"Retweeting the Caliphate: The Role of Soft-Sympathizers in the Islamic State’s Social Media Strategy."

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Presented at the 6th International Symposium on Terrorism and Transnational Crime. Antalya, Turkey.
(December 4-7, 2014)
Retweeting the Caliphate:
The Role of Soft-Sympathizers in the Islamic State’s
Social Media Strategy
Yannick Veilleux-Lepage
The Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence
Arts Faculty Building, Library Park, The Scores
St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AX, Scotland, UK
T: +44 (0)7454 096477
E: yvl@st-andrews.ac.uk
Introduction:
On the eve of the Scottish Independence referendum, an operative from the Islamic
State’s (IS) al-Furgan media production unit, using the Twitter handle @With_baghdadi,
advised his followers that al-Furgan would soon be releasing a new video. The video,
entitled Lend me Your Ears, showed kidnapped British photojournalist John Cantlie
discussing British foreign policy and his captivity. Within minutes of being uploaded to
YouTube, another propaganda operative, identified as Abdulrahman al-Hamid, asked his
4,000 Twitter followers to inform him of the highest trending hashtags on Twitter in the
UK:
“We need those who can supply us with the most active hashtags in the UK. And also
the accounts of the most famous celebrities. I believe that the hashtag of Scotland’s
separation from Britain should be first” (as quoted in Malik et al., 2014).
Replies from his followers advised using #andymurray, #scotland, #VoteNo,
#VoteYes and #scotlandindependence when retweeting the video in order to raise the
video’s profile and exposure (as quoted in Malik et al. 2014). Al-Hamid urged his
followers to “work hard to publish all the links,” while @With_Baghdadi asked his to
“invade [the #VoteNo hastags] with video of the British prisoner” (as quoted in Malik et
al., 2014). These interactions between IS operatives in Iraq and Syria, and its soft
sympathizers – non-combatant supporters in the West – demonstrate the importance of
these supporters to the dissemination of IS’ message. Ultimately, the support of IS by
Westerners on social media strengthens the legitimacy of IS’ newly founded caliphate by
intimating that that support for this caliphate is greater and more widespread than would
otherwise be believed if the mainstream media was the only avenue informing the public
on IS.
In recent months, Western governments have been growing, and continue to grow
increasingly concerned about the upwards of 3,000 foreign fighters travelling from
Western countries, such as the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Australia, to Iraq
and Syria to swell the ranks of the IS.1 Of equal concern is the possibility that these
1 The figure of 3,000 foreign fighters was proposed by the EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator
Gilles de Kerchove (“Islamic State crisis,” 2014). One hundred and thirty Canadian citizens have joined
ISIS according to early 2014 estimates by the Canadian Government (Public Safety Canada, 2014). In

Presented at the 6th International Symposium on Terrorism and Transnational Crime. Antalya, Turkey.
(December 4-7, 2014)
fighters will return further radicalized, battle-hardened, and influenced by extensive
radical networks, and that they may then be more likely to commit terrorist attacks in
their home countries (“Islamic State crisis,” 2014). The recent attack on the Jewish
Museum in Brussels – allegedly by a returned foreign fighter from Syria – seems to
confirm that these fears may be founded in reality (“Brussels Jewish Museum killings”
2014). Moreover, the prospect of individuals at home becoming radicalized by online
propaganda and electing to engage in ‘lone wolf’ attacks at home, such as the Ford Hood
shooting, or more recently the attacks on soldiers in Canada is of similar concern for
intelligence officials and policymakers.
