Prof. Dr. Steven R. Corman
Visiting Scientist of the PhD program between 24.05.10 and 22.06.10.
inviting chairProf. Dr. Ulrik Brandesorganisational data
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research abstract
Text Analysis of Islamist Extremists' Use of Stories
It is well known that Islamist extremist groups use sophisticated appeals to convince their target audiences to support their efforts, either directly by joining and fighting for their organizations, or indirectly by providing financial or moral support. One prominent persuasive technique is the use of stories to establish a desire based in conflict. These stories establish an idealized narrative trajectory for satisfaction of that desire, which aligns with their goals.A widely known example is the branding of Western forces, for example those of NATO member states, as "Crusaders" who are intervening in Muslim countries in order to subjugate Muslims and establish Christianity as the ruling religion. Less well-known cases are the use of narratives deeply rooted in Islamic theology. For example, modern extremists often invoke the story of the Pharaoh from the Qur'an to condemn Muslim rulers as tyrants who should suffer the wrath of God. In other cases, they use more mundane stories, for example recounting victories in modern day battles, to establish their legitimacy and effectiveness.
Despite the importance of stories in extremist rhetoric, there has been little systematic, academic study of this subject. The purpose of my proposed visit to Uni Konstanz is to collaborate with faculty in Datenanalyse und Visualisierung Arbeitsgruppe to explore the possible uses of computerized text analysis for identifying and studying stories in published extremist statements. Possible problems to be investigated include:
- Automatic identification of stories told in extremist statements
- Characterization of identified stories using computational linguistic analysis of semantic triples
- Comparison and clustering of stories so-analyzed based on their abstract semantic structures
- Visualization of story elements, actions, and entities using network models