A Preliminary Overview of ICT Use in the Boko Haram conflict: A Cyberconflict perspective

Shola Abidemi Olabode

doi:10.15664/jtr.1479

Abstract

This paper examines the use of information and communication technologies by the Boko Haram Islamist movement. While scholarly research on Boko Haram has developed in the last few decades, there is still a lack of research relating to crucial aspects of the conflict including the insurgents’ increasing uses of ICT. This paper uses the Cyberconflict conceptual tool to understand Boko Haram’s use of ICTs and contends that the use of digital media is particularly instrumental in the movement’s guerrilla-style warfare. Salient attributes of Boko Haram’s digital culture includes the use of the ICTs for information sharing, propaganda and psychological operations. Specifically, the study employed a qualitative approach relying on desk-based research, a combination of primary and secondary data and thematic analysis.

Highlights

This paper examines the use of information and communication technologies by the Boko Haram Islamist movement
The Cyberconflict framework provides a useful instrument for examining sociopolitical movements that adopt peaceful and non-violent strategies and ethnoreligious groups who opt for violent militancy conflict tactics
Boko Haram is not the first group that uses ICTs as part of its tactical approach, as demonstrated groups like AlQaeda led by Usama Bin Laden used the internet and more recently, ISIS

Summary

Methods and Materials

The study principally relied on secondary data and some primary data online sources These include online textual and audio-visual materials available on the movements online. The researcher had followed political commentaries on the movement on the two sites between 2014 Across these five online media portals, 75 reports focusing on the Boko Haram were selected and examined to cover the period between 2006 and 2014. This specific period was chosen to reflect the structural dynamics in the origins, development and advances of the respective movement and due to some important events that took place within these periods, most importantly the mutations in the movement’s tactics and strategy. The rest of the paper discusses Boko Haram’s uses of ICTs

A Resource for Information Sharing

A Resource for Propaganda and psychological operations

Conclusion