Introducing StreetSnap: An Initiative to Transform the Capture, Recording & Intelligence Gathered about Hate Graffiti across the Bridgend County Borough

The development of a monitoring instrument to streamline processes is fundamental and has been made possible through Welsh Government SMART Partnership Funding. This funding has enabled a multi sector approach, joining Swansea University academics and technological expertise from Legal Innovation Lab Wales with Bridgend County Borough Council. This report delineates the case for this academic, evidence unique technological solution which can simultaneously support staff and address multiple Policy agendas, achieving participatory and transformational change, having societal, economic, and technological impact.based, unique technological solution which can simultaneously support staff and address multiple Policy agendas, achieving participatory and transformational change, having societal, economic,and technological impact

State Cyberterrorism: A Contradiction in Terms?

This article explores findings from a global survey of the terrorism research community to explore whether states may be deemed capable of conducting cyberterrorism. The article begins with a brief review of recent literature on state terrorism, identifying empirical and analytical justifications for greater use of this concept. Following a discussion of our research methodology we make two arguments. First, that there exists considerable ‘expert’ support for the validity of the proposition that states can indeed engage in cyberterrorism. Second, that whether states are deemed capable of cyberterrorism has implications for subsidiary debates, including around the threat that cyberterrorism poses

The Cyberterrorism Threat: Findings from a Survey of Researchers

This article reports on a recent research project exploring academic perspectives on the threat posed by cyberterrorism. The project employed a survey method, which returned 118 responses from researchers working across 24 different countries. The article begins with a brief review of existing literature on this topic, distinguishing between those concerned by the imminent threat of cyberterrorism, and other, more sceptical, views. Following a discussion on method, the article's analysis section then details findings from three research questions: (i) Does cyberterrorism constitute a significant threat? If so, against whom or what?; (ii) Has a cyberterrorism attack ever taken place?’; and, (iii) What are the most effective countermeasures against cyberterrorism? Are there significant differences to more traditional forms of anti- or counter-terrorism? The article concludes by reflecting on areas of continuity and discontinuity between academic debate on cyberterrorism and on terrorism more broadly

Investigating Reclaim Australia and Britain First’s Use of Social Media: Developing a New Model of Imagined Political Communities Online

Against a backdrop of widespread concern regarding the extreme right’s increasing use of social media and using a combination of quantitative and qualitative linguistic techniques, this paper reports the results of the first systematic analysis of how two extreme right groups (Britain First and Reclaim Australia) construct themselves as sui generis ‘imagined political communities’ on social media (Facebook and Twitter). Analysis of a circa 5-million-word dataset reveals that both groups strategically mobilise a number of topical news events (relative to their country) and systematically denigrate (‘other’) immigrants and Muslims. It also reveals that Reclaim Australia favours more aggressive stances than Britain First towards targeted out-groups. The relative salience and inter-relations between the features that form these groups’ imagined political communities differ significantly from those proposed by pre-digital era notions of imagined political communities. Thus, this study proposes a new model of social—media based imagined political communities for extreme right groups in which developing boundaries against perceived threats posed by othered groups (Muslims and immigrants) emerges as the main pillar