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Inside The ISIS Propaganda Machine: An Up-Close Look At A Militant Media Strategy
“I've grown used to IS ultraviolence, but this video was different. Different because, at my office desk, the place where I conduct all my research, I have a photograph of myself with my now-wife, dad and step-mum taken at that very same Palmyran theatre almost five years ago."
That’s a quote from Charlie Winter, Senior Researcher at the Quilliam Foundation, which describes itself as “the world’s first counter-extremism think tank, set up to address the unique challenges of citizenship, identity, and belonging in a globalized world.”
The reference is to a video ISIS released over the summer depicting a mass execution at Palmyra's Roman Theatre. The most chilling thing about this particular Islamic State murder montage: the executioners are all children.
The clip represented yet another attempt on the group's part to one-up itself on the way to creating a vast catalogue of ultra-violent propaganda videos that have both shocked and captivated the Western public.
"Jihadi John" introduced the world to Islamic State's brand of barbarism by beheading Westerners on camera with a bowie knife. The brutality quickly escalated and before long, the group released footage of a Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a cage. After that, ISIS proceeded to bombard social media with a steady stream of increasingly cartoonish execution videos including one clip that depicts four men being packed into a Toyota Corolla which is then destroyed at close range with an RPG, and a particularly gruesome effort involving three gasoline-doused captives being hung upside down from a swingset before being set alight.
But Islamic State's media arm doesn't confine itself to producing real-life Quentin Tarantino clips. As we documented in "Austrian Economics Is Now Equivalent To Terrorism Thanks To Latest Islamic State 'Gold Standard' Propaganda Clip," the group's videos run the gamut from history lessons to proselytizing to recruitment drives. Indeed, Islamic State is exceptionally media savvy and the group's ability to attract fighters from all corners of the globe owes much to the propaganda arm. Just last week for instance, ISIS released an exceptionally well executed clip wherein the narrator touches on everything from geography, to racism, to veteran suicide rates before denouncing secularism and telling the US, Russia, and everyone else to "bring it on."
There are of course serious questions as to who exactly is responsible for the Hollywood specials that emanate from the Al Hayat media arm, and although he didn't discover any evidence that John McCain has a director's chair on ISIS sets or that the desert landscapes in the Jihadi John clips are in fact rendered on a green screen, Charlie Winter (quoted above) did manage to collect quite a bit of useful information about Islamic State propaganda in the course of conducting extensive research on how the group crafts its message.
* * *
From Fishing and Ultraviolence, by Charlie Winter, as originally published by BBC
We know that ideologically driven supporters of IS are attracted and gratified by its militaristic and ultraviolent propaganda, but what about the rest?
What about the thousands of civilian men, women and girls that leave their homes for the so-called IS caliphate?
for the entire 30 days of the month of Shawwal - which, according to IS's own calendar, began on 17 July and finished on 15 August - I spent two hours a day going through its Arabic-language support network on Twitter with a fine-tooth comb, navigating between its various forms of propaganda, using combinations of the group's countless designated hashtags as keys.
What I found was shocking, but not because of its brutality.
In just 30 days, IS's official propagandists created and disseminated 1,146 separate units of propaganda.
Photo essays, videos, audio statements, radio bulletins, text round-ups, magazines, posters, pamphlets, theological treatises - the list goes on.
Radio bulletins and text round-ups were released in six languages - Russian, Turkish, Arabic, Kurdish, French and English. After grouping the different language versions of the same item together there were 892 units in total.
All of it was uniformly presented and incredibly well-executed, down to the finest details.
[..]
More often than not, it was the idea of utopia that was being stressed - social justice, economy, religious “purity” and the constant expansion of the “caliphate”.
Aside from these broad, superficial observations, the content was so voluminous and subject to change that there were no easy characterisations.
For example, on a relatively normal day, the 23rd of Shawwal, there was a total of 50 distinct pieces of propaganda.
[...]
Thirty two of the 50 showed off civilian activities - a plastering workshop in Mosul, newspapers being distributed in Fallujah, pavements laid in Tal'afar, telephone lines fixed in Qayara, cigarettes confiscated and burned in Sharqat, and even camels being herded in Bir al-Qasab.
From the offset, the lack of brutality was striking. I knew from past research that IS's brand went much further than shedding the blood of its enemies, but there was a complete absence of it in the first few days of Shawwal.
