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Communicating and Confronting ISIS: Variations in the Construction of Political Ideologies in Traditional and Non-Traditional Media Outlets

Published 07 Nov 2016
Jessica Herne

The media have long been considered a crucial actor in the construction and dissemination of political ideologies. Media outlets create a space for public discussion, impacting political discourses both nationally and globally. This is particularly true when it comes to terrorist organisations; as for these groups the media represent the primary avenue for disseminating the ideology behind their violent actions.[1] Since its appearance on the international stage in 2014,[2] the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has been the focus of much media attention. Examination of ISIS’ presence and representation in both traditional and non-traditional media reveals the different audiences and the different levels of agency that these mediums provide to radical non-state actors. The following analysis compares how these representations are formed across traditional media – primarily newspapers and television – and non-traditional media – primarily social media, examining how the logics, structures and audiences of these forms affect the construction of ISIS’ ideology. While traditional media remains a ‘battleground’ in which institutional forces seek to limit the dissemination of ISIS’ political message, non-traditional media allows ISIS a space where it is able to more freely construct its supporters and targets a self-representation in line with its politico-religious messages.

Media Logic and Structures

Both traditional and non-traditional media outlets provide coverage of radical political ideologies that facilitate the dissemination of these actor’s values and ideology. For example, coverage of politically violent incidents often includes analysis of the perpetrator’s ideas and intent. On one level, conveying this information can be seen as a journalistic duty;[3] however, critiques of such coverage highlight the media’s apparent readiness to reward terrorist behaviour through publicity.[4] Even political leaders acknowledge that ‘publicity is the oxygen of terrorism’.[5] Such representation allows ISIS to communicate the ideology behind their actions, and thus encourage the perpetuation of their ideologies and activities. The audio-visual elements of both traditional and non-traditional media comprise a key mechanism that facilitates the distribution of political messages of non-state actors such as ISIS to the public. Images have been found to have a longer lasting impact on audiences than text, particularly in regards to conveying incidents of violence.[6] The use of exceptionally visual violence has been a distinguishing trait of ISIS’ approach to media.[7] This violence distinguishes ISIS from other jihadist groups operating in the region. It also serves to reinforce ISIS’ extreme religious rhetoric against the kufah, or the unfaithful, a categorisation that it extends to include any Muslims who do not support its actions.[8] Furthermore, Neumann argues that the escalation of visual violence perpetrated by ISIS in the media can be attributed to media saturation, as terrorists are prompted to engage in even more vicious acts of violence in order to reach a desensitised audience.[9] These violent images are able to proliferate through both forms of media as they feed into media logic and values by being shocking and suspenseful: ‘violence, and unusual violence, is in essence newsworthy’.[10] For traditional media, this results in high ratings; for non-traditional media, the shock value translates into increased virility.[11] In this way, the diffusion of political ideologies across both traditional and non-traditional media is determined, in part, by the application of particular media logics and structures.

There has been a shift in distribution patterns between traditional media and non-traditional media. The former operates largely as a one-way transmitter of information while the latter offers more networked forms of idea construction in participatory spaces.[12] Similarly, non-state actors, such as ISIS, are increasingly moving to network, rather than hierarchical, organisational structures.[13] This is reflected in ISIS’ approach to communications. For example, the Dawn of Glad Tidings application allows ISIS’ social media content generators to post tweets on behalf of assenting users, amplifying their reach while staggering messages to avoid detection by Twitter’s anti-spam programs.[14] When users are detected and suspended, they quickly re-register and use promotion by ISIS node twitters in order to regain their followers and reach.[15] The impact of this strategy was demonstrated when the organisation was able to generate 40,000 tweets on the day of its invasion of Mosul, in a form of ‘psychological warfare’.[16] This ‘crowd-sourcing’ of jihadist political content on non-traditional media has allowed ISIS’ ideology to ‘permeate our cultural atmosphere to an outsize degree’ that could not be independently achieved on traditional media.[17]