However, while these scenarios represent serious threats which clearly must be
addressed, they have largely overshadowed discussions about the role and impact of soft-
sympathizers in the West in propagating IS’ message. Therefore, while recognizing the
problem of radicalization of individuals at home, and that of foreign fighters, this paper
will attempt to redress the current lack of exploration of IS’ social media strategy to
explore the role and impact of soft-sympathizers in the Western world. Specifically, it
will focus on how these supporters further disseminate IS’ messages, and what strategic
function they fulfill. In order to provide an appropriate analysis of this ongoing and
highly dynamic phenomena, this research provides an overview of the evolution of the
jihadist in cyberspace, focusing primarily on the impact of the emergence of Web 2.0,
and the subsequent shift towards ‘lone wolf’ terrorism. The primary focus of this section
is on al-Qaeda, due to its role in establishing the use of electronic medium to
communicate widely jihadist messages. Therefore, by no means does this section attempt
to present itself as a truly exhaustive review of the relationship between cyberspace and
terrorism; however, it does provide a broad conceptual understanding of this evolving
relationship. The following section provides a discussion of how IS leverages the power
of social media, focusing on how the activities of soft-sympathizers create an echo-
chamber which allows for IS’ messages to dominate the so-called ‘Twittersphere,’ as
these messages are repeated, thus becoming somewhat normalized. This soft-power
strategy, in contrast to its military campaign, can be understood as an attempt to
normalize and legitimize IS’ existence. Finally, this paper concludes by offering thoughts
on how IS strategy can be undermined through both governmentally organized, and
grassroots campaigns of counter-messaging, aided by allies within the Islamic world and
Muslim civil society.
2. Jihadists in Cyberspace: A Brief Overview
Poor understanding of the early history of jihadi presence online is in large part due to
the fact that, by the time cyberspace began to attract the attention of security agencies and
scholars, jihadist groups’ use on the Internet had already proliferated (Weimann, 2006).2
early September 2014, US defense secretary Chuck Hagel confirmed that over one hundred US passport
holders were fighting for ISIS (“Hagel Confirms,” 2014).
2 Evidence suggests that terrorist groups, irrespective of ideology, were quick to embrace the
power of the Internet to pursue their strategic objectives. In fact, in 1998, fewer than half of the 30 groups
designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the US State Department under the Antiterrorism and
Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 maintained websites. By the end of 1999, nearly all designated
organizations had established an Internet presence (Weimann, 2006).

Presented at the 6th International Symposium on Terrorism and Transnational Crime. Antalya, Turkey.
(December 4-7, 2014)
Early attempts by jihadists to leverage the Internet, included the establishment of
azzam.com, which is self described as “an independent media organization providing
authentic news and information about Jihad and the Foreign Mujahideen everywhere” (as
quoted in Awan and Al-Lami, 2009: 56). This is generally cited as the very first authentic
Jihadist website. The emergence of Azzam.com, along with the Islamic Media Centre and
alneda.com, during the First Chechen War (1994-1996) and other nascent peripheral
conflicts, aimed to “transmit a version of events different from that offered by the mass
media from the other side of the battlefield” (Thomas, 2003: 120). Having recognized
that conventional media could easily be censored or filtered by governments, (Thomas,
2003), Chechen jihadists instead turned to e-mail distribution lists to transmit their
message, uncensored and unfiltered, quickly to a highly targeted audience. In other
words, the Internet allowed jihadist groups to explain their actions without the constraints
of traditional media, thus offsetting both censorship and condemnation (Thomas, 2003).
Whilst the jihadist presence in cyberspace remained limited until early 2000s, these
websites laid the groundwork for the ascendancy of more sophisticated and interactive
uses of the Internet in this century.
2. 1. The Emergence of Jihadist Forums
The generation of an explosion of interactive content, and the connected user
participation – allowed for by the emergence of early Web 2.0 capabilities and
rudimentary online forums – meant users not only passively consumed online content but
also activity contributed to its creation (Warren and Leitch, 2012; Hoeren and Vossen,
2009). The increased popularity of general interest online forums coincided with
increased participation in jihadist forums, with a 2005 study uncovering upwards of 4,300
active jihadist forums (Weimann, 2006).
