Othering the West in the online Jihadist propaganda magazines Inspire and Dabiq

Abstract

This paper examines how the jihadist terrorist groups Al Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State discursively construct ‘the West’ as an alien, aberrant ‘other’ in their respective online propaganda magazines Inspire and Dabiq over a 5 year period (2010–2015). The analysis integrates insights from the field of Terrorism Studies into a Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies approach, working centrally with the notions of othering and conventionalised impoliteness. Our findings reveal not only that othering is a key discursive process in the groups’ online propaganda machinery but that it is discursively realised via homogenisation, suppression (stereotyping) and pejoration strategies. The latter are further examined via the notion of conventional impoliteness. Pointed criticism emerges as the most frequent conventionalised impoliteness strategy in both magazines. Threats, condescension and exclusion strategies are also saliently used, albeit with different relative frequencies within each magazine. The findings show the value of Discourse Analysis to research into (jihadist) terrorism, including the possibility of drawing upon its findings to develop tailored counter-messages to those advanced by (jihadist) terrorist groups.

Online jihadist magazines and the “religious terrorism” thesis

“…Focusing on the voice of the violent actors themselves thus reveals a further damaging consequence of the term religious terrorism. Not only does it limit the perceived ability of members of the suspect community to engage in political expression; by separating the political from the religious it also reinforces the very Othering that characterises these groups' dichotomous identity choice appeals (Ingram 2016;Lorenzo-Dus and Macdonald 2018).…”

The Fragility-Grievances-Conflict Triangle in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

“…In addition, said approach establishes the consensus that this rhetoric appeals to; this is done by outlining the analogous relationship between this rhetoric and the historical-theological environment in which the former operates. This work comes to complement other textual analysis literature (see Corman and Schiefelbein 2006;Lorenzo-Dus and Macdonald 2018;Macdonald and Lorenzo-Dus 2021), and terrorist identity literature (see Rothenberger and Kotarac 2014;Rothenberger et al 2018;Talbot 2008).…”

Fragmentation and Grievances as Fuel for Violent Extremism: The Case of Abu Musa’ab Al-Zarqawi

“…In addition, said approach establishes the consensus that this rhetoric appeals to; this is done by outlining the analogous relationship between this rhetoric and the historical-theological environment in which the former operates. This work comes to complement other textual analysis literature (see Corman and Schiefelbein 2006;Lorenzo-Dus and Macdonald 2018;Macdonald and Lorenzo-Dus 2021), and terrorist identity literature (see Rothenberger and Kotarac 2014;Rothenberger et al 2018;Talbot 2008).…”