a semantic network analysis of daesh propagandahomegrown violent extremism that was partially...
TRANSCRIPT
U N D E R S T A N D I N G D A E S H A S E M A N T I C N E T W O R K A N A L Y S I S O F D A E S H P R O P A G A N D A
Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy Capstone Project
Submitted by Alysha M. Tierney
18 April 2017
© 2017 Tierney
http://fletcher.tufts.edu
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Table of Contents
I. Introduction.........................................................................................................................................4A. Background...................................................................................................................................................4B. Research Question.......................................................................................................................................9C. Motivation...................................................................................................................................................10
II. Literature Review..........................................................................................................................14A. Daesh and Jihadist Violent Extremism.................................................................................................14B. Theoretical Framework: Monroe Price................................................................................................17C. Radicalization.............................................................................................................................................19D. Importance of Narratives and Framing...............................................................................................26E. Content Analyses and Semantic Analyses............................................................................................28
III. Analytic Framework....................................................................................................................31A. Possible Answers........................................................................................................................................32B. Hypothesis...................................................................................................................................................33C. Observations of Valid Hypothesis..........................................................................................................34D. Description of Method..............................................................................................................................35
IV. Methodology and Data................................................................................................................40A. Steps to Clean Data and Construct the Networks..............................................................................40
V. Evidence and Observations of Whole Network.......................................................................44A. LDA..............................................................................................................................................................44B. Histogram....................................................................................................................................................45C. Sphere of Influence Networks.................................................................................................................47D. Observations...............................................................................................................................................48
VI. Evidence and Observations of Individual Issues...................................................................49Issue 1................................................................................................................................................................51Issue 2................................................................................................................................................................53Issue 3................................................................................................................................................................54Issue 4................................................................................................................................................................55Issue 5................................................................................................................................................................57Issue 6................................................................................................................................................................58Issue 7................................................................................................................................................................59Issue 8................................................................................................................................................................60Issue 9................................................................................................................................................................61Issue 10..............................................................................................................................................................62Issue 11..............................................................................................................................................................63Issue 12..............................................................................................................................................................64Issue 13..............................................................................................................................................................65Issue 14..............................................................................................................................................................66
VII. Discussion.....................................................................................................................................67VIII. Policy Implications....................................................................................................................70IX. Conclusion......................................................................................................................................72X. Bibliography....................................................................................................................................73Appendix A: LDA Results Combined Network............................................................................79
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Appendix B: LDA Individual Issues................................................................................................80Appendix C: Sphere of Influence Reports – America.................................................................87Appendix D: Sphere of Influence Reports – West........................................................................88Appendix E: Sphere of Influence Reports – Islam.......................................................................89Appendix F: Sphere of Influence Reports – Muslim...................................................................90
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I. Introduction “We are in a battle, and...
more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.”1
– Letter from Ayman al-Zawahiri to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
A. Background Technology, communications, globalization, and internal conflicts have combined to
form a potent milieu that has fueled the growth of violent extremism around the globe. These
factors have given terrorist and radical groups the tools to propagate their messages around the
world to attract followers and horrify audiences. The Internet has enabled extremist
organizations to more easily disseminate propaganda, recruit and organize. These groups have
historically taken advantage of media and technology to spread their message and to gain and
maintain followers. Now, social media platforms have given these groups access to a global
audience. The world is seeing an unprecedented number of foreign recruits from Kazakhstan to
Canada join the ranks of groups such as Daesh. Policy makers have focused on how Daesh has
built a sophisticated online presence and recognize the importance of counter narratives; yet,
little research has been done to critically examine the messages Daesh uses to attract followers.
Technology alone is not sufficient to attract sympathizers, fighters and followers. Another
portion of this equation is what Daesh is selling.
Both policy and academic work has focused on the online prowess of extremist
organizations such as Daesh. Studies have been done to analyze their online capabilities. It is
true that Daesh has built a robust online presence. However, their presence alone does not attract
30,000 plus foreign recruits and countless sympathizers. Daesh invests significant time and effort
1 Ayman al-Zawahiri, Zawahiri’s Letter to Zarqawi, 2005, CTC Library.
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into developing propaganda pieces such as videos, magazines, memes, and images. Their videos
and imagery are slickly produced. Yet, production value and presence alone cannot gain
sympathizers. More attention needs to be paid to the messages that Daesh imports into these
propaganda pieces. Current research does not quantitatively and qualitatively look at the types of
messages embedded in these content pieces.
It is true that it has become popular to study the case of Daesh. Scholars, pundits,
officials, and others have focused on the case of Daesh and at times over exaggerated its
importance. If Daesh exploits feelings of isolation amongst segments of the Western population
and creates a new transnational identity narrative then this narrative can successfully be
employed again. As will be elaborated upon further, Daesh is an outgrowth of Al Qaeda in Iraq
that has attempted to establish a “caliphate” in portions of Syria and Iraq. During the time of this
writing, Daesh is losing prestige by losing territory and legitimacy as Iraqi, Kurdish, and
coalition forces move on Mosul and Raqqa. Though Daesh may not hold large swaths of territory
before this paper is produced, I argue that analyzing the case of the robust propaganda machine
of Daesh is crucial in understanding how Daesh or Daesh 2.0 has been or could be successful at
gaining more sympathizers and followers in the future. Daesh may come and go especially in the
form we see at present; however, their strategic narrative techniques and messages may continue
on not only with Daesh but also with whatever violent extremist group may step in to be the next
evolution.
Not since the 1980s from the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan has there been such
a large number of foreign fighters.2 During the 1980s conflict with the Soviet Union, it is
2 Neumann, Peter R. “Foreign fighter total in Syria/Iraq now exceeds 20,000; surpasses Afghanistan conflict in the 1980s.” ICSR. 26 January 2015. http://icsr.info/2015/01/foreign-fighter-total-syriairaq-now-exceeds-20000-surpasses-afghanistan-conflict-1980s/
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calculated that nearly 20,000 foreign fighters traveled to Afghanistan.3There have now been over
30,000 foreign fighters that have traveled to Iraq and Syria to support groups such as Daesh.4
The recruits come from anywhere between Kazakhstan to Canada. As of December 2015, 27,000
to 31,000 people from at least 86 different countries had traveled to Iraq and Syria to join Daesh
or other violent extremist groups.5 Of this number, approximately 5,000 people had traveled
from Western Europe and 280 from North America. The recruits from Western Europe had more
than doubled between June 2014 and December 2015.6 In the United States, the numbers have
been significantly lower. As of fall 2015, American officials had 900 active investigations
against Daesh sympathizers in all fifty states.7 It is also reported that 250 Americans have
traveled or attempted to travel to Iraq or Syria to support these groups.8 As of October 31, 2016,
US officials had charged 109 individuals on Daesh-related offenses since arrests began in March
2014.9
The numbers in the US are significantly lower due to cultural and social issues as well as
governmental and legal policies. Moreover, this significantly lower number of foreign fighters
from the US is furthered by the strategic value to Daesh of having homegrown violent extremists
perpetrate attacks within the US. Daesh does not just seek recruits to make up the caliphate in
Iraq and Syria but rather seeks sympathizers who can carry out attacks in their homelands. In
3 Hegghammer, Thomas. “The Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters: Islam and the Globalization of Jihad.” Quarterly Journal: International Security, vol. 35. no. 3. (Winter 2010/11): 53-94 4 Kroet, Cynthia. “UN: 30,000 foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq.” Politico. 5 July 2016. http://www.politico.eu/article/united-nations-30000-foreign-fighters-in-syria-and-iraq-isil-terrorism/ 5 “Foreign Fighters: An Updated Assessment of the Flow of Foreign Fighters into Syria and Iraq.” The Soufan Group. December 2015. http://soufangroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/TSG_ForeignFightersUpdate3.pdf. Page 3. 6 Ibid. 4 7 Vidino, Lorenzo and Hughes, Seamus. “ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa.” The George Washington University Program on Extremism. December 2015. https://cchs.gwu.edu/sites/cchs.gwu.edu/files/downloads/ISIS%20in%20America%20-%20Full%20Report_0.pdf. Page ix. 8 Ibid. ix. 9 “GW Extremism Tracker: ISIS in America October 2016 Update.” The George Washington University Program on Extremism. October 2016. https://cchs.gwu.edu/sites/cchs.gwu.edu/files/downloads/Oct.%202016%20Snapshot.pdf
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2015, Al Qaeda and then Daesh released a pamphlet called “Safety and Security Guidebook for
Lone Wolf Mujahideen.”10 In 2015 and 2016, the US has seen lone wolf attacks that cited violent
extremist ideology as their reason for perpetrating attacks against civilians. Federal Bureau of
Investigations Director, James Comey, stated, “In San Bernardino, we saw a different dimension
which is the home grow radical extremist to kill innocent people on behalf of a foreign terrorist
organization, to claim a foreign terrorist organization and try to give it credit for acts of
violence.”11 Later in Director Comey’s testimony he spoke of the particular challenge of
identifying people online who have been radicalized by “consuming propaganda and trying to
stay beneath our radar.”12 Moreover, Director Comey in the summer of 2016 testified again in
front of Congress but now on the mass shooting that took place in the Orlando nightclub. Though
the perpetrator, Omar Mateen pledged allegiance to Daesh it is more likely than not he was a
homegrown violent extremism that was partially radicalized through consumption of online
propaganda such as Daesh’s.13 The linkage between the violent extremist groups and
perpetrating attacks abroad may be explicit such as what we saw in the Paris attacks. However,
the linkage between violent extremist and the terrorist organization may not be as direct. The
Internet has allowed the propagation of lone perpetrators or groups of perpetrators who become
inspired from the ideology and propaganda of the terrorist groups.
10 Ryan, Michael W.S. “How DAESH’s Lone Wolf Guidance Increases the Group’s Threat to the United States.” The Jamestown Foundation. 24 December 2015. https://jamestown.org/program/hot-issue-how-daeshs-lone-wolf-guidance-increases-the-groups-threat-to-the-united-states/ 11 Shootings in San Bernardino: Hearing before the Judiciary Committee, Senate, 114th Cong., (9 December 2015) (statement of James Comey, Federal Bureau of Investigations Director). https://www.c-span.org/video/?401606-1/fbi-director-james-comey-oversight-hearing-testimony 12 Ibid. 13 FBI Briefing on Orlando Mass Shooting (13 June 2016) (statement of James Comey, Federal Bureau of Investigations Director): https://www.c-span.org/video/?411063-1/fbi-director-james-comey-briefs-reporters-orlando-mass-shooting-investigation
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Propaganda and media output are central to violent extremist groups’ efforts such as
Daesh as this output acts as a “force multiplier.”14 In Fall 2016, the Combating Terrorism Center
at West Point released a revealing report on Daesh media activities and organization called
“Communication Breakdown: Unraveling the Islamic State’s Media Efforts.”15 The findings in
this report will be discussed later in this paper. However, the report lays a useful foundation to
understand the scope and structure of Daesh media output. The study finds that the “Islamic State
has leveraged an effective combination of technology, language expertise, and centralized
management to create a media organization that enables the group to project an image of power,
order, and sophistication.”16 The products appear in 28 languages but online followers around the
globe also participate in translating these pieces into different languages.17 The propaganda thus
has broad reach to bolster the image of Daesh and to inspire, incite and instill fear. The Internet
has made it increasingly easy to access such material. Though platforms have attempted to take
down such material, as soon as videos, memes, images, and magazines are released anyone can
copy and reproduce them. Thus, it becomes a virtual game of whack-a-mole to take down
content. Moreover, websites and organizations that are interested in researching this content tend
to link directly to these pieces.
