This Element is an interdisciplinary analysis of the language evidence produced before, during and following a lone-actor terrorism attack in Halle, Germany, on October 9, 2019, resulting in two casualties. During his final preparations, the perpetrator, twenty-seven-year-old Stephan Balliet, announced his attack online and disseminated a targeted violence manifesto shortly before live-streaming his violent act. This post-hoc investigation introduces a multi-method approach that synchronizes well-established qualitative methodologies for forensic text analysis – genre, text linguistics, appraisal and uptake – to elucidate these data types. Furthermore, a retroactive threat assessment based on language data from the trial transcripts provides a holistic review of the assailant's background, red flags, triggering events and warning behaviors that could have signaled his movements along the pathway to violence. The results are considered in an organizational context to highlight current challenges faced by security agencies when mitigating the risk of lone-actors who radicalize in online environments.
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Prologue: online radicalization; 1. Introduction; 2. Methodology; 3. Rhetorical genre analysis; 4. Text linguistic analysis; 5. Stance analysis; 6. Retrospective threat assessment; 7. Lone-actor investigative challenges; 8. Contagion and copycat uptakes; Discussion; References.
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This Element analyses the Halle terrorism attack, text analyses, threat assessments, and organizational reviews for security authorities.
Product details
ISBN
9781009495745
Published
2024-12-12
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Weight
280 gr
Height
235 mm
Width
159 mm
Thickness
12 mm
Age
G, 01
Language
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Number of pages
94