In retrospect, this makes sense.
Coming immediately after the holy month of Ramadan, Shawwal begins with a day of celebration, Eid al-Fitr.
Predictably, IS wanted to show this off.
The propagandists made great play of the alms-distribution among the needy in Syria and Libya, and spent a huge amount of time documenting celebratory prayers and the general “ambiences” of the festivities.
Kids played on fairground rides, toys and sweets were handed out among orphans, fighters at the front lines sang, drank tea and laughed together.
At one point, a programme was even produced by IS's official radio station, al-Bayan, in which “random” passers-by were quizzed about their Eid experiences (which were, of course, invariably euphoric).
Photo essays depicting melon agriculture, handicrafts and industry, wildlife, cigarette confiscations and street cleaning were disseminated on an almost like-for-like basis alongside sets of images showing balaclava-wearing IS fighters firing mortars into the distance, defiling large piles of dead “enemies” and gloating over booty.
Contrary to the countless reports that had emerged in July claiming that IS was toning down its brutality, the spectre of ultraviolence was never far off.
Only five days into Shawwal a video was released in which an pro-Assad soldier was shot in the back and cast off a cliff in Syria's Hama province.
Four days later footage emerged depicting the consecutive beheading of three “spies” in Iraq. And, shortly after that, a video showed a group of “enemies” of IS in Afghanistan being tied up and murdered - killed by the buried explosives they had been forced to sit on.
The further the month progressed, the clearer the motivations behind IS's killing became.
A warning was being sent out, but not to the international community. The intended target audience for these videos were the potential dissenters living in IS-held territories.
They were being told that they face a zero-sum game - stay on side, and enjoy the IS utopia, or assist the enemy and die in awful cruelty.
Not a single day passed without the immense cogs of the IS propaganda machine churning out another batch of releases. Consistently, the constituent parts of each batch meant little when taken in isolation.
However, taken together, they presented a comprehensive snapshot of life under the group with something for everyone.
* * *
Yes, "something for everyone." Like grapes? Join the harvest in Raqqa. Enjoy a nice dip in the pool on days when the desert sun and sweltering heat are unbearable? Go for a swim with friends and family in Mosul. Are your kids bored? ISIS has bouncy castles for that. Need to blow off some steam? Just throw on your all black executioner garb, head up to a fog-covered mountain side on your matching horse, and execute some "spies."
There's much more in the full BBC article (linked above) but for those who want a still more granular look, Winter's research is the basis for a longer paper entitled "Documenting The Virtual 'Caliphate'." These are Winter's ten conclusions:
- The volume of output produced by Islamic State far exceeds most estimates, which have been, until now, necessarily conservative. Disseminating an average of 38.2 unique propaganda events a day from all corners of the Islamic State ‘caliphate’, this is an exceptionally sophisticated information operation campaign, the success of which lies in the twin pillars of quantity and quality. Given this scale and dedication, negative measures like censorship are bound to fail.
- While there is broad consistency in the Islamic State narrative, it changes on a day-to-day basis according to on-the-ground prioritiesfor the group. Composed of 6 non-discrete parts – mercy, belonging, brutality, victimhood, war and utopia – the ‘caliphate’ brand is constantly shifting.
- Constituting just 3.48% of the Shawwal dataset, the themes of mercy, belonging and brutality are dwarfed by the latter three narratives in terms of prominence. This is a marked shift from past propaganda norms and is indicative of changes in tactical outreach for Islamic State.
- Over half of all the propaganda was focused on depicting civilian life in Islamic State-held territories. The spectre of ultraviolence was ever-present, but the preponderant focus on the ‘caliphate’ utopia demonstrates the priorities of the group’s media strategists.
- Economic activity, social events, abundant wildlife, unwavering law and order, and pro-active, pristine ‘religious’ fervour form the foundations of Islamic State’s civilian appeal. In this way, the group attracts supporters based on ideological and political appeal.
- Besides civilian life, the propagandists go to great lengths to portray their military, variously depicting it in stasis or during offensives. There are few occasions upon which its defensive war is documented, something that makes sense given the need to perpetuate the aura of supremacy and momentum.