14 Milton, Daniel. “Communication Breakdown: Unraveling the Islamic State’s Media Efforts. Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. United States Military Academy. October 2016. https://www.ctc.usma.edu/v2/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/ISMedia_Online.pdf. 15 https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/communication-breakdown-unraveling-the-islamic-states-media-efforts 16 Milton, op. cit. 1. 17 Ibid. 49
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B. Research Question
The central research question asked in this study is: why has Daesh been so successful?
In particular, what narratives have made Daesh successful at radicalizing and recruiting
Westerners? I hypothesize that Daesh has exploited the current “dominant” national identity
narrative espoused by the West that marginalizes and isolates Muslim voices. Daesh has then
constructed a related narrative that denounces this marginalization and constructs a new
transnational, “Muslim” identity. If the West provides no answers on what it means to be modern
and Muslim, Daesh has filled that space.
It is true that this study focuses solely on the narratives that Daesh employs in its
propaganda. Essentially, the research hones in on what messages Daesh thinks are effective to
radicalize and recruit. Significant follow up research would be warranted to analyze how
audiences and those vulnerable to radicalize consume these messages. Daesh may think that a
certain message is effective but it may not be the main message that is attractive with followers.
However, it is important to look at what Daesh is saying to gather a baseline for what narratives
dominate the content of its propaganda. I will only be looking at which messages Daesh uses in
its premiere magazine, unfortunately it is beyond the scope of this paper to study which
messages elicit more response and attention from the intended audience.
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C. Motivation
This study aims to analyze not only how Daesh uses social media and the Internet to
spread propaganda but also to study how Daesh cultivates specific narratives within their
premiere text, Dabiq. The purpose of analyzing the effectiveness and resonance of specific
narratives used by Daesh helps to illuminate what foreign and domestic sympathizers find
appealing about the group. Moreover, if one is able to find out what narratives are effectively
being used by Daesh then policy makers, NGOs, and others can possibly develop effective
counter narratives.
As will be discussed later, Daesh has multiple sources of propaganda. The sophisticated
bureaucracy of content creation and distribution produces text, videos, audio, and images to
reach various audiences. Many of these would be proper sources to look at what narratives are
employed. However, I chose to focus on the 14 English-language versions of Daesh’s online
magazine Dabiq. Dabiq was first published in July 2014 and its latest issue was published in late
July 2016. Focusing on the text within this magazine provides a deep case study in the different
narratives Daesh uses in its propaganda as it allows many dozens of pages for the authors to
express their views of their ideology in great depth. Moreover, having a consistently published
propaganda piece over many months allows a longitudinal study to be done on what narratives
may be employed at different times and how these may change throughout the months as Daesh
has evolved. These issues be studied individually then also has a whole. I will break the issues
into 14 different semantic networks to analyze the narrative clusters within them. I will then
combine the 14 issues into one large semantic network to analyze the overall narrative clusters
that are prevalent in the aggregate. Dabiq allows a consistent piece to study that spans several
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years to gather a complex picture of the themes and topics that Daesh propagandists seek to use
to reach, radicalize and recruit.
Moreover, I was further motivated to understand the themes that Daesh uses as it has
direct implications for the field of countering violent extremism. In 2015, the White House
defined countering violent extremist (CVE) as “the preventative aspects of counterterrorism as
well as interventions to undermine the attraction of extremist movements and ideologies that
seek to promote violence. CVE efforts address the root causes of extremism through community
engagement, including the following programs:” building awareness, countering extremist
narratives, and emphasizing community led intervention.18 Thus, a key piece of CVE
programming should focus on offering robust and diverse alternative narratives that can break
the violent extremist echo chamber. The first piece in constructing these effective alternatives is
to understand the actual messaging that the violent extremists employ. Thus this research of
quantitatively analyzing the underlying themes in Dabiq helps to show what messages Daesh
sees as effective. Having this baseline allows communities, nonprofits, the private sector and
others to then construct appropriate and potentially effective alternatives to delegitimize,
discredit and offer an alternative to what Daesh is selling.
Many CVE programs have tried to get the message right before but have failed. Both the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and in the State Department have undertaken unsuccessful
media campaigns to dissuade young people from joining violent extremist groups. The FBI’s
main campaign is called “Don’t Be a Puppet: Pull Back the Curtain on Violent Extremism.”19
This campaign is aimed at students and teachers. The purpose of the game is for students to
18 “FACT SHEET: The White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism.” The White House. 18 February 2015. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/18/fact-sheet-white-house-summit-countering-violent-extremism 19 “FBI | Countering Violent Extremism.” Accessed November 8, 2016. https://cve.fbi.gov/.
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undertake a series of tasks concerning ideologically motivated violent extremism to free the
puppet of its strings. “Don’t Be a Puppet” has hit all of the wrong notes. The American
Federation of Teachers, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination League, and many other
community organizations have come out against this campaign as being ineffective and
discriminatory.20 By executive order in 2011, President Obama created a new team within the
State Department called the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC).21
The purpose of the CSCC was to “coordinate, orient, and inform Government-wide public
communications activities directed at audiences abroad and targeted against violent extremists
and terrorist organizations, especially al-Qa'ida and its affiliates and adherents, with the goal of
using communication tools to reduce radicalization by terrorists and extremist violence and
terrorism that threaten the interests and national security of the United States.”22 One of the
CSCC’s main media campaigns was “Think Again, Turn Away.” The campaign sought to
delegitimize Daesh by exposing its hypocrisy and violence. However, the efforts were at best
ineffective and at worst played into the hands of the violent extremists. The CSCC’s Twitter
account would engage with sympathizers often giving them a platform to further their views.23
Several videos that the CSCC produced such as “Welcome to the Islamic State Land” showed
violent scenes from Daesh’s own recruitment videos showing executions and beheadings. This
show of violence only further used Daesh’s own recruitment tactics and did not appropriately
counter message. In 2016, CSCC was rebranded and revamped to become the Global
Engagement Center where its efforts focus more on partnerships and empowering other voices to 20 Sidahmed, Mazin. “FBI’s Don’t Be a Puppet game targets Muslim youth, teachers’ union says.” The Guardian. 26 August 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/26/fbi-dont-be-a-puppet-terrorism-muslim-teachers 21 “Executive Order 13584 --Developing an Integrated Strategic Counterterrorism Communications Initiative.” Whitehouse.gov, September 9, 2011. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/09/executive-order-13584-developing-integrated-strategic-counterterrorism-c. 22 Ibid. 23 Katz, Rita. “The State Department’s Twitter War with ISIS Is Embarrassing.” Time Magazine. 16 September 2014. http://time.com/3387065/isis-twitter-war-state-department/
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challenge violent extremist narratives.24 It can be argued that government campaigns to counter
extremist ideology have failed in large part due to a misunderstanding of what attracts people to
the extremist narrative. In effectively understanding what is attractive about the Daesh narrative,
the government can then empower and resource partners to effectively develop an
24 “Global Engagement Center.” US Department of State. https://www.state.gov/r/gec/
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II. Literature Review
A. Daesh and Jihadist Violent Extremism Background and Leadership
To best understand the Islamic State’s vision of state creation and the role of
sympathizers and recruits, we must first create a profile of the Islamic State. The Islamic State
evolved from Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). AQI has its roots in the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi was a key figure in the founding of AQI and sought to force the U.S. out of
Iraq and hinder the governmental transition.25 Initially, AQI found support amongst Sunni forces
due to the common goal of expelling the United States from Iraq. However, AQI’s violent
tactics, use of foreign fighters, killing of civilians, and incitement of sectarian violence isolated
former supporters.26 In 2006, al-Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. airstrike leading to Abu Ayub al-
Masri as his successor.27 Masri named Abu Umar al-Baghdadi as the head of the Islamic State of
Iraq. AQI’s tactics and alienation of the Sunni population contributed to the Anbar Awakening
ultimately allowing the U.S. to undermine the ability of AQI to operate.28 In 2010, both Masri
and al-Baghdadi were killed in an American airstrike.29 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took control of
AQI.
Following the US withdrawal from Iraq and the political tensions, AQI took advantage of
the vacuum and resumed its attacks. Moreover, the Syrian Civil War functioned as a training
group and a tool for expansion for AQI.30 In 2013, al-Baghdadi renamed the group the Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Al Qaeda and ISIS would later split due to disputes over mission
25 “The Islamic State | Mapping Militant Organizations.” Accessed November 27, 2015. http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/1.
26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid.
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and involvement in Syria. In January 2014, ISIS defeated Iraqi forces and took control of
Fallujah. Just months later, ISIS conquered Mosul. In June 2014, ISIS rebranded itself as the
Islamic State (IS) and declared a Caliphate.31
As mentioned previously, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is the leader of the Islamic State. He has
the reputation as being the “invisible sheikh” and is largely secretive.32 He is known to be highly
organized and a ruthless battlefield tactician.33 Moreover, there are open tensions between Al
Qaeda and the Islamic State. Al-Baghdadi refused to swear allegiance to Al Qaeda’s Zawahiri
and disobeyed his wish to leave Syria to Al-Nusra Front.34 The Islamic State is a hierarchical
organization that functions as a pseudo-state under al-Baghdadi. Though there is a dispersed
network of recruiters, sympathizers, and lone wolves that create a flatter structure around the
globe.