In order to take advantage of this ease of proliferation, ISIS has dedicated considerable resources to producing content with high production values that supports its ideology. ISIS-controlled production companies such as Al-Furqaan Foundation and Al-Hayat Media Center generate video content that furthers the media construction of the martyred ISIS jihadist in a manner favourable to ISIS.[18] While these videos are created primarily for distribution via non-traditional media outlets, online content is frequently featured in traditional media, showing that the two forms of media do not exist in isolation.[19] Their production structures are connected, and share a common logic that facilitates self-construction of political ideologies through violent imagery.

Audiences

The transmission of political content through the media impacts different audiences in particular ways and on different scales. Although non-traditional media is often described as the more borderless form, both traditional and non-traditional media offer a great capacity to connect message to audience on a global scale. Mass media continue to allow terrorists to reach large audiences.[20] This is particularly true in a globalised news environment, where content on major news networks can be proliferated globally as well as nationally, creating a centralised dialogue across borders.[21] Traditional news also remains able to access areas and audiences that non-traditional media cannot, for example in countries such as Pakistan where Internet saturation remains low.[22] Where there is Internet access, however, non-traditional media presents its own possibilities for the dissemination of ISIS’ ideology. Content can be generated for, and distributed to, specific audiences with variations in the ideological representation to generate targeted effects.[23] This narrowcasting approach can be seen in ISIS’ hijacking of World Cup hash-tags on Twitter, showing content designed to intimidate and threaten Western audiences.[24] Users are also able to control their own access of information, with American supporters of ISIS able to gain English translations of Arabic pro-ISIS content via social media.[25] Therefore, traditional media conveys ISIS to mass audiences, while non-traditional media presents more individualised representations to those who are online.

Social media and online forums create a place of ‘social liminality’ that facilitates the formation of radical ideology.[26] By constructing an environment in which jihadist views are artificially amplified while simultaneously detached from the real world, it encourages the normalisation of attitudes outside of social norms.[27] Analysis of various case studies demonstrates the frequency with which social media plays a role in the radicalisation of individuals in Western countries who are otherwise isolated from Islamic jihadist ideology.[28] ISIS recruitment targets are often young people, who are particularly comfortable in these spaces.[29] The use of a first-person perspective in videos produced by Al-Hayat Media Center mimics the self-representation practices of younger generations in order to create a connection between the viewer and the martyr.[30] These social media recruitment practices have overcome many counter-terrorist initiatives, and are extremely difficult for opposing actors to ‘counter with traditional forms of communication’.[31] For ISIS, then, the primary audience of non-traditional media is young potential supporters, who can be radicalised through personalised interaction with ideological advocates.

Institutional Gate-Keeping

A central part of ISIS’ ideology is the formation of the caliphate in the modern day. This accelerates the ideology of groups such as Al Qaeda, whose leaders saw the construction of a caliphate as a distant goal rather than one that would manifest directly in the present.[32] ISIS-generated social media content ‘emphasise[s] [the caliphate’s] alleged utopian aspects, particularly the freedom of any trace of religious prosecution’.[33] Positive portrayals of infrastructure projects and state-building efforts in social media stand in direct contrast to articles from traditional media outlets like the BBC, which chronicle instances of water poisoning. For example, an article containing testimonies from residents of the ISIS-controlled Mosul also states that ‘not one house owned by a Christian in Mosul was not taken over and looted by IS members’.[34] The representation of the caliphate demonstrates how traditional media offers institutional resistance to revolutionary and violent political ideologies. This results in more critical constructions of ISIS that align more strongly with the perspectives and aims of Western governments: ‘the fight against terrorism [is represented] as a fearful battle against crime’.[35] Zhang and Hellmueller’s content analysis of CNN and Al Jazeera support this; where government sources contributed most significantly to coverage of ISIS.[36] Additionally, traditional news organisations typically respond to major actions by terrorist groups with endorsement of government policy, in order to avoid a public perception of being ‘soft on terrorism’.[37] In this way, the representation of the Caliphate constitutes an institutional effort to oppose pro-ISIS interpretations of the group’s ideology.

