New CREST award given to Politics researchers

The Centre for Evidence and Research on Security Threats (CREST), a consortium financed by the UK security services broadly construed, has granted Dr Stephane Baele (Centre for Advanced International Studies), Dr Travis Coan and Dr Lewys Brace (Q-STEP) a research award to conduct an in-depth analysis of a series of far-right forums and "image-boards". The team will analyse the visual and linguistic content of these websites, some of which have been directly linked with terror attacks such as the Christchurch mosques shooting.

This 6-month project directly builds on, and further develops, recent work carried out by the team on other extremist online environments (such as the “incelosphere” and ISIS' web propaganda), cementing Exeter's expertise in political violence and new modes of extremist communications.

The project, called "Mining the Chans: Exposing the Visual and Linguistic Dynamics of Radicalization in Far-right Image-boards", is set to begin early February.