Awan and Al-Lami (2009) attributed the move away from traditional websites, and
the concurrent exponential growth of online forums, to the shifting security paradigm in
the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. In the months following the attacks on New
York City and Washington, various groups of hackers engaged in complex campaigns to
disrupt jihadist websites.3 Similarly, law enforcement agencies ramped up their scrutiny
and prosecution of Jihadist online activities.4 This sustained assault led to the realization
of the necessity of decentralizing the jihadist presence online in order to ensure the
continuity of the messaging. Therefore, in an effort to counter the “systemic disruption or
removal of important jihadists websites,” the transition was made from traditional
websites to online forums in a conscious effort to delegate “responsibility … to a suitable
large and diffused body of anonymous web users” (Awan and Al-Lam, 2009: 57-58).
3 Alneda.com was famously hacked and defaced with the words “‘Hacked, tracked and now
owned by the USA” by American porn site owner Jon Messner for five days in August 2002 before the
site’s administrators managed to regain control. (Awan and Al-Lami, 2009: 57). Similarly, between 2002
and 2003, the Internet Haganah, a self-described “global intelligence network dedicated to confronting
Internet activities by Islamists and their supporters, enablers and apologists,” shutdown more than 600 sites
it claimed were “linked to terror” (Awan and Al-Lami, 2009: 57-58). The Internet Haganah also engaged in
a campaign requesting American based Internet Service Providers to shutdown sites of concerns.
4 A notable example was the arrest and subsequent extradition to the United States of Babar
Ahmad, the creator of azzam.com, under the UK Terrorism Act (Awan and Al-Lami, 2009).

Presented at the 6th International Symposium on Terrorism and Transnational Crime. Antalya, Turkey.
(December 4-7, 2014)
Despite shifting to online forums, the production of jihadist media remained highly
hierarchically organized and strictly regulated. In fact, in the aftermath of the mid-2000
invasion of Afghanistan, senior leaders of al-Qaeda increasingly sought to provide readily
accessible information about the organization, its membership, ideology, and strategy, in
order to compensate for its reduced capability to commit successful acts of terror
(Brachman, 2014). This rhetoric remained inherently one-directional, as avenues for
interaction between the global following and al-Qaeda’s senior leadership were limited:
messages were produced, disseminated and received, but no formal feedback mechanism
was built into the process. In other words, “users on these forums were often more akin to
traditional categories of passive media consumers that appeared inimical to the revolution
in audience roles heralded by Web 2.0” (Awan and Al-Lami, 2009; 59).
2. 2. The Transition to Web 2.0
The paradigm shifted again with the emergence, and growing popularity, of
increasingly sophisticated Web 2.0 platforms, namely file-sharing portals and social
networking sites (Conway, 2012). The al-Qaeda Core leadership based in Afghanistan
and Pakistan maintained a considerable amount of control over its narrative through its
media groups, but in addition to this, al-Qaeda affiliates such as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI)
began utilizing this new media environment to disseminate downloadable content such as
magazines, video and brochures. This paradigm shift, is best embodied by the media
strategy of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and AQI in the interregnum between the demise of
Web 1.0 and the fully-fledged Web 2.0.
The release of a thirty minute recording by al-Zarqawi explaining who he was, why
he was fighting, and providing details of the attacks he and his groups were responsible
for, heralded the start of al-Zarqawi’s media offensive in early 2004 (Conway, 2012).
Paul Eadle described the recording as an example of a “comprehensive brand statement”
aimed at gaining brand-recognition (Eedle, 2005; 124-125) and notoriety within the jihadi
community. Capitalizing on this newfound recognition, AQI released a video depicting
al-Zarqawi beheading the American civilian contractor Nicholas Berg (Conway, 2012).
This video, entitled Abu Musa'b al-Zarqawi slaughters an American, was uploaded to
ogrish.com, a popular shock site, and was – as a result – viewed over 15 million times
(Talbot, 2005).
