Extremist and counter extremist narratives in the digital sphere and their impact on domestic information ecosystems

这项研究建议是基于南安普顿大学和帝国战争博物馆(IWM)之间的AHRC合作博士伙伴关系学生项目的简短广告“数字反弹：军事影响行动对英国和美国公众的意外影响”而制定的。该项目提供了一个机会，就网络空间中日益普遍的军事影响行动及其对英国或美国国内信息生态系统(即普通公众)的影响进行原创的跨学科研究。该项目主要专注于研究数字领域的这些相互作用，为信息战领域的初级来源分析提供了一种非常令人兴奋的方法。我对这次学习的主题领域特别感兴趣，因为我对极端主义和反极端主义影响行动的内容以及我们日益相互关联的信息生态系统中的在线传播战略有着持久的兴趣。我特别感兴趣的是研究这些动态的相互作用，以更好地了解目标受众如何感知影响力运营。我认为，这一主题仍然是文献中研究不足的一部分，因为在评估对影响行动的反应方面存在问题，特别是在网上，但对极端主义和反极端主义叙事如何在数字领域相互作用的研究可以为此目的提供宝贵的见解。

This research proposal was developed on the basis of the brief advertising the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Studentship between the University of Southampton and Imperial War Museums (IWM) on "Digital Blowback: The Unintended Impact of Military Influence Campaigns Upon the UK and US Public". The project provides an opportunity to produce original, interdisciplinary research on the increasing prevalence of military influence operations in cyberspace, and their impact on domestic information ecosystems, i.e. the general public, in the UK or US. The project focuses primarily on studying these interactions in the digital sphere, offering a very exciting approach to primary source analysis in the area of information warfare. The subject area of this studentship is of particular interest to me, because I have an enduring interest in the content of extremist and counter extremist influence operations as well as online dissemination strategies in our increasingly interconnected information ecosystem. I am especially interested in examining the interplay of these dynamics to better understand how influence operations are perceived by their target audiences. I believe that this subject remains an understudied part of the literature because of problems with assessing responses to influence operations, particularly online, but that a study of how extremist and counter extremist narratives interact in the digital sphere, can provide valuable insights to that end.