Is IS Online Chatter Just Noise?: An Analysis of the Islamic State Strategic Communications

ABSTRACT

The objective of this research is to analyze the potential use of strategic communication, and specifically, strategic brand management and online communications directed to a foreign target by the Islamic State (IS). For this purpose, a review of official the IS online media releases was carried out to determine if they reflect characteristics, components, or tools of strategic communication. In this pursuit, a content analysis of a purposive sample of 381 events—photographs, infographics, English written content, and videos—were applied using two independent judges. Statistically relevant results substantiate claims that the IS uses communication strategies and tactics. Descriptive and inferential statistics point out that Delegitimize Opponents, Utopia-Religion, and Military are the three most commonly used themes, in line with the reported IS identity. Also the IS uses breadth of contents, targets, media outlets, and formats, showing content and social media communications such as in online communication. As far as the authors are aware, it is the first content analysis from a strategic communication perspective used to interpret potential branding by the IS. This study is timely, important and lends credibility to the use of communication and marketing terminology by terrorist experts, as well as bridging brand management and strategic communication and terrorism identifying potential targets, messages, channels and tools for counter arguing and positioning.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ The group created by al-Zarqawi has undergone numerous name changes and goes by many names in the international media: the Islamic State (IS), the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the Arabic acronym Daesh. This study refers to the jihadi-Salafist organization as the Islamic State. This is not meant to support the group’s claim to a state or heighten its status, but to represent the brand as the group presents itself to its audiences. Also, it is important to recognize that the Islamic State is an evolving organization and the situation on the ground is fluid. Thus, even if the Islamic State was to lose all its territory tomorrow, as already happened, and retreat into a guerrilla and terrorist organization operating without a de facto state and primarily sustained by online activities, it is still important to understand these capabilities.

² A wilayat is an administrative division, a province or geographical area, a territory in which IS operates. Each wilayat has its own logo and media production capacity.

³ All, among others, quoted by Author.

⁴ The codebook is available from authors upon request.