The Effect of Social Media on the Transformation of the Nature of Terrorist Groups, Focusing on Daesh and Al-Qaeda

New information and communication technologies have changed the functions and nature of many contemporary social and political phenomena. Investigations on the formation and activities of terrorist groups indicate that their functions and nature have fundamentally changed. At present, transnational terrorist groups are regarded as new actors in the international arena. After the event of September 11 attacks, their roles have become deeper. The question of what factors have played the most important roles in this regard, have attracted the attention of the scholars of international relations. Hence, this research is intended to investigate the influence of new information and communication technologies in changing the nature of terrorist groups. The role of social media, as a central factor in this transformation, seems to be very significant. Through studying Daesh and Al-Qaeda extremist groups, this research investigates how social media has affected the nature of terrorist groups in three aspects of changes including identity changes (from single nationality to multi-nationality), formal changes (from covert to overt), and structural changes (from hierarchical to network). This is a descriptive-analytical research following causal method whose data are collected through library method.