In the wake of such successful propaganda campaigns, the power of video-sharing
websites, such as YouTube, was increasingly recognized by jihadists as a novel arena,
and an easy-to-access platform, for the dissemination of propaganda, and raising of funds
for future operations. Aided by the popularity such mediums,5 and the fact that no Arabic
language skills or high level of Internet literacy were now required to locate jihadist
content, YouTube specifically rapidly became a significant platform for Jihadist groups
and their supporters, fostering a thriving subculture which used it to communicate and
share propaganda worldwide. A 2008 study analyzed the users’ comments on YouTube
videos depicting suicide operations in Iraq, finding that the majority of viewers resided
outside of the Middle East and North Africa, with the largest percentage located in the
United States (Conway and McInerney). This led to the conclusion that Jihadist media
5 YouTube was established in February 2005 as an online repository for sharing video content.
According to YouTube, on average more than one billion users watch about six billion hours of video
footage every month. Every minute, 100 hours of new videos are uploaded (Weimann, 2014; 10).

Presented at the 6th International Symposium on Terrorism and Transnational Crime. Antalya, Turkey.
(December 4-7, 2014)
was now “spreading far beyond traditional Jihadist websites or even dedicated forums to
embrace, in particular, video sharing and social networking – both hallmarks of Web 2.0
-- and thus extending their reach far beyond what may be conceived as their core support
base in the [Middle East and North Africa] region to Diaspora populations, converts, and
political sympathizers” (Conway and McInerney, 2008: 10).
The dissemination of jihadi messages outside of dedicated forums was, nonetheless,
not entirely welcomed by all jihadist media organizations. A case in point is Al-Boraq
Media’s September 2006 publication of a detailed policy paper entitled Media
Exuberance, which sought to curtail the proliferation and production of unattributed
Jihadist media. They feared that unpolished and unprofessional content by “scattershot
individuals posting jihadist media materials without the sanction of a recognized” jihadist
media group undermined the credibility of Jihadist media and diverted attention from
official sources (Kimmage, 2008: 5).
2. 3. The Shift Towards ‘DIY Terrorism’
Despite the aforementioned opposition from some jihadist media groups, al-Qaeda
strategists, such as Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, nonetheless quickly recognized the importance
of the decentralization of their operations. Notably, in 2004, al-Suri penned his Call for a
Global Islamic Resistance, in which he decried the hierarchical model of al-Qaeda as
outdated and vulnerable, espousing instead the advantages grassroots leaderless
resistance (Bousquet, 2011; Michael, 2013). Al-Suri’s strategy of individual jihad, best
illustrated by the activities of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Another highly important paradigm shift, largely dependent on the power of the
Internet, occurred with the 2010 AQAP launch its widely distributed English-language
online magazine titled Inspire, which encouraged individual jihad against Americans and
Westerners (Michael, 2013). With slick production values and graphics, Inspire mixed
ideologically driven material with pragmatic instructional and skill-building content in an
effort to fostering a do-it-yourself approach to terrorism (Lemieux et al., 2014).
Moreover, this emphasis on a do-it-yourself ethos targeted at an English-speaking
readership is an “especially interesting development in Inspire that set it apart from other
examples of the al-Qaeda propaganda” (Lemieux et al., 2014). Through a section entitled
Open Source Jihad, Inspire attempted to increase the motivation of individuals in the
West, while lowering skill-based barrier that had previously hampered individuals
attempting to carry out successful terrorist attacks. For example, one issue detailed how
to conduct a random shooting in a crowded restaurant, while another instructs readers
how to weld blades to the front of a pick up truck to “mow down the enemies of Allah”6
(as quoted in Michael, 2013; 55).
6 A similar tactic, minus the blades, was employed in the West on at least three occasions: In 2006,
Mohammed Taheri-azar injured nine people with a sports utility vehicle on the campus of the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Spencer, 2010); On 22 May 2013, a British Army solider was run over with
a car before being stabbed and hacked to death by two converts to Islam in the southeast of London (The
“Return to old-style terror,” 2013).; and more recently, a Canadian solider was killed and another one
injured after being deliberately struck by a car driven by a convert who had previously expressed a desire to
travel to Iraq to fight with ISIS (Woods, 2014). This tactic embodies the essence of ‘do-it-yourself’
terrorism, as it “offers terrorists with limited access to explosives or weapons an opportunity to conduct a
homeland attack with minimal prior training or experience” (FBI, 2010),

Presented at the 6th International Symposium on Terrorism and Transnational Crime. Antalya, Turkey.
