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H2020Individual fellowship2016–2018

DSMM · “(De) Securitising Muslims in Cyber space: Social Media, Civil society and Marginalisation After Charlie Hebdo and the Islamic State”

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2016-10-01 → 2018-09-30
EU contribution
€173,076
Participants
1
Scheme
MSCA-IF-EF-ST

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Results in brief

“(De) Securitising Muslims in Cyber space: Social Media, Civil society and Marginalisation After Charlie Hebdo and the Islamic State”

DSMM analyses the discourse created about British and French Muslims on the Twitter social media platform. Using machine learning, social network analysis and discourse analysis the project looks at large data sets of historical tweets to examine how, in different contexts, questions about Europe’s Muslims are addressed on twitter. Taking a bi-national, comparative approach, DSMM examines the coverage of these issues in two European states with the largest Muslim diaspora populations, the UK and France. This is important because both states demonstrate differences and similarities which make them ripe for comparison. The two states take very different approaches to the question of religious and ethnic difference in society – Britain is overtly multiculturalist while France is assimilationist and forbids the acknowledgement of ethnic differences at the national level. Both have been touched by episodes of jihadist violence in the past decade which are important influences on the discourse created on twitter about these communities. Importantly, DSMM looks to analyse not the general discourse created by these events, but the discourse generated specifically about Muslims.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

DSMM proposes a two-year fellowship at the CNRS in Aix-en-Provence, France, with a six month secondment at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, UK. Europe faces one of the most significant security issues of recent years in the threats posed by Islamist terrorism. Prominent in this, and little researched, is the role of social media in this process. The project aims to fill this gap by applying cutting-edge research in a vital field for the future of Europe in assessing the effect of social media narratives on the (de) securitisation of Muslims in France and the UK. It does this through taking an original and interdisciplinary approach, incorporating quantitative and qualitative methods and concepts from sociology, political science and media studies. The key research objective is to create an analytical account of the means by which social media narratives work to construct and deconstruct Muslims in France and the UK as security threats. This account draws on data from a range of social media platforms, in addition to interviews of key actors in France and the UK. In terms of outputs, the project will generate 3 peer reviewed articles. In addition, the work will be presented at international conferences and will feature in blog posts and policy briefs.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · ParisCoordinatorFrance

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union