Estimates vary concerning the size of the Islamic State’s forces. The Central Intelligence
Agency estimates that the Islamic State has 20,000-30,000 fighters35. Other sources claim that
the ranks are up to 200,000 people.36 Islamist sources claim that 90% of the fighters in Iraq are
Iraqis while 70% of fighters in Syria are Syrian.37 Each month the United States’ airstrikes kill
about 1,000 Islamic State fighters. However, these strikes do not diminish the ranks of the
31 Ibid. 32 “Profile: Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.” BBC News. Accessed November 27, 2015. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-
middle-east-27801676. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 “CIA Says IS Numbers Underestimated - Al Jazeera English.” Accessed November 27, 2015. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/09/cia-triples-number-islamic-state-fighters-201491232912623733.html. 36 “Isis Have Army of 200,000, Claims Kurdish Leader.” The Independent. Accessed November 28, 2015. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/war-with-isis-islamic-militants-have-army-of-200000-claims-kurdish-leader-9863418.html. 37 “Saddam’s Former Army Is Secret of Baghdadi’s Success.” Reuters, June 16, 2015. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/16/us-mideast-crisis-baghdadi-insight-idUSKBN0OW1VN20150616.
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Islamic State since there are nearly 1,000 recruits entering Iraq and Syria every month to
replenish the ranks.38
Ideology of the Islamic State
The central thrust of the Islamic State is the ideology that underpins it. The Islamic State
is prolific in its use of social media and international communications platforms. They have
utilized these mechanisms to distribute their ideology. The Islamic State adheres to an
uncompromising and dogmatic strain of Salafi Jihadism, which is far more conservative than its
peer Al Qaeda.39 The texts and speeches of the Islamic State stipulate that all Muslims should
only associate with other “true” Muslims and cannot associate with others; fighting the Islamic
State is apostasy; and Shi’a Muslims are apostates and deserving of death.40 Following Iraqi
Sunni territorial acquisition in June 2014, the Islamic State declared itself the caliphate. The
Islamic State directed all Muslims to give Baghdadi bay’a, or allegiance, as caliph41 and all
jihadi groups were to accept the Islamic State’s supreme authority. The Islamic State has
conquered territory to build a caliphate and aims to attract recruits to help constitute its state.
This is novel in that Al Qaeda was able to establish bases in weak states; however, Al Qaeda did
not acquire and govern territory as if it were a state in a long-term fashion. The Islamic State
represents a unique threat due to its holding of large swaths of territory in which it implements
its strict ideology and form of governance.
38 “Vice President Biden, Inside the Air War, The New Burma.” Accessed November 27, 2015. http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/vice-president-biden-inside-the-air-war-the-new-burma/. 39 “The-Ideology-of-the-Islamic-State.pdf.” Accessed November 27, 2015. http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2015/03/ideology-of-islamic-state-bunzel/the-ideology-of-the-islamic-state.pdf. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid.
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B. Theoretical Framework: Monroe Price
In 2002, Monroe E. Price established a framework for understanding national identity
narratives, which he called “the market for loyalties.” Price defines market for loyalties as a
system in which “large-scale competitors for power, in a shuffle for allegiances, use the
regulation of communications to organize a cartel of imagery and identity among
themselves…This market produces “national identity” or “community.”’42 This cartel is
composed of vested interests, which represent the voices of the major power structures that
create, reproduce, and maintain the national identity that is favorable to their positions in power.
Depending upon the power of this cartel, it can become difficult for new narratives and
organizations to enter the market especially if they are outside the relatively narrow range of
acceptable versions of national identity.
Moreover, there are those in society who are marginalized by the current, dominant
national narrative or identity. This analytical framework proves useful in attempting to
understand how Daesh has been so successful in garnering foreign recruits. We can think of
Daesh as a new entrant into the “Western” market, but I will explore whether their narratives
were aligned with the current national narratives in the West of Muslim communities being the
“other.” In addition, new technologies such as Twitter, Tumblr, and online-based magazines
have aided their entry into the market for loyalties. Prior to these new technologies, it would
have been difficult for Daesh’s message to reach a wider audience and gain foreign recruits. The
Western governments and companies are now attempting to push Daesh out of this market
through regulation, censorship, and counter narratives. Price’s market for loyalties frame is
useful in analyzing how Daesh has become an entrant. In Price’s framework, entering the Market
42 Price, Chapter 1: New Role of the State; Chapter 2: Stability, Transitions and The Market for Loyalties (p.32).
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for Loyalties is difficult both because of the narratives and because of the infrastructure needed
to break into and play in the market. As mentioned, the Internet and modern communication
technology have lowered the barriers for entry and challenged the monopoly once held by
traditional media outlets and nation states. The availability of these technologies thus has great
implications for countering violent extremism work. Governments and organizations can seek to
stifle violent extremist use of these platforms and/or create narratives that can also compete on
these same platforms.
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C. Radicalization What makes someone vulnerable to radicalization?
Radicalization has been widely researched in historical and recent scholarship. More than
ever, understanding the drivers of violent extremism has become paramount to security concerns
around the globe. Countless studies have been done to identify key variables and factors that can
radicalize someone. Researchers have analyzed socio-economic conditions, education,
technology penetration, culture, and countless other variables. However, there is no one universal
key that can best explain when and how someone becomes radicalized. In a 2010 United States
Institute of Peace report, Colonel John M. “Matt” Venhaus analyzed interviews and personal
histories of 2,032 foreign fighters for al-Qaeda.43 From this analysis, he concluded that there are
a diversity of reasons someone becomes a foreign fighter. He categorized them as such: revenge
seekers, status seekers, identity seekers, and thrill seekers. Colonel Venhaus noted “potential
recruits have an unfulfilled need to define themselves. Al-Qaeda’s ability to turn them to violent
is rooted in what each seeks: revenge seekers need an outlet for their frustration, status seekers
need recognition, identity seekers need a group to join, and thrill seeker need adventure.”44 Al-
Qaeda is able to craft a narrative that is alluring to these four groups in which recruits fight
against anti-Muslim sentiment in a global, idealized movement.
In 2015, the George Washington University’s Program on Extremism released “ISIS in
America” which analyzes the Americans who have joined or are sympathetic to Daesh. The
researchers found that a “highly complex and individualized process” shaped by the interaction
of structural and personal factors were the drivers of extremism.45 American Daesh sympathizers
were motivated from a range of issues that were at times overlapping: sympathy and compassion
43 Venhaus, Colonel John M. “Matt.” “Why Youth Join al-Qaeda.” United States Institute of Peace Special Report. May 2010. https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/SR236Venhaus.pdf 44 Ibid. 45 Vidino and Hughes, op. cit., 15.
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for the victims of the Bashar al Assad regime; fulfilling perceived religious obligations; and a
search for belonging, meaning, and/or identity.46 There is no one trigger that researchers have
identified as the silver bullet for identifying and intervening in the radicalization process.
Rather, this process is a complex interplay of social, cultural, economic, identity and others
factors that is highly contextual and individualized. Thus, looking at the narratives that Daesh
The Process of Radicalization
The US Federal Bureau of Investigations identified the radicalization cycle as being
composed of four steps: pre-radicalization, identification, indoctrination and action.”47 The pre-
radicalization stage, as mentioned previously, is highly individualized in terms of motivations.
This can be self stimulated or catalyzed by others through the internet, religious institutions,
schools, work, prison and elsewhere.48 The second stage is identification in which the individual
accepts the cause while becoming increasingly isolated from his/her former life and accepting a
new social identity.49 The third phase is indoctrination, during which the individual gets further
immersed in the group and bolsters the social identity. At this stage, “the indoctrination activities
involve small group and individual participation that allow the recruit to know and recognize his
own potential as a jihadist. The convert’s confidence increases or decreases in relation to his
experience and training. Moreover, the activities are essential to know at which level the convert
can ultimately participate and how much he can prove himself worthy to the cause.”50 The fourth
stage is action. This violent or non-violent method is the operationalizing of the beliefs into
action. The individual or his/her group then prepares and perpetrates an attack.51
46 Vidino and Hughes, op. cit., 15-16. 47 “(U//FOUO) The Radicalization Process: From Conversion to Jihad.” Federal Bureau of Investigation. 10 May 2016. https://cryptome.org/fbi-jihad.pdf. Page 4. 48 Ibid. 4 49 Ibid. 4. 50 Ibid. 8. 51 Ibid. 8.
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In a 2014 Brookings Institute study on the threat of terrorism from Western foreign fighters,
created a complementary framework to that of the FBI. This schematic model of foreign fighter
radicalization included five key steps: deciding and becoming motivated to fight; traveling to a
foreign country to participate in jihad, training and fighting to gain skills; experience, and a
network; returning to one’s home country; and plotting a terrorist attack or recruiting others to
foreign jihad.52 This model seems to involve the specific action of traveling to a foreign country
and becoming a “foreign fighter.” This second model is also pertinent to the threat of foreign
fighters returning from Syria and Iraq to perpetrate attacks back in his/her home countries.
The New York Times reported on the radicalization of a young woman from Washington
state.53 Alex, as the article calls her, was a 23 year old that was being groomed by Daesh to travel
overseas to join its “Caliphate.” After seeing the beheading video of journalist James Foley by
Daesh, Alex searched Twitter for Daesh sympathizers out of “a horrified curiosity” and readily
found accounts willing to answer her questions.54 She remarks how the Daesh accounts politely
answered her questions and then asked her about her own life. Alex then began to regularly
engage with an alleged Daesh fighter named Monzer Hamad who answered her questions about
Islam and sent suggested readings. As time went on, Alex began communicating with dozens of
Daesh sympathizers online.55 This created a circle and an echo chamber around her that sought to
provide an answer to the loneliness she felt and provide a purpose for her. Her new circle began
to send her packages that included hijabs, prayer rugs and books on Daesh’s interpretation of
52 Byman, Daniel and Shapiro, Jeremy. “Be Afraid, Be a Little Afraid: The Threat of Terrorism from Western Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq.” https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Be-Afraid-web.pdf The Brookings Institute. November 2014. Page 7. 53 Callimachi, Rukmini. “ISIS and the Lonely Young American.” The New York Times. 27 June 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/world/americas/isis-online-recruiting-american.html 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid
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Islam, and chocolate.56 She became increasingly isolated from her old life and the Twitter
accounts instructed her to keep these discussions private from her family and friends as well as
instructing her who she should and should not follow online. A recruiter, Faisal Mostafa, began
encouraging her to travel to Austria to be introduced to her future husband. This ended only
when Alex’s grandmother intervened and reported this grooming process to the authorities. The
case of Alex chronicled in The New York Times is illustrative of the FBI’s first three phases of
radicalization: pre-radicalization, identification, and indoctrination. Alex was an identity seeker
who found a community online that was willing to engage with her and developed a social group
around her. The recruiters isolated her from her previous social and religious groups while
pushing her to recreate her identity. She was on the third phase of indoctrination when her family
intervened. If her family had not intervened, it was likely that she would have attempted to travel
to Austria and then travel further to Iraq or Syria. Unlike male recruits, Alex likely not have been
used as a fighter but rather as a wife and mother to support her husband and create the next
generation that would inherit the “Caliphate.”
