Developing a Structured Analytical Model to Anticipate Social Movement National Security Threats

Abstract

For most of the 2000s, experts assessed that social movements across the globe were increasingly engendering most of the threats nation-states faced internally and externally. These assessments and extensive literature on social movement use of social media underpinned a doctoral research effort that helped address a noted literature gap in predicting social movement threats via social media. The research results showed social movement themes are observable in social media content and, although not fully vetted, National Security practitioners can use these themes in a structured analytical model to assess the probability of a threat. This article provides an overview of the research and model in the dissertation Anticipating Social Movement National Security Threats: Social Media Content’s Potential in Developing a Structure Analytical Model