This work analyses the impact of new media and the internet on both terrorists’ operational repertoire and counterterrorism operations.
The advantages of new media for terrorists include the fact that it allows the groups to put across their own narratives and perspectives, avoiding possible distortion of their ideas and acts by the mainstream media. New media facilitated crucial paradigmatic shifts for Al-Qaeda and ISIS, including decentralization of operations online as well as offline, leading to the sanctioning of leaderless resistance or individual jihad and, among other things, electronic jihad for those not wishing to come to the battlefield. New media also importantly transformed counterterrorism operations by making online surveillance more encompassing – legal frameworks appeared along with various security agencies and tech companies specialising in the removal of terrorist content online.