Daesh’s Propaganda Methods and Radicalization
As the process of radicalization and recruitment is complex, Daesh and other similar
organizations employ a variety of tools and tactics to reach audiences. Recruits can be self-
radicalized as the case about Alex in the New York Times illustrates. Recruits can also be
influenced by a group of their peers or family members.57 A key ingredient in each of these cases
is the reading, viewing and sharing of official and unofficial Daesh propaganda to help fuel the
process of radicalization and recruitment. In the online space, Daesh’s use of social media
56 Ibid. 57 Vidino and Hughes, op. cit. 15.
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technology is not new, but they have developed a sophisticated way of “gaming the system.”
Daesh has used the structure of such services like Twitter to amplify its message.
Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger are key researchers that focus on Daesh and radicalization
especially in the online space. J.M. Berger in his ISIS Twitter Census for Brookings Institute
notes it is difficult to discern an exact census of Daesh supporters on various social media
platforms due to account suspensions and privacy restrictions. However, researchers estimated
that from September through December 2014 there were at least 46,000 Twitter accounts used by
Daesh supporters on Twitter both active and inactive.58 The Twitter universe can be broken
down into subcategories of first, second and third tier groups following the “1 percent” rule.59
The first tier accounting for 1 percent of accounts create and verify the content to be that of
official Daesh messaging. The second tier, about 9 percent of affiliated Twitter accounts, retweet
the link with a hashtag as well as retweet each other’s tweets and write new tweets.60 The third
tier are general supporters who repeat the actions of the second tier but on a mass scale. Before
Daesh gained a large-scale presence online, they engaged in a “fake it till you make it”
marketing campaign. Daesh worked to have their hashtags appear in Twitter’s trending topics
category by coordinating with followers to send Tweets with a specific hashtag repeatedly in a
short period of time. The organization also used bots to amplify the messages. The exposure
from trending hashtags would create a cascading effect. Daesh also played off of other trending
58 Berger, J.M. and Morgan, Jonathon. “ISIS Twitter Census.” Brookings Institute. March 2015. http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2015/03/isis-twitter-census-berger-morgan/isis_twitter_census_berger_morgan.pdf. Page 2. 59 Theory in Internet activism that participation in an Internet community breaks down to 90% only view content, 9% engage with content/active, 1% very active and create the content. McConnell, Ben and Huba, Jackie. “The 1% Rule: Charting citizen participation.” Church of the Customer Blog. 3 May 2006. https://web.archive.org/web/20100511081141/http://www.churchofthecustomer.com/blog/2006/05/charting_wiki_p.html 60 Stern, Jessica, and J. M. Berger. ISIS: The State of Terror. Ecco, 2015. Page 155.
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hashtags such as the World Cup to gain presence on Twitter.61 Additionally, a Daesh
sympathizer designed an app called “Dawn of Glad Tidings, “ which was an Android and Twitter
app that allowed users to read an official Daesh newsfeed and, for consenting users, would take
control of the user’s Twitter account to automate tweets.62 When Daesh made an offensive
against Mosul over 40,000 tweets were posted largely due to the help of the app. At the time, this
led to the top search result for “Baghdad” on Twitter being an image of an Daesh soldier
inscribed with the “We are coming, Baghdad.”63 The Dawn of Glad Tidings app has since been
shutdown. These tactics were designed to use the structure of Twitter to rank Daesh messages
high in trending topics regionally and around the globe. A user could easily stumble across these
messages and once one Daesh affiliated account was followed more and more would be
recommended to the user.
An October 2016 study by West Point is one of the first reports to systematically and
comprehensively analyzes Daesh’s media efforts and structure. The report finds that AQI/Daesh
has been cultivating its media efforts, structure and strategy for over a decade.64 The group
messages not only to the broader global audience but also to its internal population in the
territory it controls/controlled.65 There is a centralized media effort with bureaus set up to focus
on specific regions. Below is a graphic compiled by the West Point study to illustrate the
bureaucratic media efforts by Daesh:
61 Stern, op. cit., 147 - 157 62 Stern, op. cit., 148-149
63 Berger, J.M.. “How ISIS Games Twitter.” The Atlantic. 16 June 2014. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/isis-iraq-twitter-social-media-strategy/372856/.
64 Milton, Daniel. “Communication Breakdown: Unraveling the Islamic State’s Media Efforts. Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. United States Military Academy. October 2016. https://www.ctc.usma.edu/v2/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/ISMedia_Online.pdf. Page 4. 65 Ibid. 4.
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The researchers found documents dating to as early as 2005 that speak of AQI/Daesh’s media
strategy to appeal to the people. Its media strategy had three phases: setting the ideological
groundwork by “publishing the true faith” and “explaining the jihadi system and what is needed
from the people of Iraq”; highlighting the need; and AQI/Daesh as the solution to this need.66
Daesh’s official and unofficial media outlets release videos, picture reports, pictures/images,
audio, and magazines.67 The study coded these outputs as fitting into broad thematic categories
of military, governance, commercial, religious, lifestyle, and other.68
66 Ibid. 3-4. 67 Ibid. 22. 68 Ibid. 23-30.
Figure1FromWestPointpage15
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D. Importance of Narratives and Framing
A 2013 article by Mark A. Finlayson and Steven R. Corman in the International Journal
of Language Data Processing investigates why there has been a resurgence in military interest in
narrative. First, Finlayson and Corman define a narrative as a combination of story and
discourage that is “a cognitive tool that has co-developed with human language and culture: it is
tailor-made to communicate complex constellations of actors, motivations, plans, goals, actions,
causes, and effects in a succinct, easily-digestible format.”69 The military has been interested in
narratives to not only use on and instructs its soldiers for better performance but also for strategic
communications in asymmetric conflicts. The researchers note, “narratives tap significant
cultural resources, and in the hands of a skilled communicator can be used to frame events in
strategically useful ways.”70 Narratives “consolidate memory, shape emotions, cue heuristics and
biases in judgment, and influence group distinctions.”71 Thus, narratives are powerful tools that
can be leverage to radicalize, de-radicalize, influence, and much more. However, understanding
what narratives resonate is crucial in being able to influence.
Studies have shown there is no single model of radicalization for all individuals.
Economic or educational indicators are insufficient in explaining one’s susceptibility to violent
extremism. A 2016 report by researchers at the University of Maryland empirically assessed US
domestic radicalization. Their research found “that both a sense of community victimization and
a radical shift in individuals’ cognitive frames are necessary conditions for radicalization to
violent extremism... These findings suggest that successful CVE programs and counter-
69 Finlayson, M.A. and Corman, S.R.. “The military interest in narrative.” Sprache und Datenverarbeitung, Special Issue on Formal and Computational Models of Narrative, 37 (1–2) (2013), pp. 173–191 . Page 174. 70 Ibid. 175. 71 Sanchez, Justin. “Narrative Networks.” Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. http://www.darpa.mil/program/narrative-networks
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narratives need to address feelings of community victimization in ways that challenge myths and
misperceptions, but also acknowledge legitimate grievances.”72 In short, this research reveals the
importance of narratives and framing in radicalization and counter-radicalization. Narratives that
utilize victimization and frame collective grievances in this way can become fodder for someone
embarking on a path to violent extremism.
.
72 Jensen, Michael, and Gary LaFree, Patrick A. James, Anita Atwell-Seate, Daniela Pisoiu, John Stevenson, Herbert Tinsley. "Empirical Assessment of Domestic Radicalization (EADR)," Final Report to the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. College Park, MD: START, 2016. https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_NIJ_EmpiricalAssessmentofDomesticRadicalizationFinalReport_Dec2016_0.pdf. Page 6.
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E. Content Analyses and Semantic Analyses There have been handfuls of studies done on examining the content of Daesh propaganda.
Daesh is prolific in its output of media and text and it is largely all readily accessible on the
Internet. Thus, it has been a fertile ground of research for scholars. In 2015, the Quilliam
Foundation, which is the world’s first counter-extremism think tank, released a report “The
Virtual Caliphate: Understanding Islamic State’s Propaganda Strategy.” The Quilliam
Foundation was responding to a need in the academic and policy research that dug into the
narratives and themes that Daesh employs in its propaganda. The study noted, “‘high production
value’ and ‘high definition’ are the new buzzwords of today’s terrorism. While they may be
appropriate terms, they have stopped us from rationally assessing the organisation behind the
glossy propaganda.”73 The report further explained:
It is only after we have achieved an understanding of the motivations and objectives that
drive the Islamic State media machine that we can begin to challenge it effectively. How, for
example, can we be expected to develop a counter-narrative without knowing what narratives
we are countering? How can we propose effective counter messaging strategies unless we
understand what and how exactly the messages that we are countering are being
disseminated, and to what purpose?74
This report understands the importance of knowing what Daesh is saying. The researcher,
Charlie Winter, documented over one thousand pieces of propaganda campaigns. Winter distilled
the pieces into six key narratives: brutality, mercy, victimhood, war, belonging, and utopia.75
73 Winter, Charlie. “The Virtual ‘Caliphate’: Understanding Islamic State’s Propaganda Strategy.” London: Quilliam, 2015. http://www.almendron.com/tribuna/wp-content/uploads/the-virtual-caliphate-understanding-islamic-states-propaganda-strategy-1.pdf.Page 4. 74 Ibid. 4. 75 Ibid. 5.
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Winter explains these six narratives as assisting Daesh in creating a comprehensive brand that
offers an alternative way of living and offers change and transformation.76 He further noted that
propaganda alone does not typically radicalize and “there must always be an external human
influencer to spark and sustain the radicalization process…What propaganda does do, though, is
catalyse the individual’s radicalization and concentration their already-held sympathies.”77 This
content analysis by the Quilliam Foundation was one of the early reports and studies that focused
on understanding the narratives within Daesh propaganda.
Matteo Vergani and Ana-Maria Bliuc from Monash University conducted a quantitative
analysis on the first 11 issues of Daesh’s Dabiq magazine. These researchers used a
computerized text analysis program LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count).78 This
quantitative study on Daesh’s rich, primary source text looked at how the language evolved over
the issues to “reveal implicit motives, emotions and objects of interest, which emerge from the
analysis of relevant quantity of text.”79 The study found that affiliation of maintaining group
cohesion and group identity is the most important motive found in the analysis.80 Furthermore, as
the issues evolved there was an increased attention paid to women;81 as Daesh needs to attract
women who can be wives and mothers to reinforce the “Caliphate.” This linguistic quantitative
analysis of Dabiq provides insightful analysis to better deeply understand the propaganda and
narrative trends over time.
