A Survey of Social Network Forensics

Social networks in any form, specifically online social networks (OSNs), are becoming a part of our everyday life in this new millennium especially with the advanced and simple communication technologies through easily accessible devices such as smartphones and tablets. The data generated through the use of these technologies need to be analyzed for forensic purposes when criminal and terrorist activities are involved. In order to deal with the forensic implications of social networks, current research on both digital forensics and social networks need to be incorporated and understood. This will help digital forensics investigators to predict, detect and even prevent any criminal activities in different forms. It will also help researchers to develop new models / techniques in the future. This paper provides literature review of the social network forensics methods, models, and techniques in order to provide an overview to the researchers for their future works as well as the law enforcement investigators for their investigations when crimes are committed in the cyber space. It also provides awareness and defense methods for OSN users in order to protect them against to social attacks

What are the roles of the Internet in terrorism? Measuring online behaviours of convicted UK terrorists

Using a unique dataset of 227 convicted UK-based terrorists, this report fills a large gap in the existing literature. Using descriptive statistics, we first outline the degree to which various online activities related to radicalisation were present within the sample. The results illustrate the variance in behaviours often attributed to ‘online radicalisation’. Second, we conducted a smallest-space analysis to illustrate two clusters of commonly co-occurring behaviours that delineate behaviours from those directly associated with attack planning. Third, we conduct a series of bivariate and multivariate analyses to question whether those who interact virtually with like-minded individuals or learn online, exhibit markedly different experiences (e.g. radicalisation, event preparation, attack outcomes) than those who do not

The BG News December 4, 1996

The BGSU campus student newspaper December 4, 1996. Volume 79 - Issue 67https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/bg-news/7096/thumbnail.jp

With us or against us? : hegemony and ideology within American superhero comic books 2001-2008

Superhero comic books, part of American popular culture since 1938, have been recognised as a site for the reproduction of dominant ideology, however, their ability to resist dominant ideology has not been as equally considered. This study examines the narratives of DC Comics and Marvel Comics superhero characters’ Batman and Captain America, in the time period 2001-2008 to evaluate the ability of these superhero narratives to reproduce, critique, challenge and contest dominant ideological versions of the American Dream. The years 2001 to 2008 were a time of ideological upheaval in American society influenced in no small part by specific articulations of historical events; 9/11 in 2001, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the election of the first African American to the Presidency, Barack Obama, in 2008. To position the dominant ideology this study adopts the theoretical lens of hegemony as developed by Antonio Gramsci, and radicalised by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Methodologically, the theory of hegemony is used to develop a sociological tool of analysis; the analysed hegemonic ideology. When this tool is applied to the ideology of the American Dream it exposes the constituted ideological components of the ideology that are subject to articulation within the process of hegemony and counter hegemony. The changing articulations, ideologies and process of hegemony from 2001 to 2008 are detailed in this study as a necessary step in analysis. When the specific constituted ideological components of the hegemonic ideology are applied to the superhero narratives of the same period, the true ideological position of the superhero narratives are exposed. The results suggest that superhero comics’ engagement and role in hegemony as a popular cultural product are extremely complex. While there is evidence of superhero narratives reproducing the ideological positions of the Right Wing hegemony that emerges after 9/11, there is also evidence of ideological resistance within the narrative and later support for the Left Wing hegemony that emerges in the Presidential campaign of Obama in 2008. In the changing landscape of hegemony in American society, superhero comics offer intelligent and detailed ideological contributions to process of hegemony and counter hegemony. This suggests both a progressive power to the concept of the American Dream and a degree of agency within the realm of popular cultural production

Beyond cop culture: the cultural challenge of civilian intelligence analysis in Scottish policing

The central contention of this thesis, and its original contribution to the subject area, is that the recent development of civilian intelligence analysis in Scottish policing presents a challenge to an otherwise hegemonic ‘cop culture’ in police intelligence work. In advancing this argument this thesis develops the existing literature by recognising that academic research to date on ‘police culture’ has focused almost exclusively on the cultures of sworn police officers, and particularly those ‘cops’ engaged in ‘frontline’ policing. Civilian police staff groups have been excluded from existing cultural accounts, despite their long-established position in many police forces, particularly those in Scotland. Drawing upon five years of qualitative sociological fieldwork, and taking inspiration from the theory and research of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this thesis highlights how civilian intelligence analysts – as office-based, young, predominantly female and embodying a new ‘academic’ knowledge that is divorced from experience – have become increasingly essential to the effective functioning of intelligence-led policing. The integration of civilian intelligence analysis into police intelligence work in Scotland, however, is inhibited by the persistent hegemony of a cop culture that privileges masculinity, physicality, solidarity, cynicism and, above all, the experiential knowledge that the ‘crime-fighting’ cop has gained from policing ‘the streets’. The cultural challenge of civilian intelligence analysis, emerging from within wider processes of civilianisation and pluralisation, has provoked a patriarchal response from police officers. This response is characterised by masculine domination and the exertion of symbolic violence within the wider ideological construction of the ‘police family’. This patriarchal response has also contributed to the infantilisation of the intelligence analyst in Scottish policing, as a concomitant form of cultural control. The interplay of these processes of cultural challenge and control contributes to a phenomenon of cultural dissonance – a sense of difference, discord and disharmony – between police officers and intelligence analysts. This cultural dissonance is sustained in everyday practice through the perpetuation and persistence of a ‘them and us’ culture between these groups. This thesis concludes by exploring the future of intelligence analysis in the context of profound and on-going organisational reform, and in doing so identifies recent processes of de-civilianisation in Scottish policing. Although intelligence analysis has remained relatively insulated from de-civilianisation to date, fieldwork disclosed how there has emerged disquiet about the potential diversification of the intelligence analyst role and concern for the future position of the intelligence analyst in Scottish policing as it enters a new phase in its distinctive development

