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Archive for 'Research'

Why Story is Not Narrative

By Jeffry R. Halverson I’ll admit that I slip sometimes in everyday conversation and use the word “story” as a synonym for “narrative.” A lot of people do it. But I should know better. There’s an important difference between the two. For the average conversation the difference doesn’t really matter much. However, when it comes [...]

Youths in Violent Extremist Discourse

by Steven R. Corman CSC researchers Pauline Cheong and Jeff Halverson have just published a paper in the journal Studies in Conflict and Terrorism that will be of interest to readers of this blog.  The paper examines al Qaeda texts from 1996-2009 to determine strategies used by the group to construct a pro-radical identity for [...]

Online Mobilization by Radical Groups

by Steven R. Corman I ran across an interesting research article in the most recent issue of the Journal of Communication entitled “‘Carrying online participation offline’–Mobilization by radical online groups and politically dissimilar offline ties.”* The study looks at neo-Nazis and radical environmentalists (NN/RE) in the West, but because it potentially sheds some light on [...]

15 Percent Think U.S. Did 9/11

by Steven R. Corman Worldpublicopinon.org has just released the results of a study of world opinion about who committed the 9/11 attacks.  On average, 46% think AQ did it, 15% think we did it to ourselves, 7% think Israel did it, 7% think someone else did it, and 25% don’t know.  Here is the complete [...]

Minerva Followup

by Steven R. Corman Yesterday I participated in a Blogger’s Rountable discussion with Dr. Thomas Mahnken, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy, about the DoD’s Minerva program.  The audio from the roundtable was supposed to be up immediately after the event, but it’s not there  yet as I’m posting.  Perhaps it will be up by the [...]

Minerva on the Cheap?

by Steven R. Corman I just got off a blogger’s roundtable teleconference with Thomas Mahnken, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning (hat-tip to Matt for the heads-up about it). He was discussing the Minerva program, outlined by Secretary Gates in a speech last month. Gates, a former university president, wants the social sciences [...]