- A large proportion of military-themed events is devoted to showing Islamic State’s war of attrition, with mortars and rockets being fired towards an unseen enemy. Given the locations from which many of these reports emerge, as well as the fact that the aftermath of such strikes is rarely, if ever documented, it is conceivable that these low-risk attacks are falsely choreographed to perpetuate a sense of Islamic State’s constantly being ‘on the offensive’.
- Islamic State still markets itself with brutality. However, the intended audiences for its ultraviolence are decidedly more regional than they have been in days gone by. Indeed, it seems that fostering international infamy is now secondary to intimidating its population, in order to discourage rebellion and dissent. Of course, this is very much subject to change.
- The quantity, quality and variation of Islamic State propaganda in just one month far outweighs the quantity, quality and variation of any attempts, state or non-state, to challenge the group. All current efforts must be scaled up to achieve meaningful progress in this war.
- The global desire to find a panacea counter-narrative to undermine the Islamic State brand is misplaced. Categorically, there is no such thing. Those engaged in the information war on the ‘caliphate’ must take a leaf out of the group’s own media strategy book and prioritise quantity, quality, variation, adaptability and differentiation. Most importantly, though, it must be based upon an alternative, not counter, narrative
Here's a look at some of the more granular data which breaks the propaganda output down by topic and medium:
And here's a breakdown that shows which offices are the most prolific among what is apparently a sprawling network operating across the caliphate:
Before you ask, there were no statistics for the Langley office.
Finally, here's Winter's effort to develop an org chart for the entire ISIS media production complex which he says spans at least a dozen countries:
So for those looking to make sense of the myriad logos that appear at the beginning of the videos, the main production units are the al-Furqan, al-I’tisam and Ajnad Foundations and the al-Hayat Media Center. Al-Hayat produced last week's special effects-laden, four-minute extravaganza (mentioned above).
Needless to say, it would be almost impossible to track who all is involved in the funding and dissemination of ISIS propaganda given the dizzying array of discrete production units shown above. We have little doubt that an investigation into each of the individual entities shown in the org chart would reveal some very interesting connections to state sponsors across the Sunni world.
Ultimately, we would agree with Winter that Islamic State's propaganda machine is probably more dangerous for its ability to paint a pleasant picture of life in the "caliphate" than for its capacity to shock the Western public with wanton displays of brutality.
That said, perhaps the larger question here is this: how is it that a movement with only 30,000 estimated fighters who have supposedly been the target of intense US airstrikes and counter-terrorism ops for 14 months is able to control and govern cities with populations that number in the millions virtually unimpeded? Remember, Saddam had around 400,000 troops and his army held up for about three weeks in the face of a "serious" effort by the US.
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I am Langley and Hollywood, and I approve this message.
This is why we read ZH.
the zeros are truth the ones are lies
zero the lobby boy?
The Quilliam Foundation was setup by ex extremists. They obviously realised there was more money on the NGO side of the fence. Neocons have also infested the place.
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Quilliam_Foundation
you don't believe in rehabilitation?
Want Ultra-Violence, see Star Wars.
Is violence rated as mild, strong and ultra?
God, these guys find a lot of time to pose for photos. I can't seem to find the time to catch a photo of the family during the holidays, much less an extended group photo, and I'm not even trying to establish a Caliphate or nothin'.
Take a closer look, most of those photos are photoshoped goodness and cgi....weird hard outlines of the mens faces.....the isis flags are too plack in two photos. none of this makes any fucking sense. Its like avery bad movie.
are you one of those who thinks the holocaust didn't happen or that the official figures over-stated?
either way, you're an idiot.
How the fuck do you write an article of this size and depth and somehow fail to include the label psyop?
*head asplodes*
the written word is psyop.
stop being so naive.
Quilliam Foundation is a psyop.
everything communicated is a psyop, so get over yourself.
they don't seem like bad guys.
