Daesh Information Campaign And Its Influence

2015

In December 2014, while Western powers were contemplating the use of air strikes against ISIS, New York Times published comments by Major General Michael Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the U.S. in the Middle East, who admitted that he was still trying to understand ISIS. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” This ‘idea’ partly resides in that fact that terrorism is launched, maneuvered, and magnified disproportionally in the virtual world. In other words, the main weapon is not the physical weapon itself but what is perceived and imagined by the public. Terror is in the eyes of the beholder (audience). As Ayman al-Zawahiri, then al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, wrote to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2005, “We are in a battle, and more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.” The international fight against terrorism is, ultimately beyond its military dimension, a battle of perception and ideas – a struggle for the attention and minds of global audiences. This essay seeks to ‘understand the idea’ by deconstructing and analyzing ISIS’ media strategies. It will first demonstrate that ISIS utilizes a decentralized model of propaganda through social media platforms effectively, thus producing an extensive, highly fluid stream of information all over the Internet. Second, ISIS’ target audience is global, not only Arabic speakers with Jihadist aspirations (the ‘traditional’ audience targeted by previous Islamic groups). This includes all Muslims and non-Muslims from all cultures, or basically anyone who has Internet access. Third, the essay will analyze the ‘grand-narrative’ of a romanticized Muslim utopia and an imminent apocalypse crafted by ISIS media strategies to recruit globally by making sense of its existence under this worldview. Fourth, the essay will examine ISIS’ desperation to establish historical and religious legitimacy by amplifying its own support base and strength through the media. Finally, this essay will assess the strengths and weaknesses of ISIS’ media strategies, and suggest possible measures to counter them.

International Journal of Strategic Communication, 2020

This study explores how extremist groups use propaganda as a form of strategic communication. The theoretical foundation used was an adaption of neo-institutional theory for strategic communication. The sample was an issue of Dabiq, an online propaganda magazine, from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The qualitative method employed was ethnographic content analysis. The study found ISIL used Dabiq as a form of strategic communication to achieve organizational goals in compliance with neo-institutional theory. Furthermore, ISIL used strategic communication in a similar manner as nonextremist groups; it sought to advance its organization as being superior to rival ones. These findings indicate that neo-institutional theory can further understanding of how extremist groups use propaganda, as strategic communication, to achieve organizational goals. This is accomplished by analyzing the functions specified in neo-institutional theory that propagandists attempt to fulfill. In general, this study offers evidence that the academic field of strategic communication offers significant potential to advance propaganda theory. If neo-institutional theory, as adapted for strategic communication, can explain and predict what a propagandist does, other strategic communication perspectives might offer the same ability to analyze propaganda and develop propaganda theory.

Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism Studies, 2016

Arab Media & Society, 2021

This paper, as a part of an on-going research project, examines Daesh's media (2014-2017) and seeks to provide a deeper understanding of how Daesh spreads its messages. It focuses on the importance of media as one of the main factors behind Daesh’s power. It also demonstrates that in order to export a powerful self-image to the outside world, Daesh considers media a significant part of Jihad, and consequently perceives the media war as equally, or even more important than the military war. In this process, Daesh relies on its own media to spread its content, while mainstream media enthusiastically release the news relevant to Daesh. Besides studying Daesh’s media, this paper highlights the importance of ‘message’ for Daesh: to present itself as a powerful and a victorious actor, while seeking to portray a weak and coward-like picture of its enemies to the outside world. This paper also examines the group’s communication strategy. https://www.arabmediasociety.com/daesh-and-the-power-of-media-and-message/

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has made great use of the Internet and online social media sites to spread its message and encourage others, particularly young people, to support the organization; to travel to the Middle East to engage in combat, fighting side-by-side with other jihadists; or to join the group by playing a supporting role, which is often the role carved out for young women who are persuaded to join ISIS. Today, in the field of fighting the ideology of extremism and terrorism, the main concern is that of the vast spreading of propaganda of the "Islamic State" primarily through the Internet. ISIS propaganda is now more frequently aimed at Westerners and more specifically at the “Millennial generation”, spreading i.e. the idea of what the real Salafi Islam is and how to fight and destroy the "unconventional Islam” which takes on board western principles. Clearly, social media has proven to be an extremely valuable tool for the terrorist organization and is perfectly suited for the very audience it intends to target. Increasingly, ISIS’ posts on websites include sophisticated, production-quality videos and images which incorporate visual effects. Which messages from jihadists induce young Westerners to become involved with the terrorist group? What convinces young people from Europe, Australia, Canada, and the United States, many of whom run away from home still in their teens, to leave their homelands to join ISIS on the battlefield? Which risks does a home country face when its nationals communicate and establish relationships with members of ISIS? Could the jihadist social network propaganda machine be shut down? Weighing all factors, is stopping ISIS rhetoric on the Internet the best course of action? To understand the project, several propaganda documents coming from sources inside the Daesh were analysed to identify the online grooming to recruit Jihadists and the instructions to follow to win respect in the Arabian world.

Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2018

The main problem that this paper attempts to focus on is how the Islamic State could successfully recruit thousands of people from all around the world. Besides, this article aims to discover why IS uses extreme brutality and why they attack Shia. Perhaps the most crucial aspect is how the Islamic State exploits each of its operations to serve their propaganda. This paper focuses on several aspects to achieve a better understanding of IS’s sophisticated propaganda and recruitment strategies. This paper, briefly, reviews the history of this organization, from its inception until now. The main purpose of this is to demonstrate how the group contrives to behave in such a way as to attract people. Additionally, this paper highlights the employment of propaganda focusing on those aspects that relate directly to the propaganda strategy, especially, the ploys that the Islamic State uses to entice people and the characteristics of its targeted audience. Finally, this paper comes to a conclusion that may assist to limit the activities of this terrorist organization by focusing on the religious side of IS propaganda. Such limitation may be achieved by disclosing, to people in general and IS followers in particular, that this terrorist group is abusing Islamic teaching to achieve its own political agenda.

This paper examines the nature of today’s information warfare, as much as it relates to online propaganda, by reflecting on how it operates across different agencies. It considers not only how information warfare translates into the strategy of radical insurgency groups but also the extent to which policy-makers and state-owned media engage with it by positioning themselves in relation to the fight against terrorism and emerging forms of radicalisation. Finally, it introduces a discussion on how this issue may be framed to build and maintain the legitimacy of political elites in the aftermath of the 2011 uprisings, incidentally pulling the once-politicised youth away from the mainstream political sphere.