Propaganda in focus: decoding the media strategy of ISIS

From 2014 to 2017, ISIS rose and then declined in territorial control while intensifying global outreach via official English-language videos. Understanding this media strategy is central to countering terrorism, as these videos aimed to intimidate enemies, recruit sympathizers, and legitimize ISIS’s worldview through psychological, rhetorical, and theological devices. The study focuses on English-language content to capture ISIS’s intentional messaging to international audiences and addresses gaps in prior work that conflated Arabic and English materials or emphasized production over thematic substance. Research questions: (1) Which intrinsic narrative motifs are most prominent? (2) How do these narratives articulate and represent ISIS’s worldview? (3) How does thematic distribution evolve from 2014 to 2017, and what does this signify about ISIS’s media strategy?

Prior research shows ISIS’s media evolving from traditional jihadist communications to a sophisticated, multimedia operation leveraging social media, high-quality video, and English-language outputs to broaden reach (Atwan, Winter, Milton, Kruglova, Sweeney et al., Qi, Colette & Cunliffe). Studies highlight staged violence as strategic theater to project power and induce fear, a marketing-like narrative construction exploiting emotions and identity, and deliberate visual manipulation to showcase governance and “normal life.” English-language propaganda targets Western and global audiences with tailored messaging. Comparative work indicates shared jihadist themes (recruitment, indoctrination, enemy construction, religious justification, calls to action) across groups (Taliban, Al-Qaeda, AQIM, AQAP), but ISIS distinguishes itself through production quality, apocalyptic motifs, and consistent cross-format messaging. Gaps include limited focus on English-only thematic evolution and insufficient documentation of how themes shift with real-world events. This study addresses those gaps with a systematic thematic content analysis of official English-language videos over the key 2014–2017 period.

Framework: Braddock and Horgan’s narrative/content analysis approach is used to identify themes central to extremist ideology through mixed quantitative (overt message characteristics) and qualitative (thematic) assessments, supported by narrative persuasion literature. Procedures: Multiple close readings to grasp theme, style, and meaning; code generation and consolidation; sorting codes into overarching themes; and quantifying thematic elements to identify prevalence. Sampling: 79 official English-language ISIS videos released April 2014–July 2017, capturing the period from the fall to the liberation of Mosul. Inclusion required English narration or subtitles and provenance from official media centers (al-Hayat, al-Furqan, al-I'tisam) or provincially produced items promoted via official series (“Selected,” “Featured”), ensuring organizational authorization. Data collection: Conducted Oct 1, 2015–Aug 1, 2017, from scholar-curated digital archives (e.g., jihadoot.org). From a larger pool (1,025), 79 official English-language videos were selected via the criteria above. Analytical procedure: Videos totaling 915 minutes were segmented into 915 one-minute units. Coders applied thematic codes to each minute; 799 coded segments (varying lengths) were cataloged, totaling 1,707 unit-durations. Themes with a significance level ≥0.06 (≈100 units) were considered substantially prevalent. Temporal dynamics and distributional asymmetry were examined using a skewness (KSW) statistic to assess uneven thematic distribution over time. Coding instrument development: Initial code list created from analyst observations and refined via relevant literature (e.g., Winter 2015; Pelletier et al. 2016; Harrigan), resulting in a robust, comprehensive scheme. Reliability: An independent expert coder reviewed and, following pilot tests and consensus building (Schreier, 2012), two major revisions produced a final set of 26 thematic codes. Transparency: Appendices document data sources, final codes, and example segment/duration tables to facilitate replication.

