McLaughlin / WR 13300 / Spr 2016

Research Essay Proposal/Exploratory Draft

Due In Sakai Before Class on 3/29; worth 10 points in the total score for your research paper
Directions: Complete the following proposal and exploratory draft for your research project (you may
type on a separate document, if you wish). A digital AND printed copy of your proposal and exploratory
draft is due IN CLASS on Tuesday, 3/29. I will meet with students individually to discuss these
documents. To earn full points, these items should be detailed and should reflect your careful thinking
about your project.
Part 1: Research Proposal
YOUR NAME: Yutong Liu
TOPIC (I am studying):
The Effect of Social Media on the Growth and Fight Against Global Terrorism in the 21 st Century,
Especially Focusing on ISIS.
RESEARCH QUESTION(S) (because I want to find out)
The development and growth of ISIS.
The explosion of social media in the 21st century.
To what extend has social media facilitated the growth of ISIS.
What efforts has social media contributed to the fight against ISIS.
The reactions of social media communities and companies towards ISIS.
Freedom of speech and the spread of and fight against terrorism via social media.
AUDIENCE & SIGNIFICANCE (in order to help _______ understand)
My target audience would be people who have an active social media profile and are interested in the
issue of ISIS, administrators of social media companies, and relevant policy makers. I hope to shine light
on the role of social media in the war against modern global terrorism through studying the example of
ISIS. This research papers main purpose is to help my target audience to discover facts and shape their
understanding of the power of social media in the issue of terrorism, and hopefully help them to make
important decisions on things such as personal behaviors in social media, company policies, and relevant
laws and regulations.
CONTEXT (This issue is important and timely because)
The issue if important and timely because of the spread of ISIS globally. Since its foundation in 1999, it
has spread rapidly in Syria and Iraq, and its terrorism has caused many deaths and injuries in the middle
east and around the globe. Followers of the Islamic State come from all around the world, including
England, Europe, and even the U.S. In the media, ISIS is often described as the primary terrorist threat
and the fight against ISIS is often described as a war against terrorism. Social media has vey much
affected the trajectory of ISIS. ISIS spreads its beliefs through Facebook and tweeter, and uploads
propaganda videos onto YouTube. Recently, there have been several threats issued by ISIS towards
Facebook and twitter over their efforts take down ISIS affiliated accounts. There is no doubt that social
media integrations play an important part in the development of this modern terrorist group.
EXHIBIT (To illustrate my discussion of ______, I plan to focus on _______):

McLaughlin / WR 13300 / Spr 2016

To illustrate my discussion of role of social media in the development of ISIS, I plan to focus on the
growth of ISIS over the last decade, social media propaganda issued by ISIS, and the effect of these
propaganda exhibited by the growth in the member of the organization, and views of people on social
media.
To illustrate my discussion of role of social media in the fight against ISIS, I plan to focus on measures
taken by social media companies against ISIS and social media campaigns against ISIS and their effects,
including the respond of ISIS to these measures and campaigns.
KEY SOURCES FOUND SO FAR:
MLA citation

"Twitter's Role in Modern Warfare BBC News." BBC News. Web. 27 Mar.
2016.
<http://www.bbc.com/news/technology35842265>.

Type of source? News

article? Scholarly journal
article? Book? Website?
Other?
News article

What does the source offer your

project? Background? Statistics? Theory?
Argument? Counterargument? Example?

Scholarly Journal

This journal studies ISIS appeal and

proposes a strategic information campaign
against it.

Article

This article give background information

on how social media is being used by ISIS
as a weapons of war.

Sorenson, David S. "Priming Strategic

Communications: Countering The
Appeal Of ISIS." Parameters: U.S.
Army War College 44.3 (2014): 2536. Academic Search Premier. Web. 29
Mar. 2016.
BROOKING, EMERSON, and P. W.
SINGER. "The War Of Social
Media." Popular Science 288.2 (2016):
60-65. Academic Search Premier. Web.
29 Mar. 2016.

This article provides perspectives on the

role of twitter and related social media
sites in modern warfare, which includes
the war against terrorism.

McLaughlin / WR 13300 / Spr 2016

Part 2: Exploratory Draft

1) You should begin with a statement of what you hope to accomplish with the
project, and with what audience (e.g., I plan to argue that the NCAA must
revise its existing social media policy in order to combat the recent increase
in recruiting violations). Explain why you find this topic interesting and
important. Provide relevant background information to show the existing
conversation around your topic and the new perspective you hope to offer
through your project.
2) Identify and discuss the intended audience for this project and what this
audience has at stake in the topic you are researching. Questions to help you
identify an audience: Who will benefit? Who will lose something? Who is in a
position to be persuaded to follow the new course of thinking/action for which
you plan to argue?
3) How do you imagine your essay unfolding at this point? What are the distinct
claims/points you anticipate making in order to convince your audience of
your arguments quality and relevance? Provide a tentative outline.
4) Discuss what sources youve found so far and what other ones you would like
to look for. What kind of evidence will your audience expect? How will you
accommodate those expectations? Who do you anticipate might disagree
with you, and why? What evidence will they likely point to?
5) Fifth section: Share any concerns or questions you have about the project.
Where do you anticipate running into problems?

