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This article investigates the motivations driving the production of ISIS’s distinctive 2015 video, No Respite, released in response to the UN Security Council’s condemnation of the terrorist organization’s spate of violence. The article embraces a unique methodological framework that examines both the relationship between identity, discourse, and critical geopolitics and ISIS’s specific organized persuasive communication strategies. The framework is used to explain ISIS’s use of statistics as well as competitive and masculine discourse to bolster its legitimacy as a self-proclaimed state. The analysis is conducted through the lens of ISIS’s goal to be seen as a legitimate statehood project in lieu of a violent non-state actor.

In the context of the global jihadist mobilization triggered by the outbreak of the Syrian war in 2012 and the subsequent emergence of Islamic State, child and adolescent recruitment has reached unprecedented levels in Spain. Between 2013 and 2019, 44 jihadists were arrested in this country due to their involvement in the indoctrination and recruitment of individuals below 18 years of age. How did they carry out the mobilization of minors in support of global jihadism? Adopting a qualitative approach guided by grounded theory methods to address the question, this article relies on evidence collected mostly from primary sources (police reports, criminal proceedings, court hearings, as well as semi-structured interviews with police experts and front-line practitioners). The results indicate that their radicalization strategies varied as a function of the existence of previous personal ties between the recruiter and the minor; the age of the minor; and the environment in which the process unfolded. The interaction of these three factors generates the outline of three different formulas used in Spain for jihadist indoctrination of underage youth: one unfolds within the family milieu, another within the immediate social environment and a third via cyberspace.

This paper sheds light upon ISIS global-level media operations based on an empirical analysis of 79 official English-language videos using the Braddock and Horgan’s analytical guideline for content analysis. This study results in a quantifiable assessment of videos based on their release dates, language, media centres, duration, musical arrangement, and many other production characteristics, and concludes that ISIS has created a highly sophisticated propaganda apparatus and media operation system with a strong ability to cope with the circumstances and various real-world events that ISIS faces on the ground. Additionally, ISIS’s message contains argumentative moves, and without the knowledge of what these moves are and how they respond to existing dialogues, our understanding of the group’s message in certain dimensions remains partial and incomplete.

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VOX-Pol Blog Post.

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