Quilliam is a London-based think tank that focuses on "counter-extremism", specifically Islamism, which it argues represents a desire to impose any given interpretation of Islam on society. Founded as The Quilliam Foundation, it lobbies government and public institutions for more nuanced policies regarding Islam and on the need for greater democracy in the Muslim world. According to one of its co-founders, Maajid Nawaz, "We wish to raise awareness around Islamism";[1] he also said, "I want to demonstrate how the Islamist ideology is incompatible with Islam. Secondly … develop a Western Islam that is at home in Britain and in Europe … reverseradicalisation by taking on their arguments and countering them."[2]
The organisation opposes any Islamist ideology and champions freedom of expression. The critique of Islamist ideology by its founders, Maajid Nawaz, Rashad Zaman Ali and Ed Husain, is based, in part, on their personal experiences.[3]
At the time of its launch Quilliam published a policy proposal for the British government and journalists, in which it suggested that rehabilitation centres should be established where extremists could be deradicalised. These centres would expose extremists and terrorists who wished to leave their organisations to the work of scholars whose work had been recognized as sound and legitimate.
There is more recent information about Quilliam's goals available on its website. For example:
To date, the organization's goals have been mainly communicated in three ways: through the publication of reports, through involvement with the media, i.e. by taking part in interviews and discussions across Europe and the Middle East, and through its "Outreach and Training" unit, which delivers a "radicalisation awareness programme". This programme provides a training course intended to develop students' understanding of the following:
Yes, yes, very true.
Why though, would you fail to use the word that is synonymous with the efforts of so-called intelligence agencies when writing this article? Does the author truly believe this media campaign organically emanates from Middle East rather than someplace else where there's plenty of expertise in the field?
In other news, I just found this article where Anonymous is claiming that a Silicon Valley firm, CloudFlare is helping ISIS websites defend against their DDOS attacks.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3338580/Anonymous-accuses-Silico...
The rebranding of ISIS as a 'moderate' outfit with 'officials' is underway.
How much is all this propaganda costing Langley?
Does it really matter anymore?
It's all coming out of the smuggled oil and Captagon budgets
just so we can control the flow of ME oil for our industrialized societies and constant quest for growth?
Plus the fun aspect of watching 'your'* enemies killing each other.
* - 'your' includes Deep State, PTB, MIC, etc
while enemy make mistake, do not him interrupt.
^^ You mean, how much is it costing unwiting taxpayers. Maybe the money is coming from the missing Trillions Fund, Rumsfeld lost at the Pentagon.
Its shocking that people have no idea that the GUB has no 0 money...only the ability to steal from you legally.
Instead of saying thanks uncle sam people should be saying thanks neighbor....
People dont think.
RIPS
No, they blew that on dismantling the US this has to be new money.
$2.3 Trillion
It does not cost Langley a dime , that's because the American taxpayer is paying for it and they don't give a rats ass what the tax money is spent on.
Only part of Langley's operating budget is appropriated by Congress and paid by American taxpayers. What the CIA has to pay for out of non-appropriated revenues they arguably do care about. Some days I wonder why the US Congress bother maintaining the Intelligence Committees, as they lack intelligence and do not perform any significant oversight.
Everytime the world gets poorer the films get better and the stocks go up.
"
Is not to worry. Costs will recovered in profits from upcoming ISIS Broadway musical The Caliph and I.
"How much is all this propaganda costing Langley?"
You are Soooo Old-School Monetary Theory. "Deficits don't matter", per Dick Cheney, don't ya know?
Actually, per MMT (Modern Monetary Theory, i.e. Fiat Global Reserve Currency since Aug. 1971), Cheney's statement is 100% true: Debt is exported to the rest of the planet, that uses or is forced to use the USD. As long as the USD is the GRC, there is no bill that the Fed cannot pay: They simply pay it with FRNs issued out of thin air. It's what they do.
The sitution is so Twilight-Zone extreme, that they don't even need your Income Tax anymore. You are being taxed purely for purposes of conditioning you to revert to a Feudal Serf mentality and position: FEUDALISM 2.0. It's what the NWO has in store for all.
Now watch all the Fools and Sheeple revert to their habitual/conditioned responses and pre-programmed sophist Narrative. Even here on ZH we see plenty of it.
I instituted a counter-tax March 10th 2008 Bear Stearns time New York shitty.
tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,...
:|
Yes you may ask how they control vast swathes of territory with such small numbers. Well take a look at the actual active members of the Nazi party and troop numbers and you could ask the same question......
http://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2015/11/us-gives-their-prox...
you don't make any sense, so fucking say it.
don't imply.
Saddle up guys , it's coming here
it's too late
Disney bouncy slide looks fun
Didn't know isis approved of pooh
But I guess you go with what you got
They are fake Muslims.
