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This article analyses Dabiq magazine to explore the strategic logic of Islamic State (IS) appeals to English-speaking Muslims. It offers the field a conceptual framework through which to analyse IS’s communications strategy and a top-down empirical study of Dabiq’s contents. This paper argues that Dabiq appeals to its audiences by strategically designing in-group identity, Other, solution and crisis constructs which it leverages via value-, crisis- and dichotomy-reinforcing narratives. By fusing identity- and rational-choice appeals, IS provides its audiences with a powerful ‘competitive system of meaning’ that is designed to shape its readership’s perceptions, polarise their support and drive their radicalisation.

Islamic State (IS) has used English-language magazines as a crucial component of its propaganda strategy, particularly targeting Muslims living in the West. This paper provides a quick reference guide to IS’s English-language magazines released between June 2014 and September 2017 examining key themes and propaganda strategies deployed across three issues of Islamic State News, four issues of Islamic State Report, fifteen issues of Dabiq and thirteen issues of Rumiyah. It concludes by highlighting four trends and their implications for CT-CVE strategic communications practitioners. First, IS use a mix of rational- and identity-choice appeals to provide its various target audiences with a ‘competitive system of meaning’ which CT-CVE strategic communication efforts must seek to dismantle with careful campaign and message design. Second, over the period of 2014-17 IS appears to have deployed a thematic ‘hedging’ strategy characterised by certain messaging themes being prioritised over others during periods of boom versus bust. By identifying the signatures of IS’s use of propaganda ‘hedging’, CT-CVE practitioners can be better prepared to confront current and future challenges from IS propagandists. Third, IS’s English-language magazines must be understood within the context of trends across its broader propaganda effort. To effectively address this multifaceted threat, CT-CVE practitioners would benefit from applying the KISMI (Keep It Simple Maximise Impact) principle of rolling-out a strategic communications campaign. Finally, the appearance of instructional material in IS propaganda highlights the need for post-incident CT-CVE strategic communication plans to undermine the strategic logic of so-called “inspired” attacks.

There is a tendency in scholarly and strategic-policy fields to see the propaganda produced by groups like Islamic State and Al-Qaeda as historically unheralded. As evidence, slickly produced communiques and a penchant for using social media are typically highlighted. This narrow perspective, in placing the current phenomenon into an historical and thematic vacuum, infers that history has little to offer contemporary efforts to understand and confront extremist propaganda. This research paper explores the history of propaganda during conflict and draws out key lessons for improving counterterrorism strategic communications. Overall, history suggests that a strategic communications campaign during conflict is more likely to succeed if it based on a multifaceted approach characterised by the deployment of a diversity of messages that leverage a variety of target audience motivations, uses all pertinent means of communication (not just the latest), and synchronises this messaging with strategicpolicy/politico-military actions.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

This paper investigates whether the counter-terrorism measures developed and implemented within the European Union have a universal character and are equally effective in the context of various types of terrorism. The authors focus on the strategies applicable to the terrorist activities online, since information and communication technology is perceived as the fastest growing and continually changing field of the terrorist threat. So far, most of the counteractions and security strategies have been subordinated to the jihadism combating. However, in recent years, the significant growth of threats coming from far-right and far-left terrorist activities has been observed. It raises questions about the capability of instruments to prevent and combat other types of terrorism as well as jihadism. The research was conducted in particular, on the basis of international organizations’ reports, the authors’ observations, and practitioners’ remarks. As follows from its results, there are significant differences in the phenomenon, current trends, and modus operandi of the perpetrators in the jihadi, far-right, and far-left terrorism. Consequently, it is possible to conclude that the effectiveness of chosen countermeasures, subordinated – as a rule – to the fighting of the jihadi extremists, is doubtful in preventing and combating far-right and far-left terrorism.

The digital era of information technology appears to be a new space and place for the Indonesian Shiite communities to express their existence and conceal their “cloak” in the country.. Internet, websites, Facebook pages, Blog spots, and Twitter are tilized by these Shiite followers and supporters to show their presence, activities, interactivity, and thoughts about Islam. Responding to those Shia media, the anti-Shia movements such as the fundamentalist Sunnis, the Wahabi-Salafi’s, the Wahabi-Takfiri’s supporters have created their online publications and fan pages to counter those Shia’s publications. The online media battles on sectarianism issue then have sparked in the cyberspace of Indonesia in the last three years. Using a critical cultural studies tradition and textual approach, this study tries to examine the rise of Shia and anti-Shia online media as well as the meanings and contexts in which violent actions occurred amongst the Sunni-Shia Muslim communities on it. This paper also attempts to look closely at the way the media writes, covers, and build opinions and attitude to inform and provoke the public.