TERROR ON THE INTERNET
The New Arena, the New Challenges
(click for larger cover)
$24.95 $20.00
(Hardback)
978-1-929223-71-8
USIP Press Books
April 2006
320 pp.
, 6" x 9"
"Read this book to understand the future of terrorism! In this cutting-edge analysis, Weimann examines the new psychology of terrorists and how they use the internet for their goals."
—Marc Sageman, author of Understanding Terror Networks
Terrorists fight their wars in cyberspace as well as on the ground. However, while politicians and the media have hotly debated the dangers of terrorists sabotaging the Internet, surprisingly little is known about terrorists’ actual use of the Internet.
In this timely and eye-opening volume, Gabriel Weimann reveals that terrorist organizations and their supporters maintain hundreds of Web sites, taking advantage of the unregulated, anonymous, and easily accessible nature of the Internet to target an array of messages to a variety of audiences. Drawing on a seven-year study of the World Wide Web and a wide variety of literature, the author examines how modern terrorist organizations exploit the Internet to raise funds, recruit, and propagandize, as well as to plan and launch attacks and to publicize their chilling results. Weimann also investigates the effectiveness of counterterrorism measures, and warns that this cyberwar may cost us dearly in terms of civil rights.
Illustrated with numerous examples taken from terrorist Web sites, Terror on the Internet offers the definitive introduction to this newly emerging and highly dynamic arena. The volume lays bare the challenges we collectively face in confronting the growing and increasingly sophisticated terrorist presence on the Net.
- Read the review on Economist.com
- Read the review on New York Times
Gabriel Weimann is a professor of communication at the University of Haifa, Israel, and a former senior fellow at USIP. A prolific analyst of terrorism and the mass media, his publications include over one hundred scientific articles and five books, among them Communicating Unreality: Mass Media and Reconstruction of Realities and The Theater of Terror: The Mass Media and International Terrorism. Weimann has been a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, Hofstra University, Lehigh University (USA), University of Mainz (Germany), Carleton University (Canada), and the National University of Singapore. He has received numerous grants and awards from organizations such as the Fulbright Foundation, the Canadian Israel Foundation, the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, the German National Research Foundation (D.F.G.), the Sasakawa Foundation, and USIP.
Browse Inside the Book
Introduction
Index
Contents
Introduction
New Terrorism, New Media
The War over Minds: The Psychology of Terrorism
Communicatives Uses of the Internet for Terrorism
Instrumental Uses of the Internet for Terrorism
Cyberterrorism: How Real Is the Threat
Fighting Back: Responses to Terrorism on the Internet, and Their Cost
Balancing Security and Civil Liberties
Appendix: Terrorist Organizations on the Internet
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