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Proto-State Media Systems: The Digital Rise of Al-Qaeda and ISIS

Online ISBN:
9780197568064
Print ISBN:
9780197568026
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Proto-State Media Systems: The Digital Rise of Al-Qaeda and ISIS

Carol Winkler,
Carol Winkler

Professor, Department of Communication

Professor, Department of Communication, Georgia State University
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Kareem El Damanhoury
Kareem El Damanhoury

Assistant Professor of Media and Journalism Studies

Assistant Professor of Media and Journalism Studies, University of Denver
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Published online:
17 February 2022
Published in print:
9 April 2022
Online ISBN:
9780197568064
Print ISBN:
9780197568026
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

Proto-State Media Systems explores how militant, non-state organizations create, develop, and sustain media systems in the contemporary environment. It challenges generalized applications of dominant state-based media system models by revealing how such approaches lack full explanatory power for assessing the structures and functions of media systems of groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS. Utilizing theories of constitutive discourse and online networks, as well as revised conceptualizations of proto-states and media systems, the book explores how militant proto-states can create identity-based media systems capable of attracting and sustaining online and offline loyalties. Proto-State Media Systems begins by tracing the structural evolution of the media operations of al-Qaeda over a thirty-year period and of ISIS since it emerged around the turn of the century. It then mines recurrent transhistorical and transpatial referent points in al-Qaeda and ISIS’s Arabic and English media products to identify insightful, embedded criteria for evaluating proto-state media systems. It then identifies events—both material and symbolic—associated with heightened interest levels by online users and traditional media outlets, and explores how patterned uses of multimodal appeals function to sustain viewer interest over time. It concludes by providing an integrated model for comparing proto-state media systems.

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