(December 4-7, 2014)
The production of Inspire magazine is, in many ways, the incarnation of the strategic
vision of Anwar al-Awlaki, a popular,7 American born, online cleric affiliated with
AQAP whose sermons were widely distributed on YouTube. Al-Awlaki is also credited
with inspiring a number of terrorist plots and attacks.8 According to Brain Jenkings
(2011), Al-Awlaki and Inspire led to a fundamental shift in al-Qaeda’s strategy from
organizationally-led jihad, towards do-it-yourself terrorism. Similarly, Jarret Brachman
(2014) claims that al-Awlaki and AQAP made do-it-yourself terrorism, and its
participants, the focus of their media efforts, rather than conceptualizing al-Qaeda’s
sympathizers as merely an audience. A change in the nature of terrorism, whereby
terrorist organizations such as AQAP can motivate and empower individuals to commit
acts outside of any chain of command, according to Bruce Hoffman (2010), represents a
change in the nature of terrorism itself.
As a result of this paradigmatic shift, online jihadist activity came to have standing in
its own right. A 2012 article on electronic jihad, posted on the leading jihadist forums al-
Fida and Shumukh al-Islam, stated that:
“[A]ny Muslim who intends to do jihad against the enemy electronically, is
considered in one way or another a mujaheed, as long as he meets the conditions of
jihad such as the sincere intention and the goal of serving Islam and defending it,
even if he is far away from the battlefield” (as quoted in Weimann 2014, 4).
Similarly, Muhammad bin Ahmadal-Salim’s 39 Ways to Serve and Participate in
Jihad extolled “performing electronic jihad” as a “blessed field which contains much
benefit” (as quoted in Awan et al 2011: 56). Given the belief that participation in indirect
jihad is seen as both a required and effective form of resistance and participation in
current times, the call for electronic jihad inevitably did not remain unanswered in the
wake of the Syrian Civil War.
3. The Use of Social Media by IS
As highlighted by Lewis (2014), the military victory of IS represents only one part of
the equation in establishing its caliphate. The key battle for IS is not solely military and
achieved by violence, but also includes the formation of “the practical basis of a society”
(p. 11-12). In order to achieve this social objective, IS relies on the dissemination of its
7 A 2009 British government analysis of YouTube found 1,910 videos of al-Awlaki, one of which
had been viewed 164,420 times (Weimann, 2014). Similarly, in 2008, his popular lecture Constants on the
Path of Jihad was available on ummah.com, a mainstream site that received at the time approximately
48,300 visit per month from the US alone (Meleagrou-Hitchens, 2011).
8 Al-Awlaki is believed to have been in contact with at least two of the 9/11 hijackers. He is also
credited with inspiring or directing a number of other terrorist attacks: the failed 2008 Times Square
bombing; the 2009 shooting inside the Fort Hood military base; the failed 2009 “underwear bomber;” and a
failed 2010 bombing attempt involving a parcel bomb hidden inside a printer in the cargo hold of a
passenger jet (Weimann, 2014). Moreover, Roshanara Choudhry, a Muslim student jailed for attempting to
murder British MP Stephen Timms in May 2010, claimed that she was radicalized after listening to
Awlaki’s YouTube videos (Weimann, 2014).

Presented at the 6th International Symposium on Terrorism and Transnational Crime. Antalya, Turkey.
(December 4-7, 2014)
message to foster support both domestically and abroad through a uniquely effective
social media strategy.
Although all sides of the Syrian Civil War have adopted the use of social media, the
use of social media by IS appears to have generated far more attention, and consequently
has been more successful than others. In addition, whilst various terrorist organizations,
such as AQAP and Al Shabaab, have maintained Twitter accounts since 2010, they often
did so as a secondary means of communication. The bulk of content was instead
available on extremist forums, featuring downloadable content such as magazines, videos
and brochures. In contrast, the distribution of information almost exclusively on Twitter,
has allowed IS to quickly reach a large audience. Therefore, the dissemination of its
ideology, and the advancement of its long-term objective, namely the legitimization of
the consolidation and expansion of territory, has occurred more successfully than it might
otherwise have done (Friedland, 2014).
