Online Library

An analysis of Harakat al-Shabab’s multimedia releases and the rapid evolution in their production quality and design over a period of two to three years. Sound quality, animation, syncing sound with visuals, and narrative structures have all improved from the group’s multimedia releases from 2007 and 2008 when its videos were relatively simple, often just individuals sitting in front of a video camera, possibly just a camcorder, and grainy battle footage depicting fierce firefights between Harakat al-Shabab and the interim Somali government and its chief military backers, the African Union expeditionary force stationed inside the country.

The Somali jihadi-insurgent movement Al-Shabab has established itself, since emerging in 2007 after the overthrow of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) umbrella in the wake of the December 2006 Ethiopian invasion and occupation of parts of Somalia, as one of the relatively few jihadi organizations to succeed in the capture, control, and governance of territory for a significant period of time. When Islamic State was masquerading as a «paper state» in 2008 and 2009, Al-Shabab’s leadership was busy constructing a bureaucracy of power, divided into regional and local nodes of authority, designed to implement and maintain insurgent rule over rapidly expanding territories. In establishing itself as a self-proclaimed and seemingly viable alternative governing authority, even if only in the short to medium term, Al Shabab continues to present a major challenge to the internationally recognized but weak and corrupt Somali Federal Government (SFG), the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), and the international community. The Somali insurgents, in successfully implementing a form of law and order, however harsh and philistine their interpretation of Islamic law and specifically their imposition of hudud («set») punishments for crimes such as highway robbery, banditry, theft, zina (various forms of fornication), and murder, provided other Sunni jihadi groups with an example of how jihadi-insurgent governance can be enacted in practice.

Over the course of the 2016 Presidential campaign, an execrable trend has emerged: reporters who voiced even slightly negative opinions about presidential candidate Donald Trump have been targeted relentlessly on social media by the candidate’s self-styled supporters; reporters who are Jewish (or are perceived to be Jewish) have borne the brunt of these attacks. There is evidence that Mr. Trump himself may have contributed to an environment in which reporters were targeted. Indeed, he repeatedly denounced reporters as “absolute scum,” and said of “most journalists” in December 2015, “I would never kill them, but I do hate them. And some of them are such lying, disgusting people. It’s true.” Accordingly, while we cannot (and do not) say that the candidate caused the targeting of reporters, we can say that he may have created an atmosphere in which
such targeting arose.

The social media attacks on journalists were brutal.

Steam, the largest and most important online store for PC gamers with over $4 Billion in revenue in 2017, has recently gained popularity among white supremacists for being a platform, like Gab and Telegram, where they can openly express their ideology and calls for violence. The difference between Steam and social media platforms like Telegram or Gab is that while the latter do not share a formal business relationship with the wider social media industry, Steam has direct and lucrative relationships with most major game companies, including 2K, Electronic Arts, Xbox Game Studios, Ubisoft and others. Many of these game companies have made public statements about and dedicated significant resources towards keeping their products safe from the kinds of hateful ideologies espoused by extremists — while continuing to work with Steam.

During the 2019 Christchurch attack, the perpetrator livestreamed footage from a helmet-mounted camera. The aesthetic similarity of the attack footage to first-person shooter (FPS) videogames has led to speculation that this might have somehow ‘gamified’ the attack. Generally, the argument for this is that the attack footage (1) imitates or resembles FPS games, gamifying attacks (2) increasing the affective appeal of propaganda by presenting it as play and thereby (3) increasing the salience of these attacks within gaming communities. This article challenges these notions. It argues that the FPS genre should not be associated with such footage due to visual similarity and is better considered in relation to film. The idea that such footage was purposefully shot to look like an FPS is unsupported, and more likely the result of practical considerations. While the framework of gamification might be useful, it should rest on interactivity, rather than aesthetic similarity.

Surfing on the Internet 2.0 revolution, Patani 2.0 has allowed Patani neojihadist militants to access new competitive spaces and create their own imagined online community by penetrating new realms of the Internet. This article discusses the use of new media militant propaganda by Patani militants and how it is Janus faced. It further examines how the Patani 2.0 social interaction enabled by social media such as YouTube leads to group cohesion among certain actors and the formation of a collective identity that is clustered around the notions of Muslim victimization and defensive jihad; and how, at the same time, it reinforces antithetical identities and fosters group identity competition, where one religious group is often pitted against another. As a result, the Janus effect of Patani neojihadist YouTube online propaganda, while it primarily seeks to radicalize, also generates a reactionary, often virulent, anti-Muslim response from the movement’s critics.