Abstract

In considering how terrorist movements use the Internet, it is becoming increasingly apparent that we must move beyond predominantly descriptive overviews of the contents
of websites to examine in more detail the notion of virtual communities of support and the functions of these for their members. Virtual communities in support of terrorist
movements are real social spaces where people interact on a regular basis to disseminate their views, share their knowledge, and encourage each other to become increasingly
supportive of movements that use terrorism to achieve their goals. Taken from a larger body of comparative qualitative research investigating the content and function of
discourses created in virtual communities in support of terrorism, this article presents a thematic analysis of “Stormfront,” a virtual community of the radical right.