There are two other important studies of note that seek to combine quantitative and
qualitative aspects of analyzing text of extremist propaganda. Travel Morris of Norwich
76 Ibid. 6. 77 Ibid. 6-7. 78 Vergani “War-of-Keywords.pdf.” Accessed September 9, 2016. http://tonyblairfaithfoundation.org/sites/default/files/War-of-Keywords.pdf. 79 Ibid. 9. 80 Ibid. 16. 81 Ibid. 17.
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University in 2012 submitted a paper for the 2012 European Intelligence and Security
Informatics Conference titled “Extracting and Networking Emotions in Extremist Propaganda.”
This brief paper suggested and briefly modeled how the CASOS ORA and Automap software
can be used to understand the relationship between emotive phrases in extremist propaganda to
best understand how propagandists construct their narrative and content.82 In August 2016, the
Terrorism and Political Violence journal featured a report by Julian Droogan and Shane Peattie
in the. Droogan and Peattie employed thematic network analysis on Al Qaeda’s Inspire
magazine. Droogan and Peattie’s “methodology consists of a six-step analytic process designed
to facilitate the identification and presentation of themes within textual data. Thematic network
analysis ultimately allows for the presentation and analysis of textual themes as visual thematic
networks.”83 This analysis showed that Inspire’s themes focus not only on the West and Muslim
populations but also on “local politics and broader religious issues.”84 They were also able to
deduce a shift away from anti-Western themes to local issues and “martyrdom” of Al Qaeda
affiliates in jihad operations.85 This unique approach to coding, classifying, mapping and
interpreting propaganda serves as a useful but also highly interpretable tool for understanding
extremist propaganda.
82 Morris, Travis. “Extracting and Networking Emotions in Extremist Propaganda,” 53–59. IEEE, 2012. doi:10.1109/EISIC.2012.33. Page 53. 83 Ibid. 53. 84 Droogan, Julian and Peattie, Shane. “Reading jihad: Mapping the shifting themes of Inspire magazine.” Terrorism and Political Violence, 2016. DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2016.12115271. Page 1 85 Ibid. 1.
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III. Analytic Framework Research Question:
What narratives have made Daesh so successful at radicalizing and recruiting
Westerners?
Analytic Framework:
Theoretical Framework + Connecting Price and Daesh
Daesh’s successful entry into the market can be explained using Monroe Price’s
theoretical framework. The two key factors are national identity narratives and technology. I will
focus on Daesh’s use of narratives to create a national identity. Price’s framework proves useful
in attempting to understand how Daesh has been so successful in garnering western, foreign
recruits. Daesh is a new entrant into this “market” and it has been a successful entrant into this
market. This success can be explained in part by technology but also through the use of
narratives that Daesh has constructed. I hypothesize that Daesh has exploited the current
“dominant” national identity narrative espoused by the West that marginalizes and isolates
Muslim voices. This narrative or theme can be labeled “victimhood.” Daesh has then constructed
a related narrative that denounces this marginalization and constructs a new transnational,
“Muslim” identity and a call to utopia.
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A. Possible Answers In analyzing the use narratives, there are four possible answers:
1. We see a high percentage of a victimhood narrative
2. We see a high percentage of utopia narrative
3. We see both #1 and #2
4. We see neither #1 nor #2. Instead there are other prevailing narratives in Daesh’s
propaganda.
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B. Hypothesis I hypothesize that we will see option #3. We will see Daesh frequently use a narrative
that puts forth victimhood but then offers a “utopia” to overcome this victimhood. We will also
see Daesh construct a new national identity narrative of what it means to be modern and Muslim.
Daesh is attempting to fill this national identity gap with Western Muslims in hopes of attracting
specific vulnerable segments as recruits or sympathizers. According to Price’s Market for
Loyalties framework, the current oligopolistic nation states must not be properly serving a
segment of the audience. In addition, a new entrant must be willing to serve this audience and
develop a national identity narrative that is attractive. Having these two components is essential
in making Daesh a successful entrant into the market of loyalties. Moreover, historic and current
media regulations have protected the “cartel” from new entrants; however, regulations have not
kept pace with the tools and platforms offered by social media platforms. Thus, Daesh has been
able to exploit the Internet to bypass regulations and this monopoly to reach targeted audiences.
Explain Possible Evolutions
How the narratives change over the fourteen issues will also be examined. There is expected
to be a change in the narratives throughout different issues. We could see these possible
evolutions throughout the issues. I will study the fourteen issues individually and analyze how
narratives changed throughout the issues. As the terrorist group has evolved, it is possible that
earlier issues of Dabiq will focus on belonging and victimhood while latter issues could focus on
reaffirming organizational prowess via narratives of war and brutality as the group loses
territory. There could be any number of combinations of how narratives shift throughout the
issues.
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C. Observations of Valid Hypothesis For the four narrative explanations we would observe the following if each were true:
1. “Victimhood” appears in more than 75% of overall LDA topic categories. The spheres of
influence of “West” and “America” are more than 75% associated with terminology
relevant to “victimhood.”
2. “Utopia” appears in more than 75% of overall LDA topic categories. The spheres of
influence of “Islam” and “Muslim” are more than 75% associated with terminology
relevant to “Utopia.”
3. “Victimhood” and “utopia” account for 75% or more of overall LDA topic categories.
The spheres of influence of “West” and “America” are more than 75% associated with
terminology relevant to “victimhood.” The spheres of influence of “Islam” and
“Muslim” are more than 75% associated with terminology relevant to “Utopia.”
4. We do not observe 1-3 but rather other narratives are most prevalent and frequently used.
For the possible evolutions we would observe the following if each were true:
1. Heavy narrative construction of “victimhood” and “utopia” during the first seven issues.
2. Heavy narrative construction of “victimhood” during the first seven issues.
3. Heavy narrative construction of #”utopia” during the first seven issues.
4. Heavy narrative construction of neither “victimhood” or “utopia” during the first seven
issues
5. No difference between narrative construction in issues 1-7 versus in 7-14.
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D. Description of Method
To identify this narrative, I am performing a semantic network analysis of the 14 English-
language issues of Dabiq. For the 2013 conference on Applications of Social Network Analysis,
Philipp Drieger described semantic network analysis as a building upon a visual text analytics
system “that allows for a user-centered visual exploration and analysis of complex semantic
networks. By folding linear text into a network of interconnected words, this system provides an
alternative view on text and enables the analyst to explore the context of semantic structures.
Compared to the sole linear reading of a text, the system helps to gain analytical insights from
the given semantic network. The interpretation of semantic structures is supported by the
interplay of quantitative and qualitative analysis of the network structure.”1 Thus, semantic
network analysis allows analysts to explore not only the concepts within a linear text but also the
context around these concepts as they exist within the overall text being explored.
A semantic network is a network of concepts within a particular corpus of text. The
concepts are words or common phrases. Concepts are then assigned a tie to other concepts within
that same text based upon their proximity to one another. These connections between concepts
are then mapped out in a network that shows the proximity and how close concepts are to one
another within a corpus of text. Standard network analysis techniques can then be applied to this
semantic network to quantitatively and qualitatively analyze the text.
I have constructed a semantic network from the content of the 14 Dabiq magazines and
will be applying standard network analytic techniques to detect key phrases and ideas within the
texts. I have identified key words that are related to national identity for which I will analyze the
spheres of influence (e.g. America, West, crusaders, Muslim). I will study the spheres of
influence of these specific words to see the associate language with each of them. Spheres of
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influence tell you what concepts your concept of interest is connected to. This is analogous to the
ego network concept in network analysis which analyzes a node of interest and the nodes that are
directly or indirectly connected to the node of interest. Here, I am analyzing what concepts and
how frequently the concepts are connected to America, West, crusaders, or Muslim.
I will further analyze the network using latent Dirichet allocation (LDA) that will allow
me to find unobserved groupings of texts and phrases within the network. In technical terms,
LDA is a “generative probabilistic model for collections of discrete data such as text corpora.
LDA is a three-level hierarchical Bayesian model, in which each item of a collection is modeled
as a finite mixture over an underlying set of topics. Each topic is, in turn, modeled as an infinite
mixture over an underlying set of topic probabilities.”86 In short and simple terms, LDA is a
means to automatically discover topics/themes within a text. LDA is topic modeling process that
is used as a text-mining tool to uncover the connections and closeness of concepts within a text.
This, I postulate, will show me these narratives/topics that Daesh uses in the Dabiq magazines.
Upon receiving the LDA reports for the networks, I will then classify the LDA topics into
seven thematic categories: brutality, mercy, victimhood, war, belonging, utopia, and other. This
narrative classification borrows upon the work of Charlie Winter in his content analysis for the
Quilliam Foundation.87 I have hypothesized that the national identity narrative that Daesh uses
focuses on victimhood and belonging. If this is so, narratives related to victimhood and
belonging will represent a larger portion of the LDA topics within Dabiq.
As the LDA and sphere of influence reports produce reports of individual words or
phrases, I have constructed a taxonomy of how to categorize words into relevant themes:
86 Blei, David M., Ng, Andrew Y., and Jordan, Michael I. “Latent Dirichlet Allocaton.” Journal of Machne Learning Research 3 (2003) 993-1022. 87 Winter, op. cit.
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Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia
Kill, prisoners,
imprison,
Foley, slaves,
concubines,
execute
Warn,
Accept,
repent,
forgive
Crusader,
embarrass,
kufr, uproot,
liberate,
revolt,
Crusade, Jihad,
Security,
Nusra, jawlani,
operation, army,
reach, position,
territory, PKK,
fight, blood,
conquest
Brother,
belong,
gathering,
call
Murtaddin,
shariah,
bless, rule,
lead,
kalimat,
declare,
call,
wisdom,
Ummah,
bayah,
wife/wives
I have employed Charlie Winter’s categorization while including a column for topics that are
“unclear.” The first topic is brutality, which is associated with words such as slave, enslave,
execute, prisoner(s), Foley, and kill. The second topic is mercy, which is associated with words
such as warn, accept, repent and forgive. The third topic is victimhood, which is associated with
words such as crusade(r), embarrass, kufr, uproot, liberate, and revolt. The fourth topic is war,
which is associated with words such as campaign, fight, blood, conquest, territory, PKK, Nusra,
Iran, Russia, and more. The fifth topic is belonging, which is associated with words such as
belong, gather, call, brother, and brotherhood. The sixth topic is utopia, which is associated with
words such as khalifah, ummah, shariah, rule, bayah, wife/wives, and others. The final topic is
“unclear,” which simply represents conglomeration of words that do not fit into one coherent
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topic. It is important to note that the meaning of words change based upon the context and the
other words/concepts that are present within the LDA results.
I will then use this same data to analyze the individual semantic networks of the 14
issues. This will be the semantic network of the individual issue and not the combined semantic
network of the 14 texts. This will allow me to see how narratives and network measures have
changed over time. This can help shed light on whether Daesh has shifted its narrative to on-the-
ground circumstances.
