Interpreting public reactions to terrorist events using open source network analysis

This chapter explores how post-event open source media analysis can provide new insights to usefully inform the work of strategic and operational decision makers. Informed by the analysis of empirical data deriving from a technique for the rapid measurement of the proportional impact that individual accounts and the ideological stance to which they belong is having on public discourse, this chapter aims to identify aspects of public reactions which could be better understood in the wake of terrorist events. Developing the implications of this approach, the chapter considers the opportunities and challenges for police, security, and governmental bodies in using these kinds of data to understand the segmentations, the polarisations, and the generation of conflict which take place as a result of the differing opinions and stances of those participating in open source communications.