In order to frame its message, IS has developed a range of exceptionally professional
and sophisticated communication and social media initiatives that are exceptionally easy
to access and highly attractive to their audiences. On 5 July 2014, IS media group Al-
Hayat Media released in numerous different languages (including Albanian, English,
French, and German) the first issue of its online magazine Dabiq,9 a publication
reminiscent of Inspire magazine (Cambhir, 2014). Each issue reaffirms “key themes,
strategic exploits and ideological constructions, as well as speech from [IS] leaders”
(Saltman and Winter, 2014; 39). In addition, they also contain powerful photographic
imgery of IS’ military and state-building endeavors such as: images of wounded Iraqi
Security Force soldiers; the distribution of food and water by IS fighters in regions under
its control; victorious parades of militants in invaded cities; the destruction of Shiite and
Sufi shrines; and the execution of prisoners and members of religious minorities
(Styszynski, 2014). Similarly, IS produces high-quality videos, which have thus far
included The End of Sykes-Picot, The Flames of War, The Clanging of the Swords I-IV,
and Upon the Prophetic Methodology, which romanticize the daily lives of IS fighters.
Punctuated with cinematographic effects, such as instant replays and slow-motion shots,
these, often feature length, videos “appear to be something from a Hollywood action film
or a video game” (Vitale and Keagle, 2014: 9).
The development of a highly sophisticated media strategy which relies upon the
decentralized nature of social media, particularly Twitter, has allowed for the mass
dissemination of IS’ multitudinous products. While content is created under the direct
guidance of IS strategists, dissemination relies upon sympathizers at the grassroots level.
Therefore, the message of IS’ communications remain strategically unified despite
dissemination being ‘crowd sourced.’ This extensive reliance on soft-sympathizers either
re-tweeting or re-posting content produced and authorized by IS leadership has “no clear
precedent” (Barrett, 2014: 51). For example, on the day Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared
the establishment of the Caliphate, IS began circulating pictures of his speech before a
video of the speech was uploaded several times on YouTube. The links to these YouTube
videos were then uploaded on the widely popular file sharing website justpaste.it prior to
9 Dabiq is a town located in north Syria and is mentioned in a hadith describing events of the
Malahim (Armageddon) where the greatest battle between Muslims and the crusaders takes place. In other
words, Dabiq represents a story of Muslim unity against the Romans (Saltman and Winter, 2014)

Presented at the 6th International Symposium on Terrorism and Transnational Crime. Antalya, Turkey.
(December 4-7, 2014)
being Tweeted by IS to tens of thousands of sympathizers. These sympathizers, in turn,
re-tweeted the links and more importantly, copied and uploaded links to, and the video
itself, using various different accounts. These new links were then added to justpaste.it
and Tweeted again, in a repetitive manner (Barrett, 2014). This extensive reliance on
soft-sympathizers either re-tweeting or re-posting content produced and authorized by IS
leadership has “no clear precedent” (Barrett, 2014: 51). This strategy, aimed at gaining
maximum exposure and overcoming YouTube’s attempt to suppress IS propaganda, has
shown its efficiency on many occasions. Another pertinent example of this strategy in
action, showing “the ease” and “speed with which IS is able to spread its message”
(Barrett, 2014; 52), is that of the film Flames of War. After two days of having been
uploaded, one randomly selected page – amongst dozens of others promoting the video –
had recorded 18,034 views within just a seven-hour timeframe.
Moreover, to further its strategy of crowd-sourced dissemination, IS affiliates
developed an Android application called The Dawn of Glad Tiding10 to enable users to
keep up with the latest news about the activities of the Islamic State. Vitally, the
application also allows IS’ main communication branch to send Tweets periodically from
the accounts of everyone who has installed the application, thereby flooding social media
with IS propaganda without triggering Twitter’s spam-detection algorithms (Berger,
2014). The Dawn of Glad Tiding first went into wide use in April 2014, but reached an
all-time high of almost 40,000 tweets on the day IS marched into Mosul (Vitale and
Keagle, 2014).
