Shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2022 From Donald Trump's outrageous tweets to the impact of the GRU (Russia's military intelligence agency) on foreign elections, through to echo chambers and amplification by bots and networks - the negative side of social media is becoming ever more apparent. Now far removed from a comfortable landscape of cat videos and family pictures, social media is now open to exploitation from a range of sources, from disgruntled employees to 'fake news'. The negative impact of social media upon the workplace can have damaging consequences for businesses. Reputations can be ruined overnight, employees can manipulate social media feeds to their own advantage, and the boundaries between professional and personal social media conduct can become dangerously blurred. Dark Social is an approachable and widely applicable guide to the dangers of social media, and the steps that can be taken by businesses to avoid any negative consequences as a result of social media activity. Despite these risks, social media should not be neglected - it has become a fundamental part of business literacy and is now an essential element of any successful marketing & PR campaign. Drawing upon illustrative case studies and organizational psychology, Dark Social is a timely and fascinating insight into the darker side of social media.

This book explores how people interact online through anonymous communication in encrypted, hidden, or otherwise obscured online spaces. Beyond the Dark Web itself, this book examines how the concept of ‘dark social’ broadens the possibilities for examining notions of darkness and sociality in the age of digitality and datafied life. The authors take into account technical, moral, ethical, and pragmatic responses to ourselves and communities seeking to be/belong in/of/ the dark. Scholarship on the Darknet and Dark Social Spaces tends to focus on the uses of encryption and other privacy-enhancing technologies to engender resistance acts. Such understandings of the dark social are naturally in tension with social and political theories which argue that for politics and ‘acts’ to matter they must appear in the public light. They are also in tension with popular narratives of the ‘dark recesses of the web’ which are disparaged by structural powers who seek to keep their subjects knowable and locatable on the clear web. The binary of dark versus light is challenged in this book. The authors’ provocation is that practices of ‘dark’ resistance, motility and power are enacted by emerging data cultures. This book draws together scholarship, activism, and creativity to push past conceptual binary positions and create new approaches to darknet and dark social studies. The Dark Social: Online Practices of Resistance, Motility and Power will be a key resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of media studies, cultural studies, communication studies, research methods, and sociology. This book was originally published as a special issue of Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies.

With the departure of European Muslims to the “Islamic State” and a wave of terrorist attacks in Europe in recent years, the questions of why and how individuals radicalize to Jihadi extremism attracted keen interest. This thesis examines how individuals radicalize by applying a theoretical framework that primarily refers to social capital theory, the economics of religion, and social movement theory. The analysis of the biographical backgrounds, pathways of radicalization, and network connections of more than 1,300 Jihadi extremists from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland shows that radicalization primarily need to be considered as a social process of isolation from former social contacts and affiliation with a new religious group. Radicalization is characterized by the transformation of social capital and often channeled through so-called “strong ties” to friends and family members. These peer networks constitute the social fundament of radical clusters on the local level which are usually linked to a broader milieu through exclusive mosque communities and religious authorities. Bonding social capital within these radical groups minimizes the risk of betrayal and promotes trust essential for clandestine and risky activities.

Leverage the power of influencer marketing for your business. The Ultimate Guide to Influencer Marketing is a comprehensive resource that equips small business owners with the knowledge they need to effectively connect with influencers. This book covers crucial aspects of influencer marketing, offering practical advice and actionable strategies. Learn more about: The importance of investing in influencer marketing for your business Identifying the right type of influencer for your brand and product Working with micro-influencers that are niche specific and budget friendly Organizing and running your influencer marketing campaigns Analyzing the results of your campaign to maximize your ROI Leveraging influencer relationships to grow your business Ultimate Guide to Influencer Marketing is an essential tool for small business owners looking to harness the power of influencer marketing.

