Tuesday 23 March 2010

"Top 20 most influential "pro-Islamic" political bloggers"

Alan Travis, Guardian, Government names most influential 'pro-Islamic' bloggers, 23 Mar 2010 "The Home Office's counter-terrorism communications unit has named its top 20 most influential "pro-Islamic" political bloggers.

"The list forms part of a mapping exercise carried out on behalf of the Home Office to estimate and track the scale and influence of Islamic bloggers in Britain."

The report (pdf) is here I haven't had a chance to read this report yet, so will reserve comment. The data was compiled in April 2008, so there has been a delay in the information emerging into the public sphere.

Some details on the Home Office Research, Information and Communications Unit activities are here The author is David Stevens of Nottingham University, who has previously published related works:

# STEVENS, D., 2009. In Extremis: A Self-defeating Element in the 'Preventing Violent Extremism' Strategy. Political Quarterly, 80(4), 517-526.

# STEVENS, D. and O'HARA, K., 2009. The Devil's Long Tail: Religious Moderation and Extremism on the Web. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 24(6), 37-43.