As the data becomes complex, it is useful to evaluate the overall presence of the
narratives in a clear format. The research question seeks to answer which construction of
national identity Daesh employs to inspire audiences. I have hypothesized that Daesh will focus
heavily on the victimhood and utopia narratives. The chart below will be filled in with the results
from the LDA and spheres of influence analysis to show the overall percentage of each narrative
used in the corpus of text.
LDA
Theme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
% % % % % % %
AmericaSphereofInfluenceTheme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
% % % % % % %
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WestSphereofInfluenceTheme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
% % % % % % %
IslamSphereofInfluenceTheme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
% % % % % % %
MuslimTheme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
% % % % % % %
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IV. Methodology and Data
A. Steps to Clean Data and Construct the Networks To perform these functions, I have undertaken a multi-step process to find, extract, map, and
analyze the text data.
Step 1: Retrieval of Dabiq
First, I retrieved the issues of the English language version of Dabiq from The Clarion
Project.88 I then converted the pdfs of each issue into separate text files. While converting the
pdfs to text files, I reviewed each text file to ensure proper conversion and cleaning.
Step 2: Automap Cycle
To perform the mapping and cleaning functions, I used software from Carnegie Mellon
University’s Center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems
(CASOS).89 I used the CASOS developed AutoMap to extract the network map from the
unstructured text documents. AutoMap allows the extraction of content analytic data, semantic
network data, and other functions.90 This software also includes tools for text mining to pre-
process and clean data. CASOS describes the Automap functionality:
“these pre-processors include such sub-tools as a pdf to txt converter, non-printing
character removal, and limited types of de-duplication. Text pre-processing condenses
data into concepts, which capture the features of the texts relevant to the user. Statement
formation rules determine how to link extracted concepts into networks. The
postprocessors include such procedures that link to gazetteers and augment the coding
with latitude and longitude, belief inference procedures, and secondary data cleaning
tools. In addition there are a series of support tools for creating, maintaining, and editing
88 “The Islamic State’s (ISIS, ISIL) Magazine | Clarion Project.” ClarionProject.org, September 10, 2014. http://www.clarionproject.org/news/islamic-state-isis-isil-propaganda-magazine-dabiq. 89 “CASOS Institute.” CASOS. http://www.casos.cs.cmu.edu/index.php 90 “Automap.” CASOS. http://www.casos.cs.cmu.edu/projects/automap/
Tierney 41
delete lists, generalization thesauri, and meta-network thesauri. AutoMap uses parts of
speech tagging and proximity analysis to do computer-assisted Network Text Analysis
(NTA). NTA encodes the links among words in a text and constructs a network of the
linked words. AutoMap subsumes classical Content Analysis by analyzing the existence,
frequencies, and covariance of terms and themes”91
Once, I loaded the text files into AutoMap I utilized the suite of text processing tools built
into the software to clean the data. This included named-entity recognition (i.e. coding all
“Obama,” “Barack Obama,” President Obama” as one entity), stemming (i.e. changing words
into their word stem such as willing and willed to will), and deletion (i.e. deleting non-imperative
parts of sentences such as articles and pronouns). I further applied a delete list and thesaurus that
I had built based upon my reading and analysis of Dabiq. The thesaurus was used to instruct
AutoMap on specific nouns, phrases, or other relevant concepts unique to Dabiq such as “Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi,” “Islamic State,” “Bashar al-Assad” and others. This was used to ensure that
AutoMap recognized these proper nouns and concepts as one term and not in their individual
parts. I further instructed AutoMap to only produce a network with concepts that appeared more
than five times within the individual texts to assist in controlling the size of the network. Based
upon these pre-processing instructions and inputs, AutoMap then produced 14 individual
semantic networks of the Dabiq and then one combined network map of these 14 texts.
Step 3: Analysis in ORA
To perform the network analysis on the created Dabiq semantic networks, I used
CASOS’s ORA Pro. CASOS describes ORA as “a dynamic meta-network assessment and
analysis tool…It contains hundreds of social network, dynamic network metrics, trail metrics,
procedures for grouping nodes, identifying local patterns, comparing and contrasting networks, 91 Ibid.
Tierney 42
groups, and individuals from a dynamic meta-network perspective.”92 Once I loaded in the
semantic network files created by AutoMap, I was able to run specific reports on the networks to
analyze the concepts within these text networks. I first analyzed the combined network of the 14
issues. I then analyzed the network of each issue individually. I ran the below reports on the
combined network then on the 14 individual networks:
Sphere of Influence: The Sphere of Influence report analyzes how a particular node (here a
word) is connected within the network. I ran this report on pre-identified concepts that relate
to the research question of interest: “America,” “West,” “Islam,” and “Muslim.” I was
interested in understanding the concepts in the network that were contextually similar and
close to these terms of interest. The Sphere of Influence report analyzes and ranks “Shared
Nodes” which are concept nodes that share the most similar links as the node of interest. This
report provides that top ten nodes that have the largest number of neighbors in common with
the node of interest. The report also produces general statistics for the node of interest such
as frequency and centrality. Again, this was performed on “America,” “West,” “Islam,” and
“Muslim,” in the combined network as well as the 14 individual networks.
Key Entity Report: The Key Entity Report performs the standard network analysis measures
such as centrality, betweenness, closeness, and eigenvector.93 This report further provides
general statistics on how many words, sentences, clauses, and words per sentence are within
the text of interest. This report is helpful in informing general statistics about the texts and its
network.
Topic Analysis Report – Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA): The Topic Analysis-LDA report
was run on each network as well as the combined network to discover topics within the texts.
92 “ORA” CASOS. http://www.casos.cs.cmu.edu/projects/ora/ 93 I asked ORA to only run fast network measures due to research interest and processing bandwidth.
Tierney 43
As described earlier, LDA employs a topic-modeling algorithm that groups the concepts
within the text into topics. I instructed ORA to produced an LDA report of only the top 10
ranked topics. This report produced the top 10 words that were determined to be in the topic.
Using this probabilistic model can find groups of similar concepts within the text corpus that
are treated as topics.
Tierney 44
V. Evidence and Observations of Whole Network
As described in the methodology section, I first created a semantic network that
combined all 14 issues of Dabiq. With this combined semantic network, I sought to analyze the
topics and relationships that are represented throughout the issues. I was interested in if Daesh
uses a narrative of victimhood and Utopia.
LDA of Whole Network
Theme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
10% 0% 30% 40% 10% 0% 10%
A. LDA The LDA analysis produced 10 topics with 10 key words per topic. This model’s purpose
is to determine clusterings of words within the network that are similar. This resulting report
produced three topics that concerned victimhood and no topics that concerned belonging. In this
combined network, victimhood and war seemed to be prevalent topics.
Tierney 45
B. Histogram Since this phase was an analysis on the combined issues it was helpful to provide basic
content analytic data such as work frequency and density. The top ten most frequent words used
in all issues of Dabiq are: Allah, Islam, Muslim, will, Ibn, America, people, Jews, Syria, and
Khalifah. Looking at the word density it is apparent that the top four words (Allah, Islam,
Muslim, and will) are used with far great frequency compared to other words in the text. These
results are not surprising given the subject matter.
Tierney 46
Tierney 47
C. Sphere of Influence Networks Issue America Sphere
of Influence: Victimhood
West Sphere of Influence: Victimhood
Islam Sphere of Influence: Utopia
Muslim Sphere of Influence: Utopia
Whole Network
10% 10% 60% 60%
America: Low Level
The sphere of influence network for the term “America” was analyzed for terminology
relevant to the narrative of victimhood. For the top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to
“America” only one term “abandon” was relevant to the narrative.
West: Low Level
The sphere of influence network for the term “West” was analyzed for terminology
relevant to the narrative of victimhood. For the top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to
“West” only one term “crusade” was relevant to the narrative.
Islam: Moderate Level
The sphere of influence network for the term “Islam” was analyzed for terminology
relevant to utopia. For the top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Islam” six terms
“Allah,” “Muslim,” “Khalifah,” “religion,” “apostate,” and “jihadist” were relevant to the
narrative.
Muslim: High Level
The sphere of influence network for the term “Muslim” was analyzed for terminology
relevant to the utopia narrative. For the top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Muslim”
six terms “Allah,” “Islam,” Khalifah,” “religion,” “jihadist,” and “kufr” were relevant to the
narrative.
Tierney 48
D. Observations This network was created from combining all fourteen issues of Dabiq. There is a high
concentration of certain terminology such as “allah,” “Islam,” and “Muslim.” This is in part to be
expected from the text but does show that identity can play a key part in the focus of these
magazine issues. However, there is little victimhood narrative construction appearing within the
sphere of influence reports of the key terms but somewhat more presence of this narrative in the
LDA analysis. This holds implications for what national identity narrative Daesh employs to
reach audiences. Another distinct observation is that the all-issue network is less comprehensive
than the individual issues. Individual issues tend to have a specific theme thus combining all of
the issues together is more difficult to analyze and decipher.
Tierney 49
VI. Evidence and Observations of Individual Issues
Whole
Issue1
Issue2
Issue3
Issue4
Issue5
Issue6
Issue7
Issue8
Issue9
Issue10
Issue11
Issue12
Issue13
Issue14
LDABrutality 10% 0% 0% 10% 30% 0% 0% 10% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% LDAMercy 0% 10% 0% 10% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 10% 0% 0% 0% 10% LDAVictimhood 30% 10% 0% 0% 0% 10% 10% 0% 0% 20% 0% 10% 0% 0% 0% LDAWar 40% 20% 40% 20% 50% 50% 80% 10% 30% 50% 10% 60% 50% 40% 90% LDABelonging 10% 10% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% LDAUtopia 0% 50% 40% 50% 0% 20% 0% 50% 70% 10% 60% 10% 30% 30% 0% LDAUnclear 10% 0% 20% 10% 20% 20% 10% 30% 30% 20% 20% 20% 20% 30% 30%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
100%
%ofTop10LDATopics
LDATopic%OverTime
Tierney 50
WholeNetwork
Issue1
Issue2
Issue3
Issue4
Issue5
Issue6
Issue7
Issue8
Issue9
Issue10
Issue11
Issue12
Issue13
Issue14
AmericaSphereofInfluence:Victimhood 10% 20% 0% 0% 0% 0% 40% 40% 30% 30% 20% 30% 40% 30% 40% WestSphereofInfluence:Victimhood 10% 20% 0% 0% 50% 50% 30% 30% 40% 10% 10% 60% 40% 10% 40%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
%ofTopTenSimilarConcepts
America+WestSphereofInfluence:Victimhood
Whole
Network
Issue1
Issue2
Issue3
Issue4
Issue5
Issue6
Issue7
Issue8
Issue9
Issue10
Issue11
Issue12
Issue13
Issue14
IslamSphereofInfluence:Utopia 60% 40% 50% 20% 20% 20% 20% 20% 30% 30% 30% 20% 40% 30% 40% MuslimSphereofInfluence:Utopia 60% 60% 30% 20% 20% 20% 20% 50% 50% 30% 30% 30% 50% 30% 30%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
%ofTopTenSimilarConcepts
Islam+MuslimSphereofInfluence:Utopia
Tierney 51
Issue 1 A. LDA
This resulting report produced low levels of the victimhood narrative and moderate levels
of the utopia narrative.
