The rise of online gaming in the Middle East

January 19, 2010

In keeping with this week’s theme of video games in the Middle East, it has become hard to ignore the browser-based game Travian.  This game is a massive multiplayer game where the user plays as one of three factions of people: the Romans, the Gauls, and the Teutons. Over 5 million people play Travian throughout [...]

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Iran’s nascent, government-controlled video game industry

January 12, 2010

People the world over have become well acquainted with the Iranian government’s draconian censorship policies regarding domestic use of the internet.  In the wake of the country’s most recent elections, the international press heralded the use of Twitter to mobilize opposition to Iran’s authoritarian government.  Rightfully, a considerable amount of attention and analysis has since [...]

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The 500 Most Influential Muslims of 2009

December 28, 2009

Recently, the Saudi-funded Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University published a list of the 500 most influential Muslims of 2009.  Inevitably, any undertaking as ambitious as this will be nitpicked to death, and the usual Internet punditry did not disappoint.  In reality, the title of the document is something of [...]

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YouTube – the next terrorist training ground?

December 15, 2009

The Internet has long been used by terrorist organizations, but recently, terrorists have increasingly exploited it for recruitment purposes.  On December 9, five Muslim-American men from the Washington, D.C. area were arrested in Pakistan after allegedly wanting to train in terrorist camps.  This begs the question, how do five men, between the ages of 19 [...]

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From Tribes on the Ground to Tribes Online

December 3, 2009

Recently, Strategic Social presented at the Interagency Strategic Communication Working Group at the Department of State.  The post below, the third in a series of posts regarding anthropological concepts, is based on that presentation.  In it, S2 explores the concept of culture and how the emergence of social electronic media impacts cross-cultural communication.
Strategic Social believes [...]

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Unlikely Allies on Women’s Rights in Afghanistan

November 24, 2009

On November 14, the New York Times reported on efforts in Afghanistan by NGO Marie Stopes International to raise awareness about birth control techniques.  Afghanistan has the highest fertility rate in Asia, at 6 children per woman, yet also has an extremely low per capita GDP.  Matthew Yglesias noted on his Think Progress blog that [...]

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What is a Tribe?

November 19, 2009

S2 presents the second in a series of posts that will introduce anthropological concepts. The first concept we will define is a tribe. S2 defines a tribe as “any group of people united by their recognition of organizational hierarchy within their group, who share a cultural identity and make up a unique speech community.” To make [...]

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Female Jihadists Part II: Family Matters

November 18, 2009

The Influence of Family In The Emergence Of Female Suicide Bombers In Iraq
Strategic Social would like to offer a point of clarification for our readers before we present the body of this analysis. This post refers to the practice known as “honor killing,” where members of a family, usually male, will kill a female family [...]

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For the Fallen

November 11, 2009

Robert Laurence Binyon (1869 -1943) was an English poet, dramatist, and art scholar. His most famous work, “For the Fallen” is well known for being used in Veteran’s Day and Remembrance Day services. The seven-verse poem honored the World War I British war dead of that time and in particular the British Expeditionary Force, which [...]

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Analysis of AQIM Propaganda

November 10, 2009

“…we believe that the battle of the pen is no less important than the battle of the swords…”[1]
Al-Aqaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM) is a Salafist-jihadist insurgent group based in North Africa that has been officially designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the US State Department.  The group was originally known as the [...]

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