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International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling and Prediction and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation

SBP-BRiMS 2018: Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling pp 315–328Cite as

Turning Narrative Descriptions of Individual Behavior into Network Visualization and Analysis: Example of Terrorist Group Dynamics

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 10899))

Abstract

Social networks play a critical role in the formation of criminal and radical groups. However, understanding of these formations relies on difficult to collect data. We present an approach where narrative data from the trial of the 1995 Paris Metro and RER bombings was used to extract actors, places, groups and actions that led to the formation of the radical group. This data was dynamically visualized and allowed one to follow the process of terrorist group formation. An important part of the approach is the inclusion of the individuals who were parts of the social network of the radicalized individuals but who did not get radicalized (e.g. members of a soccer team). We emphasize the importance of the Natural Language Processing (NLP) in timely information extraction followed by dynamic visualization.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA

    Georgiy Bobashev, Amanda Lewis Evans & Robert F. Chew

  2. Sageman Consulting, Rockville, MD, USA

    Marc Sageman

  3. National Opinion Research Center (NORC), Chicago, IL, USA

    John Wittenborn

Authors
  1. Georgiy Bobashev
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  2. Marc Sageman
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  3. Amanda Lewis Evans
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  4. John Wittenborn
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  5. Robert F. Chew
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Robert F. Chew .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, USA

    Robert Thomson

  2. Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, USA

    Christopher Dancy

  3. The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA

    Ayaz Hyder

  4. University of Michigan–Flint, Flint, Michigan, USA

    Halil Bisgin

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Bobashev, G., Sageman, M., Evans, A.L., Wittenborn, J., Chew, R.F. (2018). Turning Narrative Descriptions of Individual Behavior into Network Visualization and Analysis: Example of Terrorist Group Dynamics. In: Thomson, R., Dancy, C., Hyder, A., Bisgin, H. (eds) Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling. SBP-BRiMS 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10899. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93372-6_35

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93372-6_35

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-93371-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-93372-6

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