LDA of Issue 1 Network
Theme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
0% 10% 10% 20% 10% 50% 0%
B. Sphere of Influence Networks
Issue America Sphere
of Influence:
Victimhood
West Sphere of
Influence:
Victimhood
Islam Sphere of
Influence:
Utopia
Muslim Sphere of
Influence: Utopia
Issue 1 20% 20% 40% 60%
America: Low Level 2 – The sphere of influence network for the term “America” was analyzed
for terminology relevant to the narrative of victimhood. For the top 10 concepts that shared a
similar context to “America” only two terms “crusaders” and “apostasy” were relevant to the
narrative.
West: Low Level 2 - The sphere of influence network for the term “West” was analyzed for
terminology relevant to the narrative of victimhood. For the top 10 concepts that shared a similar
context to “West” only two terms “crusaders” and “American” was relevant to the narrative.
Tierney 52
Islam: Moderate Level 4 - The sphere of influence network for the term “Islam” was analyzed
for terminology relevant to the utopia narrative. For the top 10 concepts that shared a similar
context to “Islam” with four terms “Allah,” “Muslim,” “soldiers,” and “call” were relevant to the
narrative.
Muslim: Moderate Level 6 - The sphere of influence network for the term “Muslim” was
analyzed for terminology relevant to the utopia narrative. For the top 10 concepts that shared a
similar context to “Muslim” with six terms “Allah,” “Islamic State,” “Islamic,” Khalifah,”
“Ummah,” and “mujahidin.”
Tierney 53
Issue 2 A.LDA
This resulting report produced no level of the victimhood narrative and moderate levels
of the utopia narrative.
LDA of Issue 2 Network
Theme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
0% 0% 0% 40% 0% 40% 20%
B. Sphere of Influence Networks
Issue America Sphere
of Influence:
Victimhood
West Sphere of
Influence:
Victimhood
Islam Sphere of
Influence:
Utopia
Muslim Sphere of
Influence: Utopia
Issue 2 0% 0% 50% 30%
America: Not Represented - For the top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “America”
no terms were relevant to the narrative.
West: Not Represented - For the top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “West” no terms
were relevant to the narrative.
Islam: Moderate Level 5 - For the top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Islam” with
five terms “Allah,” “Muslim,” “soldiers,” “call,” and “scholars” were relevant to the narrative.
Muslim: Low Level 3 - For the top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Islam,” “Allah,”
and “Messeng.”
Tierney 54
Issue 3 A. LDA
This resulting report produced no level of the victimhood narrative and moderate levels
of the utopia narrative.
LDA of Issue 3 Network
Theme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
10% 10% 0% 20% 0% 50% 10%
B. Sphere of Influence Networks
Issue America Sphere
of Influence:
Victimhood
West Sphere of
Influence:
Victimhood
Islam Sphere of
Influence:
Utopia
Muslim Sphere of
Influence: Utopia
Issue 3 0% 0% 20% 20%
America: Not Represented - For the top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “America”
no terms were relevant to the narrative.
West: Not Represented - For the top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “West” no terms
were relevant to the narrative.
Islam: Low Level 2 - For the top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Islam” with two
terms “Allah” and “Muslim.”
Muslim: Low Level 2 - For the top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Islamic” and
“Allah.”
Tierney 55
Issue 4 A. LDA
LDA: This resulting report did not have topics representative of narratives of victimhood or
utopia..
LDA of Issue 4 Network
Theme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
30% 0% 0% 50% 0% 0% 20%
B. Sphere of Influence Networks
Issue America Sphere
of Influence:
Victimhood
West Sphere of
Influence:
Victimhood
Islam Sphere of
Influence:
Utopia
Muslim Sphere of
Influence: Utopia
Issue 4 0% 50% 20% 20%
Sphere of Influence Networks
America: Not Represented - The sphere of influence network for the term “America” was
analyzed for terminology relevant to the narrative of marginalization. For the top 10 concepts
that shared a similar context to “America” no terms were relevant to the narrative.
West: Moderate 5 - The sphere of influence network for the term “West” was analyzed for
terminology relevant to the narrative of marginalization. The top 10 concepts that shared a
similar context to “West” that were relevant to the narrative were “Muslim,” “Islam,”
“America,” “crusade,” and “Allah.”
Tierney 56
Islam: Low Level 2 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Islam” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Allah” and “Muslim.”
Muslim: Low Level 2 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Muslim” that were
relevant to the narrative were to “Islam” and “Allah.”
Tierney 57
Issue 5 A. LDA LDA: This resulting report had only one topic representing victimhood and two topics
representing the utopia narrative.
LDA of Issue 5 Network
Theme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
0% 0% 10% 50% 0% 20% 20%
B. Sphere of Influence Networks
Issue America Sphere
of Influence:
Victimhood
West Sphere of
Influence:
Victimhood
Islam Sphere of
Influence:
Utopia
Muslim Sphere of
Influence: Utopia
Issue 5 0% 50% 20% 20%
America: Not Represented - For the top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “America”
no terms were relevant to the narrative.
West: Moderate Level 5 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “West” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Muslim,” “Islam,” “America,” “uproot,” and “Allah.”
Islam: Low Level 2 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Islam” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Allah” and “Muslims.”
Muslim: Low Level 2- The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Muslim” that were
relevant to the narrative were to “Islam” and “Allah.”
Tierney 58
Issue 6 A. LDA
LDA - This resulting report had one topic representative of victimhood; however no topics
related to utopia.
Theme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
0% 0% 10% 80% 0% 0% 10%
B. Sphere of Influence Networks
Issue America Sphere
of Influence:
Victimhood
West Sphere of
Influence:
Victimhood
Islam Sphere of
Influence:
Utopia
Muslim Sphere of
Influence: Utopia
Issue 6 40% 30% 20% 20%
America: Moderate Level 4 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “America” that
were relevant to the narrative were “embarrassment,” “brothers,” “Muslim,” and “Islam.”
West: Low Level 3 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “West” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Muslim,” “Islam,” and “America.”
Islam: Low Level 2 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Islam” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Allah” and “Muslims.”
Muslim: Low Level 2 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Muslim” that were
relevant to the narrative were to “Islam” and “Allah.”
Tierney 59
Issue 7 A. LDA
This resulting report had no topics with the victimhood narrative but 5 topics related to the utopia
narrative.
Theme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
10% 0% 0% 10% 0% 50% 30%
B. Sphere of Influence Networks
Issue America Sphere
of Influence:
Victimhood
West Sphere of
Influence:
Victimhood
Islam Sphere of
Influence:
Utopia
Muslim Sphere of
Influence: Utopia
Issue 7 40% 30% 20% 50%
America: Moderate Level 4 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “America” that
were relevant to the narrative were “Allah,” “submit,” “Muslim,” and “Islam.”
West: Low Level 3 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “West” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Muslim,” “Islam,” and “Mujahidin.”
Islam: Low Level 2 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Islam” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Allah” and “Muslims.”
Muslim: Moderate Level 5 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Muslim” that
were relevant to the narrative were to “Islam,” “Mujahidin,” “Allah,” “religion,” and “Khalifah.”
Tierney 60
Issue 8 A. LDA
This resulting report showed no utilization of the victimhood narrative while seven topics were
consistent with the utopia narrative.
Theme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
0% 0% 0% 30% 0% 70% 30%
B. Sphere of Influence Networks
Issue America Sphere
of Influence:
Victimhood
West Sphere of
Influence:
Victimhood
Islam Sphere of
Influence:
Utopia
Muslim Sphere of
Influence: Utopia
Issue 8 30% 40% 30% 50%
America: Low Level 3 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “America” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Allah,” “Islamist,” and “Muslim.”
West: Moderate Level 4 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “West” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Muslim,” “Islam,” “crusaders,” and “Allah.”
Islam: Low Level 3 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Islam” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Allah,” “mujahidin,” and “Muslims.”
Muslim: Moderate Level 5 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Muslim” that
were relevant to the narrative were to “Islamist” and “Allah.”
Tierney 61
Issue 9 A. LDA
This resulting report had two topics representative of victimhood and one topic related to the
utopia narrative.
Theme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
0% 0% 20% 50% 0% 10% 20%
B. Sphere of Influence Networks
Issue America Sphere
of Influence:
Victimhood
West Sphere of
Influence:
Victimhood
Islam Sphere of
Influence:
Utopia
Muslim Sphere of
Influence: Utopia
Issue 9 30% 10% 30% 30%
America: Low Level 3- The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “America” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Allah,” “crusaders,” and “Muslim.”
West: Low Level 1 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “West” that were
relevant to the narrative was “Islam.”
Islam: Low Level 3 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Islam” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Allah,” “mujahidin,” and “Muslims.”
Muslim: Low Level 3 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Muslim” that were
relevant to the narrative were to “Islam,” “Jihad,” and “Allah.”
Tierney 62
Issue 10 A. LDA
This resulting report had no topics representative of victimhood and six topics related to the
utopia narrative.
Theme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
0% 10% 0% 10% 0% 60% 20%
B. Sphere of Influence Networks
Issue America Sphere
of Influence:
Victimhood
West Sphere of
Influence:
Victimhood
Islam Sphere of
Influence:
Utopia
Muslim Sphere of
Influence: Utopia
Issue 10 20% 10% 30% 30%
America: Low Level 2 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “America” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Allah” and “crusaders.”
West: Low Level 1 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “West” that were
relevant to the narrative was only “Islam.”
Islam: Low Level 3 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Islam” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Allah,” “Sharia,” and “Muslims.”
Muslim: Low Level 3 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Muslim” that were
relevant to the narrative were to “Islam,” “Sharia,” and “Allah.”
Tierney 63
Issue 11 A. LDA This resulting report had no topics representative of victimhood and one topic related to the
utopia narrative.
Theme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
0% 0% 10% 60% 0% 10% 20%
B. Sphere of Influence Networks
Issue America Sphere
of Influence:
Victimhood
West Sphere of
Influence:
Victimhood
Islam Sphere of
Influence:
Utopia
Muslim Sphere of
Influence: Utopia
Issue 11 30% 60% 20% 30%
America: Low Level 3 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “America” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Muslim,” “Islam,” and “crusaders.”
