“Flexible” capital accumulation in Islamic State social media

ABSTRACT

This article explores online social media produced by the neo-jihadist group “Islamic State” (IS) from a political-economic perspective. Using a framework developed by anthropologist David Harvey, it examines how IS social media operates within depoliticised neoliberal environments characterised by “flexible” regimes of capital accumulation. It explicates how IS acquires political-economic capital by evoking “spectacle”, “fashion” and a “commodification of cultural forms”. Drawing from Christian Fuchs’ informational theory, the article also considers the roles of agency and competition in accumulation processes where “knowledge and technology reinforce each other”. By revealing how IS both constitutes and is constituted by its flexible approach to social media, the article seeks to illuminate avenues for better understanding neo-jihadist ideations.

KEYWORDS:

• Neo-jihadist
• Islamic State
• spectacle
• commodification
• competition
• capital accumulation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Imogen Richards

Imogen Richards is a PhD candidate at Monash University. She studied Bachelor degrees in English and Media, an Honours degree in Postmodernist Literature, and a Master of International Studies at The University of Adelaide. Her PhD research explores reflexivity between neoliberalism in twenty-first-century neo-jihadism and incidents of neoliberal policy in post-9/11 US counterterrorism. Her other research interests include performativity and risk in contemporary counterterrorist thought.