- Overall narrative composition: Enemy 41%, Religious 38%, Emotive 21%. - Most prevalent single themes (selected): Sharia and governance ≈9.3%; Capitals and construction ≈7.3%; Jihad ≈6.4%; Support from Quran and Sunnah ≈6.3%; Western malevolence ≈6.1%; Happiness and wellbeing ≈6.7%; Strength and victory ≈5.0%; Execution ≈4.5%. - Enemy narrative breakdown (examples from figures): Combat ≈9%; Capitals and construction ≈7%; Western malevolence ≈6%; Execution ≈5%; Rejection of antagonists ≈4%; Western failures ≈4%; West colluding with enemies ≈3%; Vice punishments ≈2%; Terror attack ≈2%. - Religious narrative breakdown (examples from figures): Sharia/governance ≈9%; Jihad ≈7%; Support from Quran and Sunnah ≈6%; Calls for unity/allegiance and obedience-related themes around ≈4%; other religious motifs (support from scholars, apocalyptic prophecy, exemplary models) generally lower (≈1–3%). - Emotive narrative breakdown (examples from figures/text): Happiness and wellbeing ≈5.7–6.7%; Strength/victories ≈5%; Martyrdom and Muslim suffering ≈2–4%; Restoring honour/feelings of humiliation ≈1% each. - Temporal dynamics: Six themes showed high variability—vice and punishment, terror attack, apocalypse and prophecy, support from scholars, combat, obedience to God. “Terror attack” spiked around portrayals of major claimed incidents (e.g., November 2015 Paris attacks; peak January 2016). Stable and recurrent themes included jihad, West colluding with enemies, happiness and wellbeing, captives and confession, support from Quran and Sunnah, and sharia/governance, indicating persistent ideological anchors. - Asymmetric distribution: Skewness analyses indicate uneven temporal emphasis consistent with adaptive media tactics responding to operational events while sustaining core ideological themes.

Dominance of enemy and religious narratives constructs a binary “us vs. them” worldview that legitimizes violence and forges in-group identity. The religious register—invocations of Quran/Sunnah, sharia/governance, and violent jihad—provides theological sanction and recruitment appeal. Emotive content, while less prevalent, is strategically deployed to resonate with perceived injustice, discrimination, and identity grievances. Comparative insights suggest ISIS sustains thematic consistency across media formats (videos, magazines, speeches, nasheeds) but varies intensity and emotional appeal by format and audience. Temporal analysis shows adaptive spikes in event-linked themes (e.g., terror attacks, apocalyptic motifs) alongside stable ideological pillars (sharia, jihad, scriptural justification), reflecting a dual strategy of responsiveness to real-world developments and maintenance of doctrinal consistency. These findings align with broader debates on religion’s role in ISIS’s violence, adding empirical weight to the importance of religious framing in ISIS’s English-language outputs. For counter-messaging, this underscores the need to dismantle binary enemy frames and theological claims while addressing grievances that ISIS exploits.

ISIS’s official English-language videos from 2014–2017 present a sophisticated propaganda apparatus interweaving adversarial, theological, and emotive threads. Key conclusions: (1) Enemy and religious narratives are the core pillars of ISIS’s messaging to global audiences; (2) Sharia/governance and jihad-related themes are persistently prominent, evidencing an ideologically anchored worldview; (3) While foundational themes remain stable over time, event-driven themes (e.g., terror attacks, apocalyptic prophecy) are adaptive and fluctuate with geopolitical developments; (4) Emotive themes, though secondary in volume, are instrumental for recruitment and identity reinforcement. Future research should broaden datasets, incorporate audience reception studies, analyze stylistic/cinematic devices, and extend beyond thematic content to rhetorical and pragmatic functions of language across ISIS media formats to better inform counter-narrative strategies.

- Corpus completeness: Security and resource constraints preclude claiming an exhaustive collection of ISIS-produced videos. - Audience reception: The study does not examine how different audiences interpret or are affected by the videos. - Style/cinematics: The analysis centers on thematic content rather than cinematography, narrative structure, or production techniques that may shape impact. - Method constraints: Content analysis may under-represent rhetorical sophistication and reasoning devices; deeper discourse, linguistic, and multimodal analyses are needed for comprehensive understanding.