Media, Policy and the Law: The Case of Crystal Methamphetamine

Crystal methamphetamine has been constructed by Australian media as the most dangerous illicit drug of the twenty-first century. Such representations, so readily available in print media commentary, have transformed the image of the drug from relative obscurity to a drug worse than heroin and a modern-day folk devil. Media calls for swift and urgent political action to address the methamphetamine problem have urged policymakers to respond to this ‘national drug threat’. This thesis explores the media construction of crystal methamphetamine, its users, manufacturers, importers and those who policed them over the period 2000-2009. It examines whether, and if so, to what extent, media have contributed to the development of illicit drug policies and legislation during this period. The state of NSW was selected as a case study for this analysis. A total of 433 print media articles and six methamphetamine-related policies and laws were subject to a discourse analysis. It is argued that media created a ‘new ice risk’ that encouraged punitive policy making. The research reveals that the media response to the drug during this period drew on law enforcement, public health and government discourses. Embedded within this media response were competing and contradictory discourses of the ‘methamphetamine user’, ‘the enforcers’ and ‘the folk devil drug’ and their respective discourse strands. These discourses and strands, fuelled by dramatic metaphors, research evidence and expert commentary, contributed to a media narrative that presented the public and policymakers with an image of a risky and dangerous drug. Through the convergence of these discourses, a ‘new ice risk’ was created that became part of the larger risk environment. This ‘risk’ fed off a ‘culture of control’ that had developed in government responses to problematic social issues. Media and policymakers thus worked together to produce a punitive response to a drug purported to be a major threat to society

University of San Diego News Print Media Coverage 2004.05

Printed clippings housed in folders with a table of contents arranged by topic.https://digital.sandiego.edu/print-media/1016/thumbnail.jp

Sex and the Superman: Gender and the Superhero Monomyth

Since the 1938 introduction of Superman, superheroes have been ever-present in American popular culture. Indeed, with the modern preponderance of comic book movies dominating the American cinematic box-office, superhero fantasy is arguably the most important genre of fiction being produced in the contemporary moment. Peter Coogan, Kurt Busiek and many other scholars have discussed the prominence and relevance of the superhero fantasy as a genre. Still others, including Umberto Eco and Marco Arnaudo, have asserted that the superhero is not so much a genre and as it is the evolution of mythology. In Sex and the Superman, I argue that the superhero fantasy is in truth more than myth; the superhero fantasy is the monomyth. That is to say that over the course of the twentieth century, the superhero fantasy has replaced Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey as the dominant template for epic allegorical storytelling in America. I trace the evolution of the superhero monomyth from its beginnings as a rough set of genre conventions and tropes into its current matured form as an established thematic paradigm. I theorize that the superhero monomyth creates a malleable template for seeking social justice that is only vaguely defined but can be articulated through performance of masculine violence and feminine sexuality in a kind of exchange economy as the building blocks of heroic narrative. First, I distinguish the superhero fantasy genre from the superhero monomyth and then speak to the ways in which each reflects and informs the other. I then analyze the thematic paradigm that constructs the superhero monomyth and the ways in which it has evolved from but remains distinct from earlier incarnations of the monomyth. I further examine the evolution of the monomyth as it responded to changes in conceptions of gender, race, class and youth culture over the middle of the twentieth century. Finally, I theorize that the superhero monomyth has become the dominant template for heroic storytelling across media and genres. In doing so it creates a framework for how we consider the very construction of gender in social contexts especially in relationship to social justice

A Holmes and Doyle Bibliography, Volume 5: Periodical Articles--Secondary References, Alphabetical Listing

This bibliography is a work in progress. It attempts to update Ronald B. De Waal’s comprehensive bibliography, The Universal Sherlock Holmes, but does not claim to be exhaustive in content. New works are continually discovered and added to this bibliography. Readers and researchers are invited to suggest additional content. Volume 5 includes "passing" or "secondary" references, i.e. those entries that are passing in nature or contain very brief information or content