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First Advisor

Carrie Flickinger

Abstract

Terrorism is a widely debated topic on social media networks such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. This is due to the fact that a high percentage of users rely on sites such as Twitter and Facebook as a news source for developing stories and information. In a study conducted in 2015 by Pew Research Center, in association with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, research found that 63 percent of Facebook users and 63 percent Twitter users depend on these social networks for their news, which is a substantial increase from 2013. This paper presents a rhetorical analysis of terrorism within the framework of social media. This focus is on the widespread rhetoric of terrorism disseminated through social media and the effects on users' para-social relationships and physiological responses to these messages. Social cognitive theory and the role it plays in social media will be discussed further.

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