'In the words of the enemy' : mediatising the Islamic state in Dabiq

Abstract

Our daily lives are mediated in a proliferation of influence from media organisations and technology (Livingstone, 2009). This mediatisation illustrates the need for an analysis that extends beyond merely considering the construction of the ‘Other’. The Islamic State’s narrative, I argue, exemplifies this. In a background of destabilisation incited by the 2003 Iraq War and the ongoing crisis in Syria, the Islamic State emerges through the atrocities of its territorial gains to attempt legitimisation in the digital mediascape. Throughout this dissertation, I examine the discursive manipulation (Van Dijk, 2006) that structures the project identity (Castells, 2004) of the Islamic State. Examining Dabiq, the official magazine of the Islamic State, I follow the utterances of prominent world leaders and terrorism experts directly quoted in the Islamic State’s column, ‘In the Words of the Enemy’. I consider these direct quotations as part of an exploitation of Bourdieu’s (1989) field of power, enhancing the attempted legitimisation of the Islamic State. I then establish how the column itself becomes capital, re-quoted by politicians featured as ‘enemies’, disseminating the Islamic State’s self-claimed legitimacy into a broader mediascape.