The use of social media by the terrorist organizations: ISIS case

This thesis aims to explain how and why terrorist organizations use internet and social media by studying terrorism concept and terrorist organizations. It also examines the advantages of internet for terrorist organizations and effects of usage of internet by terrorist organizations over the security of states. Improvement of technology causes to the need of renewal in scientific researches. Technologic change in the last two decades not only brings advantages both also countless problems. One of the best examples of this impasse is social media, the latest form of communication technology. Authoritarian states, terrorist organizations and opposition figures benefit from social media in order to create their own agenda and produce adversary contents against their rivals or enemies. Among these mentioned actors, Islamic State of Iraq and Sham is one of the leading examples that have used internet and social media for its purposes. Islamic State of Iraq and Sham's media strategies and effective use of social media forced Western States to reexamine the radicalization factors in their social structure and radicalizing potentials of social media. However, this exploration process has not ended yet because of the fact that propaganda and recruitment from social media are still possible and pose threat to national and international security even though Islamic State of Iraq and Sham defeated. Therefore, usage of social media for propaganda and radicalization of individuals should be assessed as a long term discussion issue. Islamic State of Iraq and Sham's inclusion of hundreds or may be thousands people to its ranks from all around the world shows the strength of its world wide capacity in terms of using internet and social media. In this context, more academic works needed to understand this terrorist organization's "success" for convincing thousands of people to join its ranks. In order to have better understanding on this issue, this study searches the reasons behind Islamic State of Iraq and Sham's effective media coverage.