Onlife Subjectivities Construction in two Radicalized Ecosystems. A Practical Application of a Theoretical Perspective

Radicalized ecosystems emerged in the Horizon CounteR project as realized in a wide variety of real and digital environments, and these ecosystems can be analyzed through a theoretical perspective made of four thematic areas: communication, identity, culture, and electronic technologies. The precipitate of these four thematic areas could be the radicalized onlife subjectivity: the radicalized subject’s identity that becomes intelligible and observable during a communicative interaction on the border of real and digital environments. This paper compares two radicalized ecosystems where electronic technologies concur to realize radicalized activities: Mohammed Zahir Khan and Maria Giulia Sergio. The data on these ecosystems were collected through a five-stage search (via Counter Extremist Project Database, Google browser, European Media Monitor Tool search, Summon – Unicatt, and Yewno – Unicatt): 114 sources of evidence were selected as relevant for Mohammed Zahir Khan and 31 were appropriate for Maria Giulia Sergio (a Horizon CounteR project deliverable includes the syntheses derived from retrieved sources of evidence). To build the comparison between the two ecosystems, the researchers analyzed them by using the four thematic areas mentioned above and, consequently, the configuration of their subjectivities. The findings show an example of applying the theoretical perspective developed during the Horizon CounteR project and two ways of producing radicalized subjectivities in the case of using electronic technologies for radicalized activities. The conclusions, stemming from the findings, consist of practical fallouts for intelligence.