Through guidelines for the reporting of terrorist incidents, traditional media also limits ISIS’ ability to construct its ideology via media sources.[38] For example, in his defense of The Guardian’s coverage of an ISIS hostage-killing video, Elliot details the Guardian’s policy of ‘avoid[ing] pictures that glamorise the perpetrator … [and] only use[ing] a closely cropped still picture of the hostage’.[39] This is designed to mitigate the potential harm experienced by audiences, and to limit the extent to which coverage perpetuates the actor’s messages. The resistance to non-critical expressions of ISIS ideology, despite the financial imperatives of media logic encouraging the use of shock content, can be understood through ISIS’ role as a disruptive element: it is a ‘religion of revolution’ that accordingly presents itself ‘in opposition to the dominant social faction’.[40] Traditional media organisations, as elements of this dominant faction, thus view ISIS as an existential threat, and respond accordingly in their coverage.

This resistance is not found on non-traditional media, as structural factors mean that there is no overarching institutional accountability as found in traditional media. Instead, non-traditional media offers increased capacity for jihadists to provide a more direct representation of their ideology, rather than passing through the gate-keeping processes of traditional media. The Internet challenges hierarchies of media power, and provides ‘opportunit[ies] for lay persons to consume, construct and share stories about terrorist events’.[41] The Internet and its various sites offer ‘accessibility, [low] cost[,] … anonymity and lack of censorship’.[42] The impact of this low-barrier entry can be seen in the widespread nature of ISIS’ social media operations, with an estimated 38 unique items of content produced each day.[43] ISIS has proliferated its activities across a variety of social media platforms, as well as messaging applications, forums and an online magazine.[44] Twitter, in particular, is viewed as the main hub of American ISIS supporter activity.[45] What institutional resistance there is, largely from Internet Service Providers, is countered by the ephemeral nature of most ISIS content.[46] Websites can exist undetected on unrelated servers and, when discovered, relocate with relative ease.[47] In addition to allowing ISIS to self-represent through the circumvention of traditional gatekeepers, these technical activities take on a political dimension. They act as a signifier of ISIS’ resilience and strength and its capacity to subvert the Western values of transparency and openness of political communication epitomised by social media.[48]

Conclusion

Traditional news and non-traditional news operate on similar media logics. The violent imagery used by ISIS in order to convey its political message targets this logic in order to gain publicity, and to present itself as powerful and threatening to both Western audiences and Middle Eastern audiences alike. Where these two media forms differ is in the way their overall structure influences the construction and dissemination of this message. In traditional media, a broad message of fear is translated to mass audiences, but the institutional forces of the media outlets also offer resistance, undermining utopian images of the ISIS caliphate. In non-traditional media, narrowcasting and manipulation of technical structures empower ISIS to act against specific audiences and appeal to potential supporters. ISIS’ ideology is more effectively translated and proliferated through non-traditional media due to a lack of overarching resistance found in traditional media.

References:

[1] Nacos, Brigitte (2012) Terrorism and Counterterrorism (4th ed.) Routledge: London.

[2] Zhang, Xu and Hellmueller, Lee (2016) “Transnational Media Coverage of the ISIS Threat: A Global Perspective?” in International Journal of Communication, Vol. 10, 766.

[3] Marlin, Randal (2014) “Media-Related Strategies and ‘War on Terrorism’”, in Eid, Mahmoud (ed.) Exchanging Terrorism Oxygen for Media Airwaves: the Age of Terroredia. Hershey: IGI Global, 124.

[4] Nacos, Brigitte (2012) Terrorism and Counterterrorism (4th ed.). Routledge: London, 262.