The Intelligence Community does not lag far behind the private sector in using collaborative tools; indeed, it has developed an impressive array. However, the most used tools, like instant messaging (IM), are employed primarily within agencies for peer-to-peer communication and hence are neither widely collaborative nor especially novel: they are different ways of accomplishing familiar functions. The array of collaborative tools across agencies—ranging from IM to blogs to a wiki called Intellipedia—is impressive but used mostly by enthusiasts. This report identifies lessons learned from looking at the use of internal collaborative tools across the Intelligence Community, especially across the four biggest agencies: Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency.

Disrupting Dark Networks focuses on how social network analysis can be used to craft strategies to track, destabilize and disrupt covert and illegal networks. The book begins with an overview of the key terms and assumptions of social network analysis and various counterinsurgency strategies. The next several chapters introduce readers to algorithms and metrics commonly used by social network analysts. They provide worked examples from four different social network analysis software packages (UCINET, NetDraw, Pajek and ORA) using standard network data sets as well as data from an actual terrorist network that serves as a running example throughout the book. The book concludes by considering the ethics of and various ways that social network analysis can inform counterinsurgency strategizing. By contextualizing these methods in a larger counterinsurgency framework, this book offers scholars and analysts an array of approaches for disrupting dark networks.

Digital Dilemmas looks at the dynamics of power and resistance surrounding the internet. It focuses on how publics, nation-states, and multilateral institutions are being continually reinvented in local and global decision-making domains that are accessed and controlled by a relative few. Importantly it unpacks the ways in which computer-mediated power relations play out as "on the ground" and "cyberspatial" practices and discourses that collude and collide with one another at the personal, community, and transnational level. Case studies include homelessness and the internet, rights-based advocacy for the online environment at the United Nations, and how the ongoing battle between proprietary and open source software designs affects ordinary people and policy-making. The result is an innovative and groundbreaking critique of the way new paradigms of power and resistance forged online reshape traditional power hierarchies offline, at home and abroad.

From the upheavals of recent national elections to the success of the #MyDressMyChoice feminist movement, digital platforms have already had a dramatic impact on political life in Kenya – one of the most electronically advanced countries in Africa. While the impact of the Digital Age on Western politics has been extensively debated, there is still little appreciation of how it has been felt in developing countries such as Kenya, where Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and other online platforms are increasingly a part of everyday life. Written by a respected Kenyan activist and researcher at the forefront of political online struggles, this book presents a unique contribution to the debate on digital democracy. For traditionally marginalised groups, particularly women and people with disabilities, digital spaces have allowed Kenyans to build new communities which transcend old ethnic and gender divisions. But the picture is far from wholly positive. Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics explores the drastic efforts being made by elites to contain online activism, as well as how 'fake news', a failed digital vote-counting system and the incumbent president's recruitment of Cambridge Analytica contributed to tensions around the 2017 elections. Reframing digital democracy from the African perspective, Nyabola's ground-breaking work opens up new ways of understanding our current global online era.

This Research Topic covers some of the latest research on brain and behavior in health and disease in Africa. With its untapped resources and unique situations, “Neuroscience in Africa” has the potential to contribute to a better understanding of human brain function both in health and disease. The diverse African fauna display a range of specializations in brain structure/function relationships as a result of adaptations to the environment. Exploration of these may lead to insights into coping strategies which could be extrapolated to humans. Africa’s unique flora is being investigated for anti-inflammatory, antinociceptive, antioxidant, antiepileptogenic and neuroprotective properties to determine its potential for use in the treatment of human brain disorders. There is also research on neurodegenerative and infectious diseases, not only common to the global world, but also neglected tropical diseases and conditions which provide unique avenues of investigations in basic and translational neuroscience on highly debilitating disorders - and on the effects of pathogens and environmental toxins.

This unique Handbook provides multiple perspectives on the growth of illicit trade, primarily exploring counterfeits and internet piracy. It includes expert opinion on a wide range of topics including the evaluation of key global enforcement issues, government and private-sector agency initiatives to stifle illicit trade, and the evolution of piracy on the internet. The authors also assess the efficacy of anti-counterfeiting strategies such as targeted consumer campaigns, working with intermediaries in the supply chain, authentication technology, and online brand protection.