Online Library

While the interest in Salafi-jihadism and the digital arena is not a new phenomenon, a limited amount of research has focused on the specific strategies and narratives disseminated by local groups and online supporter communities at the national and international level. The editors provide a brief introduction to the issue of Salafi-jihadism and digital media within the Swedish context, and further define the aim and research questions of the volume at hand. In addition, the current chapter defines some of the key concepts used throughout the volume, and further discusses some additional methodological considerations.

Chapter in Johan Eriksson, Giampiero Giacomello, ‘International Relations and Security in the
Digital Age’ – The fusion of globalisation and terrorism in the 21 century created a new, adaptable and complex form of ‘networked’ asymmetric adversary. For al-Qaeda and its successor affiliates Internet has become not just a virtual sanctuary, where every dimension of the global jihad is taking place online. In many ways cyberspace has created a virtual university of jihad with advice available anytime to any militant. It was also more than a functional tool to enhance its communication, to promote its ideology, recruit, fundraise and even train. For al-Qaeda and its progeny, cyberspace constitutes a type of central nervous system as it remains critical to its viability in terms of structure and even more as a movement. Some have even argued that al- Qaeda has become the “first guerrilla movement in history to migrate from physical space to cyberspace.”

This paper is a multimodal critical discourse study of self-representation in ISIS’s e-magazine, Dabiq, employing Social Movement Theory and Van Leeuwen’s Socio-semantic Inventory. By analyzing the linguistic and non-linguistic features in the representation of social actors and actions in Dabiq, ISIS’s implied ideology at the macro level, which is to convince the prospective recruits and at the same time, to legitimize its brutality, is revealed from both textual and visual perspectives. The results showed an interplay of the contradictory representational choices, namely “lionization” and “victimization” that has enabled ISIS to create a powerful narrative. By portraying its so-called “knights” as undefeatable lions and glorifying their acts of violence, while, excluding its killed, injured or imprisoned agents both textually and visually, ISIS has attempted to provoke admiration among its current or potential followers. Significantly, they simultaneously depict an air of victimhood to further legitimize their act of terror and represent themselves as the godsent saviours of the victims, and confer a sense of security in their hearts. Victimization, however, has rarely been applied to the Mujahidin of the State who are fighting at forefronts, but rather to the State itself as a territory (Caliphate) and to the Muslims who are presumably plagued by the enemies’ transgression and injustice.

ISIS has seemingly been successful in mobilizing advocates from heterogenous backgrounds. Such diversity is symptomatic of the organization’s heavy investment in strategic messaging and identity construction to gain legitimacy. This study examined the multimodal discursive properties of ISIS’s narrative in its communique, Dabiq. It undertook a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis of the representation of in-group and out-group actors implementing Van Leeuwen’s socio-semantic inventory. The results showed that the in-group members are deliberately specified, hence foregrounded, and at the same time, the diversity among them is highlighted as an inseparable hallmark of ISIS’s movement. Therefore, no racial, geographical, or cultural line was drawn apropos its participants to ensure more inclusion. Conversely, the perceived enemies are framed as diverse yet homogeneous entities textually through generic references and addressing them collectively regardless of their potential dissimilarities and visually by categorizing them through religiously, culturally, or nationally distinguishable features. It acts as a legitimation tactic by which striking against one enemy justifies striking against others. The combination of these strategic multimodal framing tasks serves as a propaganda tool for ISIS to intensify polarisation, enhance in-group participation, and ultimately facilitate mobilization.

This study focuses on the formation of far-right online communities on YouTube and whether the rise of three new actors (Pegida, Identitarian movement, AfD) can also be observed with user behavior on YouTube. We map the network of far-right, conspiracy and alternative media channels in the German-language YouTube sphere, how this network evolves over time and identify the topics that users discuss. Our analysis shows that the overall common denominator within the German far-right YouTube sphere is the refugee crisis and the problems associated with it. Furthermore, we show that the community is getting denser and more centralized over time.

Social media, and Twitter in particular, have become important sources for journalists in times of crises. User-generated content (UGC) can provide journalists with on-site information and material they otherwise would not have access to. But how they source and verify UGC has not yet been systematically analyzed. This study analyzes sourcing and verification practices on Twitter during the Brussels attacks in March 2016. Based on quantitative content analysis, we identified (1) the journalists and news organizations sourcing during the attacks, (2) classified different forms of sourcing and verification requests, and (3) analyzed the sourced UGC. Results show that sourcing on Twitter has become a global phenomenon. During the first hours of the attack, journalists rely on UGC. Their sourcing and verification practices vary widely and often lack basic verification procedures, which leads to a discussion about the ethical implications of sourcing practices.