TITLE: ISIS use of the Internet and social media

The length of the paper should be at least 2000 words, but no more than 2500, (approximately 8 typed, double-spaced pages), not including the title page, abstract or reference pages.

As this is an international terrorism course, you are prohibited from writing a research paper related in any way to domestic terrorism.

The paper should include at least ten (10) references from books, scholarly journals, and government documents and reports. Internet web-page references are permitted, but DO NOT count toward the ten (10) required references.

Be advised that the challenge with Internet sources, where an original source is not cited, is that anyone can say or represent anything on the Internet; in other words, there are no controls to ensure the information presented is viable.

You are prohibited from using Wikipedia.

Also be advised, that scholarly articles and documents (primary sources) which you merely obtained by downloading them from the Internet are acceptable toward the (10) references. In such cases, the Internet is simply serving as a library for you to access independently existing resources. Those documents and articles must be cited following APA style.

There is a huge volume of open-source information available via the internet and the US Naval Postgraduate School Homeland Security Digital Library. (HSDL:

Nathan K. Schneider, LCDR, US Navy, ISIS and Social Media: The Combantant Commander's Guide to Countering ISIS's Social Media Campaign, Center for Counterterrorism Studies, 2015.

See also: Jessica Stern and JM Berger, ISIS: The State of Terror. Harper-Collins. 2015. Esp. chapters 5, 6, and 7.

If you survey HSDL, you will find so much high-quality material, that you will not need to go much further for source material.