THE ISLAMIC STATE’S TACTICS IN SYRIA: ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN SHIFTING A PEACEFUL ARAB SPRING INTO TERRORISM
The present descriptive study examines the Islamic State’s (IS) use of social media to launch its message and expand its propaganda to the world. IS focus on the Syrian Arab Spring revolution that started on March 15, 2011, as a foundation of tacit and explicit support of some Syrian people to evolve into a reorganized terrorist group. Examination and analysis of articles, reports, magazines, IS’s publications and social media posts (such as those found on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook) constitute the main methods of research for this report to deduce how IS expanded its social media organizational capabilities between 2011 and 2014. The study incorporates a mixed method approach consisting of both archival and statistical research. The collected data was analyzed qualitatively by using the document review method. The inductive approach used to analyze the data was the Framework Analysis using scientific theories to validate the effectiveness of the research questions. Research findings from social media suggest that IS is a sophisticated organization driven by religious and political ideas to create an Islamic Caliphate. IS uses social media as a primary means of information dissemination, making the distribution of its media decentralized. One of the limitations of this study is the danger of virus and malware attacks from terrorists that make researchers increase their investigations.
AAS Ansar
al-Sharia
AQ Al-Qaeda
AQI Al-Qaeda
in Iraq
CIA Central
Intelligence Agency
DAIISH Al-Dawla al-Islamiya
fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham
ERN Euphrates
Revolution Network
FSA Free
Syrian Army
IS The
Islamic State
ISI The
Islamic State of Iraq
ISIL The
Islamic State of Iraq and Levant
ISIS The
Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham
JN Jabhat
al-Nusra
JTWJ Jama’at
al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad
LCC Local
Coordinating Committee
SMN Social
media networks
In 1838, Sidney Morse wrote to his brother Samuel to congratulate him on the recent unveiling of the telegraph, which Sidney called “not only the greatest invention of this age, but the greatest invention of any age.” He prophesied, “The surface of the earth will be networked with wire, and every wire will be a nerve. The earth will become a huge animal with ten million hands, and in every hand a pen to record whatever the directing soul may dictate!”
― Emerson T. Brooking and P. W. Singer, The Atlantic
“As-Shaab Yoreed Eskaat el Nizam”
which means, “The people want to topple the regime” was the slogan of the
peaceful revolutionaries across the Middle East during the 2011 Arab Spring.[1] On March 15, 2011 in Syria, two hundred people gathered in
Damascus and peacefully demanded the removal of Bashar al-Assad, the President
of Syria – activists on Facebook called it the ‘Day of Rage’, but the protest
remained peaceful.[2] Tension between protesters and Syrian security forces increased and
became more violent through the remainder of March.
In Syria, the Arab Spring began in March 2011, when a group of Syrian
children, ages nine to fifteen years old, was arrested in Daraa for painting
revolutionary slogans and anti-regime graffiti, on their school walls. The
children viewed these slogans on satellite television and included “The people want to topple the regime”; “Your turn is coming,
Doctor”; and “Leave.”[3] However, the children also wrote
their names on the walls along with the graffiti, which expedited their arrest
by Syrian intelligence agents. [4] The regime security forces detained,
interrogated, and tortured the boys. Ten days after their arrest and detention
and following Friday prayer, the people of Daraa gathered together in a
peaceful protest demanding the release of the boys. The protestors chanted “silmiya” (peaceful) and “hurriya” (freedom).[5] When the children were
released, their bodies and faces showed signs of severe torture; some had burns
and others had had their fingernails pulled out.[6] The cruel treatment of the young
boys enraged Syrian people throughout the country. These were the same people
that the Syrian regime had oppressed for decades.[7] The condition of the boys
upon return and the circumstances surrounding the incident solidified the
discontent within the Syrian population that resulted in the ‘Friday of
Dignity.’ This wave of protests spread throughout Syria, reaching Homs, known
as the “Revolution capital city.”[8] In Daraa, the people protested,
calling for the end to the Syrian government. However, Syrian security forces
immediately repressed this peaceful display of dissent. The security forces fired
into the crowds of protestors, killing dozens of people and injuring others.[9]
The protests continued into April. The Syrian security forces increasingly
used violence to subdue the people and the suppression methods became more
severe. Daraa experienced its bloodiest day on April 22 when security forces
killed 72 protesters. Then on April 25, 2011, the Syrian Army laid siege to the
town of Daraa since many of the dead were in the southern village of Ezra, near
Daraa and in a suburb of Damascus.[10] The siege lasted eleven
days and resulted in 220 civilian deaths.[11] As a
result of the Syrian security force continued brutality, the once peaceful protesters became armed rebels
embroiled in a violent civil war with the Syrian regime. It was within this
tumultuous environment that jihadist and Islamist groups, who believed in al-Qaeda
(AQ) ideology and had an established network in the Damascus countryside, Homs,
and Aleppo, seized an opportunity to form the Islamic State and establish the
‘Caliphate’ in Bilad al-Sham—the Levant.[12]