I love the way the 'audience' (all male natch) have turned up in their freshly-ironed ultra clean western syle clothing.
i didn't notice that at first, but recall that a number of European citizens have gone to live in and fight for the "Islamic" State.
you are jesting too much.
Bomb the washing machines.
Fake TerrorIn Paris Bought to You by Mossad
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r-suG3aTHTY&time_continue=249&ebc=ANyPxKol...
It doesn't matter what "they" did.
What matters is what you do next.
Where do you guys find these videos? Stupid liveleak stopped showing them (ISIS videos) a while back.
The BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-88492697-b674-4c69-8426-3edd17b7...
ISIS Commander = Retired US General Vallely et al.
http://www.wikiarmy.com/index.php/15-breaking-news/97-isis-commander-confirmed-by-veteranstoday
Surprise, surprise, he's a Zionist.
Vallely is also a supporter of Jerusalem Summit and an advocate of the organization's proposal to "relocate"/"resettle" Palestine and the Palestinian People to surrounding Arab countries as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and to bring about the organization's belief "that one of the objectives of Israel's divinely-inspired rebirth is to make it the center of the new unity of the nations, which will lead to an era of peace and prosperity, foretold by the Prophets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_E._Vallely
But, ironically enough, he sounds like a real Libertarian, if you read the Stand Up America US section.
Looking at the total profile, I gather that he's just a KOOLAID guzzling Good Ol' Boy, who sees it as an Us vs Them war, where "Us' = "Judeo-Christian". And it is the "Judeo-Christian" part where gets (willfully?) bamboozled -- as if 'Christians' still run the halls of Power, Money or Influence, or as if their actions are in any way Christ-like at all.
The man's a programmed human-droid, a Useful Tool, a Shabbos Goy with Stars. As you'd expect from modern generals, promoted in the Clinton-Bush-Obama era.
p.s. Resettling the Palestinians to other/adjacent parts of the ME is a very old, but useful idea. I too find it worth pursuing, but I'd carve out equal parts out of Egypt and Jordan and perhaps Syria. And then be done with it. If they can't be happy having a nice big chunk of RE in those territories, then... fuck 'em, let them rot in Gaza. Alternatively, the world could jsut recognize them in Gaza, as a sovereign state and be done with it. Isn't it strange, that Israel is opposed to that also? Makes no sense, unless they Zionist scum truly have the Oded Yinon Plan on the front burner.
Everytime I see anything about ISIS, I go and eat some more bacon - you know, from a pig!! Hahahahahaha ISIS is so fucking stupid.
A serious lack of good pussy. That is what is wrong with those idiots. They let the rich get all the ladies so they are left with war that promises pussy in heaven.
Hey, terrorist! Come change your life here in America where you will be too busy having sex to think about bullshit religion.
Notice how the religious folks here/there are all so up tight? Lack of pussy, I am telling you.
No brazillions. Have to grow a beard.
A complete Human Reset* of the MENA region is beginning to look ever more attractive, to eliminate all cockroaches bred for fanatical ideology.
*Sterilization, devoid of humans.
This same kind of Sterilization is described in the Noah's Flood myth. It uses methods that are rather Neanderthal/Primitive (a Flood) and is consistent with tribal thinking, rather than with Space Age thinking and methods. The latter, for example, would use Targeted Elimination of humans only, and leave other life forms alone -- via a combination of Radiation, Biological or Nano technologies.
{Observation: Ancient myths or predictions of 'Apocalyptic' attacks on earth by a so-called Just Deity are completely suspect and even nonsensical, if the intention of such a Deity is to punish, teach or eliminate humans. If such a being is also destroying the Animal and Plant Kingdom, then we are either dealing with writings from delusional or fraudulent authors, or with technologically advanced beings that are not Divine. Acting like a high-tech version of Conan does not make you Divine.}
we've read this somewhere before...
ISNBC.
The propaganda clips coming out from these guys have better graphics (not sure if the appropriate term is graphics or special effects) than any US made B movie I have watched lately. I just watched this crap movie called PODS for example, their videos are vastly a superior quality compared to such movies that are Hollywood made where the best filming equipment on the planet resides. This budget is big.
P.S. It looks like those kids shat all over that big slide, I don't want to import that.
Obama youth group
Hollywood education at its finest