Mapping the Thematic Landscape of Dabiq Magazine
September 18, 2023
This article presents a thematic network analysis of Dabiq—a prominent English-language e-magazine produced by the Islamic State. Through formal qualitative analysis, the article examines the e-magazine’s first 13 issues in order to better understand its structure, evolution and intended audiences. In terms of structure, thematic network analysis provides a comprehensive and holistic understanding of Dabiq’s ...
An Analysis of Inspire and Dabiq: Lessons from AQAP and Islamic State’s Propaganda War
September 18, 2023
This study analyzes how Inspire and Dabiq seek to appeal to and radicalize English-speaking Muslims. It examines how each magazine strategically designs ingroup, Other, crisis, and solution constructs and interplays these via value-, dichotomy-, and crisis-reinforcing narratives. This analysis also explores how narrative, imagery, and counternarrative messaging are used to shape readers’ perceptions and polarize ...
Fishermen or Swarm Dynamics? Should we Understand Jihadist Online-Radicalization as a Top-Down or Bottom-Up Process?
September 18, 2023
The internet has profoundly changed the way we communicate, including how jihadist groups seek to reach Western audiences with their propaganda strategies. Cases of believed online-radicalization call for a re-evaluation of radicalization processes, previously thought to depend on face-to-face interactions. Based on the Hoffman-Sageman debate on whether top-down or bottom-up processes drive terrorism, this essay ...
The Response of, and on, Twitter to the Release of Dabiq Issue 15
September 18, 2023
The so-called Islamic State (IS) has a sophisticated media strategy (Winter 2017), an important part of which has been its English-language online magazine Dabiq. Launched in July 2014, a total of fifteen issues of Dabiq in the two years that followed. These issues were disseminated in a variety of ways, including archive sites (Bodo and ...
Toward a Framework Understanding of Online Programs for Countering Violent Extremism
September 18, 2023
There is an emerging consensus that ideologically-based narratives play a central role in encouraging and sustaining radicalization to violence, and that preventing, arresting, or reversing radicalization requires some means by which to address the effects of these narratives. Countering violent extremism (CVE) is a broad umbrella phrase that covers a wide array of approaches that ...
Winning the Cyberwar Against ISIS
September 18, 2023
Despite the efforts of the United States and its allies to fight the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), the group remains a formidable danger. It holds territory in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, and Syria and directs cells in Bangladesh, Egypt, France, the North Caucasus, and Yemen. ISIS operatives have conducted terrorist attacks in Europe—including ...
An Analysis of ISIS Propaganda and Recruitment Activities Targeting the Turkish-Speaking Population
September 18, 2023
The “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (ISIS) is the main source of instability, not only in Iraq and Syria, but also throughout the Middle East. The instability poses a danger for the other parts of the world because of the influx of foreign fighters to the region. Extremists have taken advantage of the continuing ...
Understanding Psycho-Sociological Vulnerability of ISIS Patronizers in Twitter
September 18, 2023
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a Salafi jihadist militant group that has made extensive use of online social media platforms to promulgate its ideologies and evoke many individuals to support the organization. The psycho- sociological background of an individual plays a crucial role in determining his/her vulnerability of being lured into ...
Terrorist Use of the Internet by the Numbers: Quantifying Behaviors, Patterns, and Processes
September 18, 2023
Public interest and policy debates surrounding the role of the Internet in terrorist activities is increasing. Criminology has said very little on the matter. By using a unique data set of 223 convicted United Kingdom–based terrorists, this article focuses on how they used the Internet in the commission of their crimes. As most samples of ...
Digital/Commercial (in)Visibility
September 18, 2023
This article explores one aspect of digital politics, the politics of videos and more specifically of DAESH recruitment videos. It proposes a practice theoretical approach to the politics of DAESH recruitment videos focused on the re-production of regimes of (in)visibility. The article develops an argument demonstrating specifically how digital and commercial logics characterize the aesthetic, ...