This project will generate national-scale knowledge of the influence of violent extremist, misogynist, and ambiguous ideologies in digital forums on Australian young people, and aims to use this knowledge to generate for the National Intelligence Community (NIC) scalable approaches to identifying and curtailing the influence of such malign communities.

The threat of online extremism is spiralling as young Australians spend increasing time online in unregulated, offshore social media forums and, increasingly, in closed ‘alt-tech’ communities where the violent ideologies of religious extremist groups, far-right nationalists, sovereign citizens, violent misogynist movements, and ambiguous/inchoate ideologies, can operate unimpeded.

While ASIO (2022) has stated that online communities are ‘the world’s single most potent and powerful incubator of extremism’, we do not know the prevalence and impact of this exposure, nor how to effectively detect or prevent digital forms of extremism reaching Australian children and young people. Uncovering this knowledge is vital to organisations – government and third sector – that are concerned in protecting youth from the effects of violent ideologies.

Chief Investigators: Dr Melissa-Ellen Dowling (Flinders University), Dr Nathan Manning (University of Adelaide), Professor Tim Legrand (University of Adelaide)

Grant Funders: Office of National Intelligence – National Intelligence and Security Discovery Research Grant 2024

Grant Funding: $782, 375

 

Read more about Dr Melissa-Ellen Dowling here