Conference: “Use of Social Media by Terror Organizations: The Case of ISIS”

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On Friday, October 11, 2016, a conference entitled “Use of Social Media by Terror Organizations: The Case of ISIS” was organized by ORSAM. Participants from foreign diplomatic missions, public institutions, media and academia attended the conference.The meeting started with the opening speech of Ms. Ceren Yazgan, Deputy Director General for Security and Intelligence at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Ms. Yazgan remarked that the terrorist organizationshave been actively engaged in social media, and have significant means and capacity in this realm.Following Yazgan, the first report,  “Propaganda of Terror: Konstantiniyye Magazine and the Discourse of DAESH” was presented by Mr. Sertac Canalp Korkmaz. Mr. Korkmaz expressed that DAESH carried out intensive religious propaganda in Konstantiniyye magazine, and that the organization tried to legitimize its narrative by citing hadiths and verses from the Qur’an. Besides, he remarked that the extensive presence of marginalization, antagonization and securitization in DAESH’s narrative conformed to its actions on the ground. After the first report of the meeting, the report entitled “Twitter Social Network Analysis on Turkish Speaking DAESH Supporters,” prepared by Dr. Haldun Yalcinkaya and Dr. Tansel Ozyer from TOBB University, and Dr. Saban Kardas and Bedi Celik from ORSAM, was introduced.In the report it was expressed that DAESH used Twitter quite effectively. In the samples on which the report was based on, tweets shared by 2567 users on specific dates were examined in order to determine their agenda.Contrary to the results of the first report, the second report indicated that the PKK terrorist organization was DAESH’s primary agenda item, and that religious propaganda was ranked second.

In the second panel, entitled “Understanding Evolution of ISIS Messaging in Post-Territorial Era”, moderated by the ORSAM President Dr. Saban Kardas, Prof. Reda Alhajj from Calgary University, Prof. Akil Awan from Royal Holloway University, ICSR researcher Charlie Winter and Prof. Kasif Hamdi Okur from Presidency of Religious Affairs of Turkey made their presentations. Prof. Reda Alhajj stated that social networks are highly complex structures and that analyzing them is a difficult task. He remarked that the use of social network analysis, in this regard, gained prominence after September 11. Ahajj expressed that if we learn from what has taken place in the past, we can, by also analyzing the present developments, make the right predictions about the future, and that thanks to social network analyses, we can access plenty of detailed information on profiles. Prof. Awan argued that religion was present in DAESH’s messaging not as a source of motivation but as a theme. ICSR researcher Charlie Winter indicated that although DAESH’s loss of territory triggered a decline in the group’s media presence in terms of propaganda, their messages are still in circulation. Winter also expressed that there has been localization in DAESH’s narrative due to its loss of territory. Hitit University faculty member and a member the Presidency of Religious Affairs, Prof. Kasif Hamdi Okur delivered his presentation on the report published by the Presidency of Religious Affairs. Prof. Okur pointed out that the emphasis on religion in DAESH’s narrative had little effect on the group’s visibility. He stated that they conduct studies on DAESH, that the Presidency of Religious Affairs has two reports published on DAESH and that they organized two summitswith  participants from different countries with dominantly Muslim population. The conference ended with the Q&A session following the presentations.