impacts will help to address the challenges faced by the global community in the 21st century. As the percentage of the global population connected to the internet and World Wide Web via personal computers, mobile phones and tablet computers increases, so too does the range and depth of interactions in kind. These ever-evolving technologies, which connect people to the internet and the Web, capture numerous aspects of societal interactions. In addition, the development of these technologies to include new elements such as the Semantic Web, the “internet of things” and the “real-time Web”2 (conjointly defined as Web 3.0) will facilitate the introduction of millions of new users to these technologies and, by implication, billions of new interactions. Individuals, therefore, use the internet and the Web to engage with issues and content of interest to them, forming communities that have the potential to influence the attitudes and behaviours of other users. It is this phenomenon that forms the inspiration for this thesis, as users engage with the issues of terrorism, counter-terrorism and technology in a fashion that is at once digital, collaborative and mediated by technologies that encourage mobile, ubiquitous and intelligent computing. The potential, therefore, for communities engaged with the issue of terrorism - counter-terrorist policymakers, journalists, terrorists themselves and potentially terror-ised publics - to influence the attitudes and behaviours of others, facilitated in large part by high technology, is significant. Spain has one of the highest internet penetration rates in Western Europe as shown in Figures One and Two below. Figure One: Top 10 Countries with the Highest Number of Fixed Broadband Connections in the OECD Source: OECD Statistics N=289,463,581 Figure Two: Top 10 Countries with the Highest Number of Wireless Broadband Connections in the OECD Source: OECD Statistics N=498,828,827 Spain also has a unique experience with terrorism. Having confronted Basque separatist terrorism since 1959, the country is today faced with a dual security concern with the additional issue of international terrorism. This particular phenomenon became most prominent following the Madrid bombings of 11 March 2004. The hypothesis this thesis seeks to test is therefore the following: the availability of new technologies increases the capacities of terrorist and counter-terrorist agencies to achieve their communication objectives. Although this hypothesis appears common-sensical, the research is designed to identify variations that exist within this relationship such as, when and how have terrorist and counter-terrorist actors capabilities been increased by their access to and use of new communications technologies? What explains these variations? In order to provide a comprehensive analysis of the extent to which access to high technology increases overall capabilities to achieve communication objectives, the specific research question developed to test this hypothesis is: what understandings exist of the relationships between technology, terrorism and counter-terrorism in Spain? This will be analysed by conducting internet research into the responses of online users and communities to the Madrid terrorist attacks of 11 March 2004, in addition to semi-structured interviews and in-depth literature reviews. This particular event was elected as the focus of the empirical research as it offered an opportunity to monitor and analyse the behaviour of multiple online communities as they engaged around the same issue in Spain over time. It is anticipated that the analysis of these questions will contribute to the literature on the internet and terrorism in Spain. The thesis, as a result, seeks to test the following ancillary questions:
This thesis adds an original contribution to the body of work relating to terrorism in Spain by testing whether the availability of new technologies increases the capacities of terrorist and counter-terrorist agencies to achieve their communication objectives. Five themes within public discourse were examined closely: the relation of terrorism to migration, terrorism and narratives, terrorism and crime, terrorism and communities, and the death of Osama bin Laden. The main findings of the research were that the availability of technologies has not brought concomitant success for government or terrorist organisations, government narratives were not considered persuasive by online users, online communities wish to engage and may contain key influencers to be conduits or “gatekeepers” (Hoskins and O’Loughlin, 2010) for government or terrorist narratives, terrorist organisations do not have greater capacity to operationalise visibility and invisibility within their strategies and, partly independent phenomena have been commensurated into one nexus of concern. In addition, the thesis seeks to explain this online behaviour from the perspective of a new emergent model of online behaviour called Terrorism 3.0 in which it proposes that understandings of terrorism in an online context within Spain are a socio-technical, emergent phenomenon enabled by the form and structure of the continually evolving structure of the Web. This understanding of online behaviour in relation to terrorism in Spain was derived from an amalgamation of elite interviews, analysis of policy documents and internet research methods adapted by the author of comments relating to the 11 March 2004 bombings in Madrid from 2004 to 2011. This approach is different to other research conducted on Spanish terrorism. The combination of this approach, combined with scholarship previously conducted on Spanish terrorism, inspired this research. Prominent scholars such as Reinares (2006), Soriano (2008) and Jordán (2008) have argued that the Web enables terrorist organisations to undertake their activities such as recruitment, propaganda and reconnaissance. Other scholars, such as Curto et al. (2007) have contended that media technologies, especially television and newspapers, play a pivotal role in influencing the consciousness of the general public in relation to terrorism. The thesis argues that terrorist content, propaganda and engagement with the issue of terrorism occurs across the web over long periods of time and, as a result, it is imperative that counter-terrorism practitioners make strident efforts to understand the changing nature of online behaviour in order to counteract it in the future. Directory: portal -> files -> 4733003 files -> Impact case study (ref3b) files -> Ethics and Factual Television: a short history files -> P. O. Box 27, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland tel. 358-9-191 58080 / 22216; fax 358-9-191 58096 / 23008 files -> The impact of a pledge campaign and the promise of publicity: a randomized controlled trial of charitable donations files -> Diversity and Voice: the Political Participation of Young People in the European Union files -> Chapter 15 a voice in Decision Making: young children in Denmark Stig Broström Introduction Download 1.29 Mb. Share with your friends:
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