West: Moderate Level 6 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “West” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Islam,” America,” “war,” “Muslim,” “crusaders,” and “Allah.”
Islam: Low Level 2 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Islam” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Allah” and “Muslim.”
Muslim: Low Level 3 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Muslim” that were
relevant to the narrative were to “Islam,” “Khalifah,” and “Allah.”
Tierney 64
Issue 12 A. LDA
This resulting report had no topics representative of victimhood and three topics related to the
utopia narrative.
Theme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
0% 0% 0% 50% 0% 30% 20%
B. Sphere of Influence Networks
Issue America Sphere
of Influence:
Victimhood
West Sphere of
Influence:
Victimhood
Islam Sphere of
Influence:
Utopia
Muslim Sphere of
Influence: Utopia
Issue 12 40% 40% 40% 50%
America: Moderate Level 4 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “America” that
were relevant to the narrative were “Muslim,” “Islam,” “Allah,” and “crusaders.”
West: Moderate Level 4 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “West” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Islam,” America,” “Muslim,” and “Allah.”
Islam: Moderate Level 4 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Islam” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Allah,” “Khalifah,” “jihad,” and “Muslim.”
Muslim: Moderate Level 5 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Muslim” that
were relevant to the narrative were to “Islam,” “Khalifah,” “mujahidin,” “jihad,” and “Allah.”
Tierney 65
Issue 13 A. LDA
This resulting report had no topics representative of victimhood and three topics related to the
utopia narrative.
Theme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
0% 0% 0% 40% 0% 30% 30%
B. Sphere of Influence Networks
Issue America Sphere
of Influence:
Victimhood
West Sphere of
Influence:
Victimhood
Islam Sphere of
Influence:
Utopia
Muslim Sphere of
Influence: Utopia
Issue 13 30% 10% 30% 30%
America: Low Level 3 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “America” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Muslim,” “Islam,” and “Allah.”
West: Low Level 1 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “West” that were
relevant to the narrative was “Allah.”
Islam: Low Level 3 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Islam” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Allah,” “Khalifah,” and “Muslim.”
Muslim: Low Level 3 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Muslim” that were
relevant to the narrative were to “Islam,” “Khalifah,” and “Allah.”
Tierney 66
Issue 14 A. LDA
This resulting report had no topics representative of victimhood or utopia.
Theme Brutality Mercy Victimhood War Belonging Utopia Unclear
Overall
Representation
0% 10% 0% 90% 0% 0% 30%
B. Sphere of Influence Networks
Issue America Sphere
of Influence:
Victimhood
West Sphere of
Influence:
Victimhood
Islam Sphere of
Influence:
Utopia
Muslim Sphere of
Influence: Utopia
Issue 14 40% 40% 40% 30%
America: Moderate Level 4 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “America” that
were relevant to the narrative were “Muslim,” “Islam,” “West,” and “Allah.”
West: Moderate Level 4 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “West” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Muslim,” “Islam,” “Allah,” and “America.”
Islam: Moderate Level 4 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Islam” that were
relevant to the narrative were “Allah,” “religion,” “call,” and “Muslim.”
Muslim: Low Level 3 - The top 10 concepts that shared a similar context to “Muslim” that were
relevant to the narrative were to “Islam,” “jihad,” and “Allah.”
Tierney 67
VII. Discussion
In the Dabiq magazine series, the dominant narratives of victimhood and utopia are not
the predominant narrative utilized by Daesh. War is the most predominant narrative employed by
Daesh based upon the LDA analysis. This applies to the whole network of Dabiq aswellas
whentheindividualnetworksareanalyzed.However,thenarrativeofutopiadoesfeature
moreprominentlythantheotherfivenarrativesofbrutality,mercy,victimhood,belonging,
and“unclear.”ThesphereofinfluencereportsforIslamandMusliminthecombined
networkandtheninthefirsttwoissuesofDabiqdoshowconceptsthatareassociatdwith
utopia.However,theutopianarrativeconceptassociationforIslamandMuslimthen
decreaseinsubsequentissuesofDabiq.Thevictimhoodnarrativedoesnotappear
frequentlyintheLDAreports.Similarly, the sphere of influence reports for America and West
were not heavily associated with concepts related to victimhood.
Overall,thisanalysisdemonstratesthatthenarrativesofvictimhoodandutopiaare
notthecentralnarratives may be just peripheral narratives and not at the core of what Daesh
publishes. Using Monroe Price’s Market for Loyalties framework, there are national identity
narratives that Daesh constructs to compete in the market; however, this national identity
narrative is largely not about utopia or victimhood. Rather, this national identity narrative is
more strongly constructed via war and the military conquests of Daesh. The analyses show that
other narratives are far more prevalent within the magazine issues. In my analysis of the data
results, the narrative of battle victory, violence, and aggression were far more prevalent and
highly represented within the findings. Many scholars have pointed toward Daesh’s initial
military victories and holding of territory as drivers of the group’s success. Successfully holding
territory was further seen as a way to differentiate Daesh from Al Qaeda and a main selling point
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for potential Daesh recruits. Moreover, as Daesh has lost territory and its international image has
been weakened, the group has seen a sharp decrease in the flow of foreign fighters, sympathizers
and recruiters.94 Violence, victory, and spoils may in fact be the key narratives that Daesh
employs in its propaganda as well as key drivers for its potential pool of recruits.
Furthermore, though Dabiq offers an ideal text-based and long-form propaganda piece to
mine narratives the function of the magazine could be quite different from other propaganda
pieces. It is possible that in solely studying Dabiq, Daesh may focus on military victories and
violence in Dabiq. While in other propaganda outlets, the narratives may be quite different – or
they could be the same. Further research is warranted on other propaganda materials such as
videos, the new Daesh magazines, memes, discussions forums, tweets, and more to gain a
holistic understanding of the common narratives employed throughout each. In addition, further
research is need on how impactful Dabiq is on radicalization compared to other pieces of Daesh
propaganda. My analysis only focused on the narratives used by a terrorist organization, it did
not focus on how the target audience interacts with, consumes, and reacts to the propaganda
pieces.
Another facet of the discussion is what Daesh writes and produces versus what compels
its audience. It could very well be the case that Daesh imbues its propaganda with violence,
claims of military victories and territorial acquisition. Yet, those may not be the narratives that
are most relevant to the audience. It is possible that the audience focuses on peripheral
narratives. Though it could very well be the case that Daesh produces just what the audience
would like to read and digest. Further research on the consumption of Daesh propaganda and
94 Gibbons-Neff, Thomas. “Number of Foreign Fighters Entering Iraq and Syria Drops by 90 Percent, Pentagon Says.” The Washington Post. 26 April 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/04/26/number-of-foreign-fighters-entering-iraq-and-syria-drops-by-90-percent-pentagon-says/?utm_term=.c602f4e42829
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audience reaction and interpretation of it is warranted. This could be done through interviews
with former extremists or even an analysis of the online Daesh sympathizer landscape. To fully
understand what narratives are being consumed and digested study of the intended audience
needs to be performed. This would provide a more nuanced picture of what makes certain
propaganda pieces attractive or not.
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VIII. Policy Implications The policy implications of my research then focus on what counter narratives and actions
can be undertaken to undermine Daesh’s message. Below are several policy recommendations:
I. Focus on “War”
In Dabiq, Daesh focuses on battles, conquest, victory, and violence. If we assume that the high
presence of this narrative is indicative of what attracts sympathizers to Daesh then those seeking
to counter Daesh’s message should construct a message that focuses on how Daesh is losing.
This counter narrative should hone in on how Daesh has lost a significant amount of territory and
is becoming weaker day by day. In short, Daesh is a weak loser.
II. Degrade Daesh Militarily
A central component of portraying Daesh a “weak loser” is militarily degrading the organization.
With more military defeats and loss of territory, Daesh becomes is unable to showcase territorial
gains and military prowess. Winning the war on the ground may be a crucial part in winning the
war of narratives.
III. Focus on “Dystopia”
Another narrative prevalent in Dabiq, especially in earlier issues, is utopia. Daesh portrayed its
“caliphate” as a highly functioning state where sympathizers – regardless of national background
– have flocked to in order to establish a new life for themselves. The counter narrative should
then focus on how the “caliphate” is no utopia. Using former members of Daesh and those who
lived under their control are crucial in exposing this hypocrisy.
IV. Who Tells the Story?
These counter narratives will be ineffective if the messenger is not credible. Western
governments such as the United States and France cannot be the messengers. Rather, those
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wishing to employ counter narratives must have credibility within communities. Former
extremists, peers, family members, and figures that hold influence within communities may be
best positioned to deliver these alternative narratives.
V. Implications for Daesh 2.0
Territory, military success, and claims of utopia have been key ingredients in the success but also
the fall of Daesh. At present, Daesh is embattled with coalition forces and is expected to collapse
as a governing entity. Understanding these ingredients and how Daesh sold itself, policy makers
should focus on denying future terrorist organizations the ability to acquire territory and project
itself as an idyllic community with great military success. Thus it is critical to deny Daesh and
the next generation of terrorist organizations the ability to conquer and hold territory. Moreover,
demonstrating that this next terrorist group offers no utopia nor victory further erodes the
resonance of the violent extremist narrative and ideology.
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IX. Conclusion To win the war of ideas, we must understand what Daesh is selling. Daesh sells
empowerment and identity, which it links to success, conquest, and purpose. Daesh is now a
faltering organization as it loses territory and its former prestige. However, the group tapped into
an identity that was powerful. Future terrorist groups will learn from this example and only
enhance these narratives. We must be ready to produce effective and credible counter and
alternative narratives as well as deny such groups military success and territory.
It is my hope that the research put forth in this analysis will provide a useful quantitative
analysis of what Daesh sees as the most effective narratives to put in its premiere propaganda
piece. However, there is still a significant gap in understanding these narratives: which identity
narrative actually resonates with the intended audience? The return or capture of disillusioned
former extremists can help answer this question. Interviews with these “formers” can illuminate
what they found most compelling in the propaganda pieces. Moreover, technology and social
media networks can also illuminate what propaganda pieces and messages are most widely
shared, retweeted, and propagated through networks. Understanding how audiences interact with
these narratives is crucial to building a fully impactful counter narrative strategy. This research
provides a useful starting point for more fully understanding what Daesh is trying to sell.
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Appendix A: LDA Results Combined Network
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Appendix B: LDA Individual Issues
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Appendix C: Sphere of Influence Reports – America
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Appendix D: Sphere of Influence Reports – West
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Appendix E: Sphere of Influence Reports – Islam
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Appendix F: Sphere of Influence Reports – Muslim