Maura Conway & Lisa McInerney, 2009, via dcu.ie (Dublin City University).

This study is highly recommended.

Highlights include:

• A methodology for finding videos on YouTube of a given type (that is essentially identical to my own method).

• An example of jihadi da'wa targeting a YouTube user who expressed an interest in converting to Islam.

• A simple categorization scheme for commenters, vis à vis jihad, as 1) Supporter, 2) Critic, 3) Neither, 4) Impossible to determine.

• A sub-categorization scheme for martyrdom-promoting videos, including 1) Footage of suicide bombing, 2) Martyr hailing, 3) Funeral of martyr, 4) Call to martyrdom.

Regarding methodology, I would recommend that anyone doing this kind of research make an effort to archive the pages and videos they are relying on for their study.

I'll close this with a brief quote:

This single brief case study is illustrative of the possibilities that are presented by Web 2.0 applications that integrate information provision functions with social networking (See Figure 1). NU0958 went from browsing a generic website to suddenly being integrated into a specific network by virtue of a single posted comment. Essentially, he was targeted by heavy users, with radical links, whose aim at a minimum was religious conversion. NU0958 was not, following Sageman, a “made-up mind” [13] but instead a young person who has the potential to become exposed to radical thinking as a result of Internet browsing practices that literally tens of millions of young people engage in every day.