Influences of Terror - Deciphering Terrorgram's Digital Communication

Information and communication technology has increased the likelihood of extremists creating transnational networks and spreading propaganda. One such extremist network is the Terrorgram Collective, a loosely connected network of far-right extremists that has evolved on the messaging platform Telegram since 2017. This thesis examines the propaganda magazines published by The Terrorgram Collective. Specifically, it analyzes the propaganda publication's linguistic alignment with alt-right and white supremacy, its primary themes, key targets, and visuals. This research aims to gain a deeper understanding of their ideological agenda. It also seeks to contribute to the broader body of knowledge that can inform future preventive measures aimed at mitigating the potential threats posed by such groups. The primary research question that the thesis seeks to answer is: How do the Terrorgram Collective’s propaganda publications use themes, symbols, and threat narratives to construct meaning and promote ideological violence? Three sub-questions further guide the research: What are the main themes and linguistic features of the Terrorgram Collective’s publications? What forms of threatening communication are used, and who are the primary target groups? What symbols and visual elements are used to express the group’s ideology? A document survey and a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative analysis, are employed to address the research questions. Specifically, the data is quantitatively analyzed using the Dechefr Workbench tool for content and linguistic analysis, as well as to flag threatening communication. The communication is manually annotated, and an image-based analysis is conducted of four official Terrorgram publications. The study finds that the main themes of the publications are weapons and military terminology , and alignment with both alt-right and white supremacy language is present. Furthermore, the study finds that the threatening communication targets both soft and hard target groups, where the largest soft target group is Individuals and Collectives , and that Power-Transportation and Infrastructure compose the largest hard target group. The image analysis finds that the propaganda messaging, to a large extent, uses far-right symbols and gamification of instructions for violent acts. By interpreting these findings through Ingram's framework on how propaganda messaging creates meaning, this study finds that the Terrorgram Collective uses meaning-creating rhetoric through the interplay of identity, crisis, and solution-enforcing messaging, both visually and textually. These findings suggest that Terrorgram's publications can be categorized as black propaganda. Thus, future research could explore mitigation techniques to prevent the spread of such propaganda and limit extremist-right radicalization.