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Article published In: Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict
Vol. 6:1 (2018) ► pp.79–106

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Othering the West in the online Jihadist propaganda magazines Inspire and Dabiq

 | Swansea University, UK
 | Swansea University, UK
Published online: 2 July 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00004.lor
Abstract
This paper examines how the jihadist terrorist groups Al Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State discursively construct ‘the West’ as an alien, aberrant ‘other’ in their respective online propaganda magazines Inspire and Dabiq over a 5 year period (2010–2015). The analysis integrates insights from the field of Terrorism Studies into a Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies approach, working centrally with the notions of othering and conventionalised impoliteness. Our findings reveal not only that othering is a key discursive process in the groups’ online propaganda machinery but that it is discursively realised via homogenisation, suppression (stereotyping) and pejoration strategies. The latter are further examined via the notion of conventional impoliteness. Pointed criticism emerges as the most frequent conventionalised impoliteness strategy in both magazines. Threats, condescension and exclusion strategies are also saliently used, albeit with different relative frequencies within each magazine. The findings show the value of Discourse Analysis to research into (jihadist) terrorism, including the possibility of drawing upon its findings to develop tailored counter-messages to those advanced by (jihadist) terrorist groups.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The information operations architecture of Jihadist terrorist groups – a focus on the online propaganda magazines Dabiq and Inspire
  • 3.Othering: From social processes to textual realisations
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Corpus
    • 4.2Framework
    • 4.3Procedure
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1The West: An othered group in Dabiq and Inspire
    • 5.2Othering ‘the West’ in Dabiq and Inspire
      • 5.2.1Homogenising ‘the West’
      • 5.2.2Silencing and suppressing ‘the West’
      • 5.2.3Pejoration
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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