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ABSTRACT
he paper examines the digital practices and discourses of the Islamic State (IS) when exploiting Social Media Communication (SMC) environments to propagate their jihadist ideology and mobilise specific audiences. It draws on insights from Social Media Critical Discourse Studies, observational approaches, and visual content/semiotic analysis. The paper maintains the complementary nature of technological practice and discursive content in the process of meaning-making in digital jihadist discourse. The study shows that digital practices of strategic sharing, distribution and campaigns to re-upload textual materials are made possible by exploiting SMC communicative affordances. As for the analysis of discursive content, the paper focuses on YouTube and highlights strategic patterns and covert references in an IS-produced flagship video. It illustrates how IS discourse constructs its envisaged in-group/outgroup by (re-)symbolising current events within historical, political and ideological conflict scenarios, i.e. the incessant resistance and legitimacy of forces of virtue vs evil. By foregrounding symbolic references to military outgroup actors, IS legitimises its own violence and projects a powerful self-identity against a (perceived) global hegemony. The paper shows how the combination of a technologically savvy operation and a resistant, anti-hegemonic narrative, embedded in a strategically framed symbolism of Islam, may resonate with global (quasi)-diasporic digital consumers.
Acknowledgement
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No [707482-MWDIR].
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 According to the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (February 2015).
2 The authors retract various bits of digital information in discussing accounts and archives here and elsewhere to avoid indirect promotion of them.
3 Shaaban is the 8th month in the Islamic calendar and is considered one of the meritorious months, with particular instructions in the Sunnah.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Majid KhosraviNik
Dr. Majid KhosraviNik is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Media & Discourse Studies at Newcastle University, UK. He is interested in the intersection of social media technologies, discourse and politics. Working through a Social Media CDS understanding, Majid’s work includes the theorisation, characterisation and adaptation of Critical Discourse Studies on a range of topics, e.g. digital (national/ gender/ ideological) identity, digital populism, immigration/ nationalism, political communication etc. Majid is a founder and convenor of the Newcastle Critical Discourse Group and sits on the board of the Journal of Language and Politics and Critical Discourse Studies, as well as serving as an Expert Reviewer for ERC actions, including Marie Curie IF, Combating Digital Misogyny, Islamophobia and Racism, British ESRC and several other international research funding organisations. His most recent work pertains to the integration of analysis of technology and discourse under the notion of Techno-Discursive Analysis as a model for the critical analysis of digital discourse formation and perception (KhosraviNik, Citation2017, Citation2018, Citation2019).
Mohammedwesam Amer
Dr. Mohammedwesam Amer is the Dean of Faculty of Mass Communication and Languages at Gaza University in Palestine. He is a specialist in social-media discourse and terrorism. Mohammedwesam completed his PhD in Media and Communication at the University of Hamburg, Germany, under the title: ‘War Reporting in the International Press: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Gaza War of 2008–2009’. He joined Newcastle University as a Marie Curie fellow and post-doctoral researcher between 2017 and 2019, working on an EU-funded project ‘Media Warfare and the Discourse of Islamic Revival: The Case of the Islamic State’ in collaboration with Dr Majid KhosraviNik. Mohammedwesam has presented his research at various conferences and given invited talks as an expert in media and terrorism.