Messaging and mobilization: Rebel groups, social media communication, and audience engagement

Samuel E Bestvater and Cyanne E Loyle
Additional contact information
Samuel E Bestvater: Independent Researcher
Cyanne E Loyle: Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University Peace Research Institute Oslo

Journal of Peace Research, 2025, vol. 62, issue 2, 295-309

Abstract: Mobilization is central to the emergence, survival and success of armed groups challenging the state, and has lately expanded to new arenas with the rise of social media. Using a new dataset of rebel group Twitter use, we examined the topics contained in rebel group social media communications to understand how different messaging strategies impact civilian engagement with rebel messages. Rather than benefiting solely from direct calls to action, we found that rebel groups also increased civilian engagement through indirect messages of self-promotion. While direct appeals received more engagement than indirect appeals, their effects were tempered by audience fatigue when relied on too heavily. We additionally found that including images further enhanced the impact of a mobilizing message. These findings expanded our understanding of rebel communications and mobilization, with important implications for combating the use of social media as a recruitment tool for violent extremism.

Keywords: civil war; mobilization; social media; Twitter (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00223433231201448 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:joupea:v:62:y:2025:i:2:p:295-309

DOI: 10.1177/00223433231201448

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Peace Research from Peace Research Institute Oslo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().