ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the relationship between communication technology, extremism, and terrorism, historical patterns and examples of this relationship. It focuses on the impacts of the developments of digital technologies, the way these technologies initially functioned synergistically, what people call “the Iraq effect,” and then how these technologies, as they continued to evolve, created completely new opportunities for terrorist groups. In order to think through the way the threat of homegrown groups will likely evolve, it is helpful to look back and consider how people have come to this point, both historically and internationally. Often using terrorism as a tactic is equally central to the nature of “violent extremism.” Some of the earliest terrorists of the modern era, the anarchists, are remembered today in part because they contributed the idea of “propaganda of the deed,” the idea that acts of violence themselves can “speak” in a sense.