In addition, IS sympathizers also routinely engage in systematic ‘hashtag hijacking,’
manipulating Twitter to magnify IS’ message. Hashtag hijacking involves the
repurposing of popular and/or trending hashtags by adding those hashtags into unrelated
Tweets as a means of infiltrating conversations. In order to increase the visibility of their
messages, IS sympathizers co-opted World Cup hashtags such as #Brazil2014 or
#WC2014, and, as mentioned earlier, hijacked Tweets relating to the Scottish
Independence referendum (Vitale and Keagle, 2014). Utilizing popular and trending
hashtags in conjunction with IS’ own hashtags such as #theFridayofsupportingISIS,
#Thought_of_a_Lone_Lion and #AmessagefromISIStoUS, increases the exposure of the
message. This strategy allows for a message which has effectively been crafted by only a
handful of IS propaganda agents to be disseminated by thousands of sympathizers in
order to reach millions of Twitter users. In fact, in the period between 17 September and
17 October 2014, the activities of IS supporters resulted in 4.1 million Retweets (Barrett,
2014).
3. 1. Implications of IS’ Social Media Strategy
Although there is nothing new in violent extremist groups quickly adopting new
technology, what has hardly any precedent is the breadth of the communication strategy
implemented by IS. Not only does IS use new technology to create the content which it
releases, it also utilizes new technologies innovatively in the dissemination of that
content. This strategy has, until now, been only sparsely covered in terrorism study
literature. That being said, communications scholar Henry Jenkins’ (2006) notion of
10 The Dawn of Glad Tiding was available through the Google Play store prior to its removal for
violating Google’s terms of service.

Presented at the 6th International Symposium on Terrorism and Transnational Crime. Antalya, Turkey.
(December 4-7, 2014)
convergence culture provides a useful theoretical framework to analyze the impact of IS
tactics.
According to Jenkins (2006), convergence culture whereby “old and new media
collide, where grassroots and corporate media intersect, where the power of the media
intersect, where the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer
interact in unpredictable ways” (p. 2), is not a technological change. Rather, it is the
embodiment of a social change where media consumers no longer passively consume
material, but also engage in the creation of virtual communities, combining their
collective intelligence and resources to achieve a defined purpose. The fundamental
innovation of IS’ media strategy is this exploitation of the collective resource which is its
Western followers.
Fundamentally, IS recognizes that the majority of Western supporters will never
engage in kinetic actions such as terrorist acts in their homelands, or fighting abroad.
Instead, IS utilizes these supporters for the purpose of disseminating information and
propaganda relating to their cause. Arguably, not requiring Western supporters to engage
actively in terrorist acts, allows IS to garner the participation of these supporters without
asking them to cross moral boundaries they might not feel comfortable crossing. This
perfectly embodies Brachman’s notion of jihobbyists. Brachman (2008) contends that the
rise of Web 2.0 allowed individuals who have largely driven their own radicalization
without direct assistance, training, or support “to move forward the Jihadist agenda” (p.
19)
In addition to increasing the exposure of IS’ message, these disseminators also seek to
move forward this jihadist agenda by aiding IS to gain recognition and acceptance. In
other words, they are actively engaged in an attempt to normalize IS’ narrative. IS media
strategy can be understood in terms of soft power projection. While some of IS’
propaganda is clearly aimed at intimidating Western audiences with depictions of
atrocities and human rights abuse, these intimidation tactics have been punctuated with
imagery of genuine state-building exercises. These images include the depiction of IS’
engagement in administrative functions. Particularly relevant examples include: the
enforcement of sharia law through the establishment of a religious police force; the
establishment of religious schools; the distribution of food; and reconstruction projects
(Lefler 2014). The aim of these depictions is the advancement of the notion of the
Islamic State as a legitimate state in order to gain long-term support of the local populace.
