Understanding released extremist detainees’ mindset through social media posts: A multimodal critical discourse perspectives on Malaysian cases

• Main Author: Isa, Aqsa
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: P Philology. Linguistics
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/38196/1/Dr.%20Aqsa%20Isa%20Understanding%20Released%20Extremist%20Detainees%E2%80%99%20Mindset%20through%20Social%20Media%20Posts.pdf; http://eprints.um.edu.my/38196/

Detainees of violent extremism are captured for various reasons, including funding extremist groups, possessing and disseminating materials containing violent ideologies, as well as radicalizing and recruiting potential members. In the Malaysian context, these perpetrators go through deradicalization and rehabilitation processes while in captivity, whereby there are efforts by relevant authorities to disengage them from extremist views. Upon release, they will still be under surveillance to see if there is a possibility of reengagement with extremist ideologies. Unfortunately, there is, and this has caused a great concern for many, especially the front-line agencies that deal with such perpetrators. Due to this, the research aims to shed light on the released extremist detainees’ post-imprisonment mindset via their social media posts by examining whether there has been a complete disengagement from extremism, or if there is a certain degree of reengagement. To do this, an integration of approaches from critical discourse studies and multimodal social semiotics is employed as analytical framework to examine the data (both verbal and visual), specifically Reisigl and Wodak’s (2016) discourse historical approach and Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2020) visual grammar. Among salient findings are the sharing of past accounts in conflict zones and in prison, as well as resentment against the law enforcement and government. A worrying outcome of the social media posts is the engagement of followers that demonstrates support or interest to the content. It is hoped that the findings can inform relevant authorities about the reasons for re-engagement with extremism and ways to improve the current deradicalization and rehabilitation programmes for extremist detainees.