The eruption of the Syrian Civil War in 2011 provided an opportunity
for Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) to establish a safe haven in Syria for operations
in Iraq.[13] Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader
of the ISI, authorized Abu Mohammad al-Joulani, a Syrian and al-Qaeda in Iraq
militant, to begin a new subdivision of AQ in Syria. In August 2011, al-Joulani
and a group of prominent AQ operatives crossed the border from Iraq
into Syria. Al-Baghdadi sent this group, armed with
the plans and funding needed to have a safe
haven in Syria, to meet with pre-existing extreme Islamists in northeastern Raqqa, Aleppo, Hasakah, and Azaz.[14] Together, they formed Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) in October 2011.[15] This new AQ affiliate in Syria was domestically focused. Its
objectives were to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad regime and protect the Sunni
population within Syria.[16] By January 2013, al-Nusra
was a formidable force with strong popular support in Syria. Al-Nusra continued
to grow in strength of fighters, weaponry, and financial funding from Arab
countries to defeat the Syrian regime.[17]
JN featured entirely different approaches from ISI in Syria. According
to ISI commanders, JN’s factions violated
some religious commitments or Sharia laws in the controlled areas. This made a
rift between ISI and JN commanders. On April 8, 2013, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
released a recorded audio message on the Internet. He announced that JN was
merging with ISI to become the “Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham” (ISIL),
under his command.[18] The next day al-Joulani rejected
the merger and affirmed the group’s allegiance to AQ and its leader, Ayman
al-Zawahiri.[19] Al-Nusra then split into
two groups. Some members, particularly foreign fighters, followed al-Baghdadi’s
edict and joined ISIL, while others stayed loyal to al-Joulani.[20]
In June 2013, Al Jazeera Site reported that it had obtained a
letter written by AQ leader Ayman al-Zawahiri to both Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and
Abu Mohammad al-Joulani rejecting the merger of the two organizations. He also
appointed an emissary to oversee relations between them and put an end to
tensions.[21] Later in the month,
al-Baghdadi released an audio message in which he rejected al-Zawahiri’s ruling
and declared that the merger of the two organizations into the Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant was going ahead. This sequence of events caused much
confusion and division among members of al-Nusra.[22] In November 2013,
Al-Zawahiri ordered the disbandment of ISIL and said al-Nusra should be
considered the only AQ branch in
Syria.[23] He bestowed the title “Tanzim
Qa’edat Al-Jihad fi Bilad Al-Sham”[24] to al-Nusra, officially
integrating it into AQ’s global network.[25] On June 29, 2014, and
despite al-Zawahiri’s announcement in late 2013, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced
his new title as “the Caliph” for the newly established Islamic State (IS),
which extended from Aleppo in Syria to Diyala in Iraq.[26]
By 2014, the aims of IS in Syria were to incorporate the numerous current jihadists groups into one overarching entity. The first aim provides coherence to action in emphasizing on the Islamist nature of the conflict. The second aim was to assemble a military capacity for the group, such as collecting weapons and training recruits. IS needed to achieve both goals in order to build an Islamist State in Syria and establish the ‘Caliphate.’[27]
In Syria, the defectors from the Syrian Army, who named themselves the “Free Syrian Army” (FSA), collaborated with the Syrian Islamists, and JN. The alliance grew and by January 2012, many rural areas and provincial towns fell to them as shown in Figure 1. Between January 2012 and June 2014, IS garnered support from the Syrian Islamists, defectors from the FSA, JN, and a number of Syrian protestors with its message and propaganda to create an Islamic State in Syria. In June 2014, IS spokesman “declared these captive territories an ‘Islamic Caliphate’ and demanded all Muslims declare obedience to its leader.”[28] Moreover, IS had global influence through its social media platforms. Its messages had resonated some of the extreme Jihadists around the world. As a result, IS recruited more individuals from a wider range of nationalities than any previous terrorist group like AQ. Despite its international ambitions and apparent breadth, IS is failing to create a viable Caliphate. IS-controlled areas in Iraq and Syria are decreasing because of the coalition led by the US forces who are striking them and eliminating IS’s abilities and capabilities to control the land. As this pressure grows, IS is likely to attempt further attacks outside its territories, promoting its global reach thus shifting media focus from its increasing loss of land to global outreach.[29]
This research will examine IS’s
use of social media to gain support from within the Syrian public during the
2011 Arab Spring. The public revolt in Syria followed other such revolutions in
Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. However, unlike these countries, the Syrian
revolution evolved into a civil war that provided a suitable environment for IS
to increase its support base. This descriptive study seeks to determine how IS
used social media to exploit this emergent opportunity within Syria.
This study depicts the rise of the Syrian Arab Spring in 2011 and how
IS used social media to capture the attention of people and found a place for itself
from which it could start to grow in Syria between 2011 and 2014. The challenge
in this study is to collect extensive information about IS use of social media
and have a clear understanding of its effects.