This is of critical importance to IS in its attempt to socialize the Muslim world to the
ideas and values of the Islamic State.
In order to socialize its global Muslim audience, the mass dissemination of IS’
carefully crafted message seeks to dominate the narrative. The creation of an echo
chamber amplifies and reinforces its messages through transmission and repetitions
whilst also drowning out competing views. In order words, by ensuring that its narrative
is louder than that of its opponents, IS’ sophisticated use of social media creates an
impression of large legitimate online support, which exceeds the actual reality. Whilst
videos of beheadings and other atrocities have gained tremendous profile, possibly more
important is the positive narrative created by IS videos which depict a unified community
were pious men police the streets eliminating drugs and making sure everyone prays
together. This offers a sharply idealized contrast to most states in the Middle East, where

Presented at the 6th International Symposium on Terrorism and Transnational Crime. Antalya, Turkey.
(December 4-7, 2014)
aging autocrats are seen to preside over irredeemably corrupt and stagnant governments,
and can arguably be seen as IS’ greatest success.
Despite IS’ impressive social media strategy, its narrative remains vulnerable to
challenges. Echo chambers are typically present within closed systems, such as online
forums, which are hermetically sealed from divergent perspectives. However, Twitter in
itself is not a closed-system. As such, whilst any open system may be open to domination
by a series of ‘loud noises’, this domination of narrative is only temporary and can be
challenged by various competing views, which in this particular case weaken the
‘absoluteness’ of IS’ message. Among these challenges the satire from within Muslim
world has been particularly effective in slowly eroding the absoluteness of the IS
narrative. For example, the Burn the IS Flag campaign, seemingly started by Muslims
outraged by the actions of IS, has been trending on Twitter under the hashtags
#BurnISISFlagChallenge and #BurnISIS. Based on the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, the
movement features people posting photos and videos of themselves burning IS’ banner
and then challenging their friends to follow suit (Palmer, 2014). Similarly, the US State
Department’s launch of a tough and graphic counter campaign, uses IS’ own images of
barbaric acts against fellow Muslims in propaganda which counters IS’ narrative. The
corner stone of this counter-campaign is a video entitled Run – Do Not Walk to ISIS
Land, which tells potential recruits that they can learn “useful new skills” such as
“blowing up mosques” and “crucifying and executing Muslims,” in a sarcastic attempt to
illustrate the appeal of joining IS, whilst also offering an alternative to IS’ seductive
message (Logiurato, 2014).
Conclusion
As demonstrated in this paper, IS relies on a global network of disseminators to
promote its material. Instead of a single source acting as the monolithic voice of the
organization, multiple messengers collaborate to communicate its message thus lending
the appearance of authenticity and wide acceptance. It also creates a huge problem for the
people attempting to curb the spread of ISIS’s messages. Blocking multiple offending
users as they pop up becomes a challenge, and squashing violent statements on Twitter
brings up questions regarding free speech that are as yet unanswered. Moreover, relying
exclusively on the administrators of social media platforms to effectively limit the spread
of IS ideology through account closures and suspensions is unreliable at best. In this era
of instantaneous global communication it is, for the most part, futile to close or suspend
accounts unless this is nested within a wider, comprehensive anti-propaganda effort
designed to neuter IS domination of the narrative.
Perhaps the biggest mistake in the ‘War on Terror’ was the belief that the destruction
of Al-Qaeda’s training camps and leadership would lead to the demise of the group, its
affiliated movements, and its ideology. In the same way that Islamic State’s land grab is
impressive, if shocking, the group’s online actions have been even more deeply troubling.
The pervasiveness of its ideology and message means that defeating the group will
require more of Western governments than a simple military response in Iraq, or even
elsewhere in the Middle East: the message itself needs effective countering as well.
Western countries need to use an integrated, coordinated, and synchronized approach,

Presented at the 6th International Symposium on Terrorism and Transnational Crime. Antalya, Turkey.
(December 4-7, 2014)
with support from allied countries in the Islamic world and Muslim civil society more
generally, in order to accomplish such a goal.
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