[5] Cheong, Pauline Hope (2014) “New Media and Terrorism”, in Eid, Mahmoud (ed.) Exchanging Terrorism Oxygen for Media Airwaves: the Age of Terroredia. Hershey: IGI Global, 193.

[6] Nacos, Brigitte (2012) Terrorism and Counterterrorism (4th ed.). Routledge: London, 262.

[7] Greene, Kyle (2015) ‘ISIS: Trends in Terrorist Media and Propaganda,’ International Studies Capstones Research Papers, accessed at <http://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/international_studies_capstones/>.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Neumann, Peter (2009) ‘Old and New Terrorism,’ in Social Europe Journal: The Journal of the European Left, Vol. 4, No. 3, 42.

[10] Nacos, Brigitte (2012) Terrorism and Counterterrorism (4th ed.). Routledge: London, 271.

[11] Elliot, Chris. (2016) “Coverage of ISIS Videos should be news, not propaganda”, The Guardian, <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/11/coverage-of-isis-videos-should-be-about-news-not-propaganda>, viewed May 30 2016.

[12] Koerner, Brendan (2016) “Why ISIS is Winning the Social Media War”, in WIRED, <http://www.wired.com/2016/03/isis-winning-social-media-war-heres-beat/>, visited May 24 2016.

[13] Neumann, Peter (2009) ‘Old and New Terrorism,’ in Social Europe Journal: The Journal of the European Left, Vol. 4, No. 3, 42.

[14] Berger, J. M. (2014) “How ISIS Games Twitter”, The Atlantic, <http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/isis-iraq-twitter- social-media- strategy/372856/>, viewed May 30 2016.

[15] Vidino, Lorenzo & Hughes, Seamus (2015) “ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa”, <www.stratcomcoe.org/download/file/fid/2828>, viewed 30 May 2016.

[16] Cohen, Jared. (2015) “Digital Counterinsurgency: How to Marginalize the Islamic State Online”, in Burns, Nicholas and Price, Jonathan (eds.) Blind Spot: America’s Response to Radicalism in the Middle East. Aspen Institute: Washington, D.C., 128.

[17] Koerner, Brendan (2016) “Why ISIS is Winning the Social Media War,” WIRED, <http://www.wired.com/2016/03/isis-winning-social-media-war-heres-beat/>, visited May 24 2016.

[18] Cohen, Jared. (2015) “Digital Counterinsurgency: How to Marginalize the Islamic State Online”, in Burns, Nicholas and Price, Jonathan (eds.) Blind Spot: America’s Response to Radicalism in the Middle East. Aspen Institute: Washington, D.C., 128.

[19] Lewis, James (2005) “The Internet and Terrorism”, in Proceedings of the Annual Meeting (American Society of International Law), Vol. 99, 113.

[20] Hassan, Kiran (2014) “The Role of Private Electronic Media in Radicalizing Pakistan”, in The Round Table, Vol. 103, No. 1, 65.

[21] Zhang, Xu and Hellmueller, Lee (2016) “Transnational Media Coverage of the ISIS Threat: A Global Perspective?” in International Journal of Communication, Vol. 10, 767.

[22] Hassan, Kiran (2014) “The Role of Private Electronic Media in Radicalizing Pakistan” in The Round Table, Vol. 103, No. 1, 66.

[23] Koerner, Brendan (2016) “Why ISIS is Winning the Social Media War,” WIRED, <http://www.wired.com/2016/03/isis-winning-social-media-war-heres-beat/>, visited May 24 2016.

[24] Farwell, James. (2014) “The Media Strategy of ISIS”, in Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, Vol. 56, No. 6, 55.

[25] Vidino, Lorenzo & Hughes, Seamus (2015) “ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa”, <www.stratcomcoe.org/download/file/fid/2828>, viewed 30 May 2016.

[26] Halverson, Jeffry and Way, Amy (2012) “The curious case of Colleen LaRose: Social margins, new media, and online radicalization”, in Media, War & Conflict, Vol. 5, No. 2, 142.

