SUNNI RADICAL CLERICS – DO THEY HAVE A ROMANIAN AUDIENCE?
SUNNI RADICAL CLERICS – DO THEY HAVE A ROMANIAN AUDIENCE?

Summary/Abstract: Sunni radical online speech maintains great importance as a security matter, considering its potential impact on the views of individuals originated in regions with terrorist activity, as well as their potential impact on Romanian converts active on social media. In the light of its relevance, the current research aims to map the visibility of Sunni radical clerics in high ranked research publications, as well as factors that impacted this (in)visibility; the second part will question whether unrestricted social media activity of the digital community of Romanian converts on Facebook reflects an appetite for content, sermons and narratives of radical Sunni clerics, questioning whether Romanian converts share and appreciate such content– confirming their relevance on digital platforms. Furthermore, the paper raises potential research avenues, highlighting the need to focus on coded messages; our hypothesis is that as legal sanctions increase, be they administrative or legal (no flight lists, asset freeze, visa cancelation, social media ban), Sunni radical clerics will switch from an explicit to a latent, implicit hate speech, preserving content but altering form. Future research will investigate messaging in the context of tensions in Palestinian territories, as active conflicts were observed as a catalyst for enhanced radical speech.

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