Through this project, I hope to discuses and find out facts about the role of social media in
modern global terrorism using ISIS as am example. This project is an effort to inform the social
media communities, social media companies, and government policy makers and help them
make more sound decisions in the fight against ISIS and global terrorism as a whole. I find this
project very interesting because it combines two seemingly unrelated products of the 21st century
global scale terrorism and social media. Both arose around the year 2000, social media, and,
sadly, global terrorism have become integral parts of the new global environment. Although two
very different facets of the global community, social media and global terrorism no doubt exert
some of the greatest impacts to communities around the world. Therefore, under the context of
an international effort to fight against global terrorism and the recent development of ISIS
threatening the founders of Facebook and twitter for closing their accounts, I find it necessary,
and extremely fascinating, to study the interactions between social media and terrorism.
There has been relatively little attention paid to the role of social media in global terrorism
before, and public and governmental attention were mainly focused on terrorist attacks and
military ways of suppressing terrorism. However, efforts in eliminating terrorism to date has not
been very effective terrorism groups, especially ISIS, keep expending in the number of their
members and occupying more ground. Recently, reports of ISIS using social media to recruit
new members brought the role of social media and the effectiveness of terrorist propaganda into
the public view, and since then debates have occurred on the internet on the actual effect of

McLaughlin / WR 13300 / Spr 2016

social media on the expansion of terrorist groups such as ISIS and whether groups such as ISIS
should be banned from social media communities. This research project will try to represent the
function of social media in the context of global terrorism in the case of ISIS in a holistic way by
combining various news sources, studies, and opinions, and hopefully provide thoughts on how
social media can be utilized in more effective campaigns against global terrorism.
As I mentioned above, the target audience of this research paper will be social media
communities, social media companies, and government policy makers. Normal people highly
involved in social media communities have an interest in this because: 1. They are the primary
actors in social media, and 2. They are effected, either directly or indirectly, by global terrorism.
Through learning more about the role of social media in global terrorism, why can benefit
through initiating social media campaigns against global terrorism which will effectively fight
against the growth of terrorism. Social media companies have an interest in this because they
directly benefit from social media, and do not want their product to be infested by terrorist
group propaganda, which will only decrease the value of their social media sites. Through
learning more about how terrorist groups such as ISIS use their sites, social media companies can
make informed decisions to minimize the effect of terrorist activity on their sites, and, taking on
their appropriate social responsibility, to make their own effort in the war against global
terrorism. Government policy makers have interest in this matter because they have
responsibility and duty to protect their people and fight against global terrorism. Having a more
holistic understanding of the role of social media in global terrorism will enable policy makers to
make informed and effective policies and law surrounding social media to effectively eliminate
global terrorism.
I expect my paper to include the following part a background on the rise of social media
and global terrorism in the 21st century, especially focusing on ISIS; a discussion and analysis on
how ISIS is using social media to facilitate its terrorist activities; a discussion on what strategist
can we use via social media to counter ISIS and the proposal of a tentative campaign; discussion
on possible counter arguments towards my analysis of how social media facilitate ISIS and
possible counter measures; and an ending highlighting possible points of further research. Some
distinct claims I know I will be making include: social media does facilitate ISIS to an extend,
and there are effective ways via social media to counter ISISs propaganda strategy.
So far I have located a news article on twitters role in modern warfare, an article on how
ISIS used social media to fight its wars, and a scholarly journal on how we can use social media
campaigns to fight against ISIS propaganda. I would like to look for more sources that contain
data linking ISIS growth to its social media stunts. I would also like to find more sources of
relative experts commenting on the effect of social media on the global community, especially
pertaining to terrorism and islamophobia. My audience would expect robust data and logical
analysis. I expect several counter arguments including the view that social media does not
actually facilitate terrorist groups such as ISIS, that banning ISIS from social media sites is a
violation of the freedom of speech, and that only a military campaign can prevent global
terrorism from growing. They will most likely point to the little amount of studies conducted on
the relationship between social media and terrorism, the fact that the freedom of speech it held
highly here in the U.S. and even hate groups have the right of speech on the internet, and the fact
that internet campaigns does not do any physical damage to terrorist groups such as ISIS.
My main concern is not finding enough primary literature containing data that link the
activities of ISIS to social media. Another problem I may face is with finding the actual
propaganda ISIS posted on its social media accounts since most of these accounts have already

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been shut down. I also worry that my tentative campaign against ISIS via social media may not
be concrete enough.