[27] Stevens, Tim and Neumann, P. (2009) “Countering Online Radicalization: A Strategy for Action”, International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence, accessed at <http://icsr.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/1236768491ICSROnlineRadicalisationReport.pdf>, viewed May 29 2016.

[28] Vidino, Lorenzo & Hughes, Seamus (2015) “ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa”, <www.stratcomcoe.org/download/file/fid/2828>, viewed 30 May 2016.

[29] Mullen, Jethro (2015) “What is ISIS’ appeal for young people?” CNN, accessed at <http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/25/middleeast/isis-kids-propaganda/>.

[30] Koerner, Brendan (2016) “Why ISIS is Winning the Social Media War,” WIRED, <http://www.wired.com/2016/03/isis-winning-social-media-war-heres-beat/>, visited May 24 2016.

[31] Cheong, P. H. (2014) “New Media and Terrorism”, in Eid, Mahmoud (ed.) Exchanging Terrorism Oxygen for Media Airwaves: the Age of Terroredia, 184-196.

[32] Wood, Graeme (2015) “What ISIS Really Wants” in The Atlantic, accessed at <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/>.

[33] Koerner, Brendan (2016) “Why ISIS is Winning the Social Media War,” WIRED, <http://www.wired.com/2016/03/isis-winning-social-media-war-heres-beat/>, visited May 24 2016.

[34] BBC (2014) “Mosul diaries: Poisoned by water”, BBC News, accessed at <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29600573>, viewed May 25 2016.

[35] Cheong, P. H. (2014) “New Media and Terrorism”, In M. Eid (ed.) Exchanging Terrorism Oxygen for Media Airwaves: the Age of Terroredia. Hershey: IGI Global, 188.

[36] Zhang, Xu and Hellmueller, Lee (2016) “Transnational Media Coverage of the ISIS Threat: A Global Perspective?” in International Journal of Communication, Vol. 10, 779.

[37] Marlin, Randal (2014) “Media-Related Strategies and ‘War on Terrorism’”, in Eid, Mahmoud (ed.) Exchanging Terrorism Oxygen for Media Airwaves: the Age of Terroredia. Hershey: IGI Global, 129.

[38] Nacos, Brigitte (2012) Terrorism and Counterterrorism (4th ed.). Routledge: London, 272.

[39] Elliot, Chris. (2016) “Coverage of ISIS Videos should be news, not propaganda”, The Guardian, <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/11/coverage-of-isis-videos-should-be-about-news-not-propaganda>, viewed May 25 2016.

[40] Lincoln in Halverson, Jeffry and Way, Amy (2012) “The curious case of Colleen LaRose: Social margins, new media, and online radicalization”, in Media, War & Conflict, Vol. 5, No. 2, 141.

[41] Cheong, Pauline Hope (2014) “New Media and Terrorism”, In Eid, Mahmoud (ed.) Exchanging Terrorism Oxygen for Media Airwaves: the Age of Terroredia. Hershey: IGI Global, 185.

[42] Awan, Akil (2007) ‘”Virtual jihadist media: Function, legitimacy and radicalizing efficacy”, in European Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol 10, 389.

[43] Koerner, Brendan (2016) “Why ISIS is Winning the Social Media War,” in WIRED, <http://www.wired.com/2016/03/isis-winning-social-media-war-heres-beat/>, visited May 24 2016.

[44] Ibid.

[45] Vidino, Lorenzo & Hughes, Seamus (2015) “ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa”, <www.stratcomcoe.org/download/file/fid/2828>, viewed 30 May 2016.

[46] Lewis, James (2005) “The Internet and Terrorism”, in Proceedings of the Annual Meeting (American Society of International Law), Vol. 99, 113.

[47] Ibid.

[48] Koerner, Brendan (2016) “Why ISIS is Winning the Social Media War,<http://www.wired.com/2016/03/isis-winning-social-media-war-heres-beat/>, visited May 24 2016.