The importance of the
present study lies both in its theoretical and practical significance. With
regard to theory, the findings of this research will add to the existing body
of literature. The importance of media literacy, fighting terrorism,
oppression, and the double-edge use of
social media illustrates the practical significance. There is an urgent need
for governments to curb the negative effects of social media and know how to
utilize it, and to find effective ways to combat terrorists that are using
social media as a weapon. Extremists of different sects are increasingly using
social media to recruit, radicalize, and raise funds. IS is one of the most
competent experts of this approach.[30] Social media has become a means by which IS can increase both its
support base, and the likelihood that an Islamic Caliphate is possible. Social
media is an ideal propaganda platform that might launch a misinformation
campaign. As such, it is critical to understand how terrorist groups like IS
use social media, because it is the new
domain within modern theaters of global war. Moreover, IS is an active threat
to Lebanon, the country of the author which is a part of the Levant. Lebanon
shares most of its border with strife-ridden Syria.[31] Lebanon, with the population of 4 million, currently provides
sanctuary to 1.5 million Syrian refugees, which is more than any other nation
in the world.[32] Right now, one in three residents in Lebanon is a refugee. In 2014,
IS invaded a village at the western border of Syria known as Arsal, and it captured Lebanese Army soldiers.[33] IS executed a number of suicide bombs attacking the Lebanese Army
and the Shiite populated areas in Lebanon
who support the Syrian regime.[34]
How did IS use Facebook, Twitter, and
YouTube to radicalize peaceful protestors during Syria’s Arab Spring in 2011
and create a foundation of tacit and explicit support that enabled them to
evolve into a viable terrorist group that had global aspirations? The guiding
sub-questions include:
1. What social media capabilities did the Islamic State develop and use
between 2011 and 2014?
2. What subgroups of the Syrian
population did the Islamic State target and why?
3. Did these subgroups of the Syrian
population have increased access to Islamic State information?
The study used the following
assumptions. These assumptions will be either accepted or rejected once
conclusions are drawn. The assumptions are:
Terms associated with IS are instrumental to understanding its evolution. Alone, each term warrants deeper analysis that is outside the scope of this thesis. As such, each term is defined below in an effort to provide a simplified foundation for the analysis within this thesis and reduce any ambiguity associated with future discussions of these concepts in subsequent chapters.
Al- Qaeda: Arabic for “the Base,” is an
international terrorist network founded by Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s.
Al- Qaeda grew out of the Services Office, a clearinghouse for the
international Muslim brigade that opposed to the 1979 Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan. In the 1980s, the Services Office—run by bin Laden and the
Palestinian religious scholar Abdullah Azzam—recruited, trained, and financed
thousands of foreign mujahideen, or holy
warriors, from more than fifty countries. AQ seeks to rid Muslim countries of
what it sees as the profane influence of the West, and replace their
governments with fundamentalist Islamic regimes. Operating globally, AQ is
affiliated with many other terror groups including: Egyptian Islamic Jihad, The
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, AQ in the Arabian Peninsula, Lashkar-e-Taiba and
Jaish-e-Muhammad (Kashmir), Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, AQ in the Islamic
Maghreb (Algeria), Armed Islamic Group (Algeria), Abu Sayyaf Group (Malaysia,
Philippines), and Jemaah Islamiya (Southeast Asia).[35]
Arab Spring:
“Is the revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the
Middle East and in North Africa since 2010. The economic crisis led the population
of several countries to defy their authoritarian governments.”[36]
ISIS/
ISIL/ Da’ish/ IS/ IS group: The organization that is central to this thesis
is a militant movement that has conquered territory in western Iraq and eastern
Syria, where it is attempting to establish an Islamic State. These territories
incorporate about six and a half million residents. The group that calls itself
IS can trace its lineage to the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi aligned his “Jama’at al-Tawhid w’al-Jihad” (JTWJ)[37] with Al- Qaeda, making it Al- Qaeda in Iraq
(AQI), which employed terrorist and insurgent activities,
and became a conventional militia.[38] The name of the
organization, itself, has changed multiple times – ISIL, ISIS, Da’ish, IS, and the IS group – which generates
argument and confusion. As such, for the purpose of this thesis, the
differences will be addressed to provide the needed clarity concerning the name
of this group.[39]
Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS): The
militant group gained this name after it invaded Syria in 2013. The original
name for the group in Arabic was Al-Dawla Al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham. The first three words translate to
the Islamic State of Iraq while “al-Sham” refers to Syria and the wider
surrounding area.[40]
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL): ISIL is the term the U.S. government uses the group. The word
‘Levant’ is used because it is the translation for “al-Sham,” which is the
Arabic name for the geographical region, The term ‘Levant’ refers to the
eastern shore of the Mediterranean – Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and
Jordan as illustrated in Figure 2.[41]
Da’ish: The militant group loathes this term. The group threatened, “To cut
the tongue of anyone who publicly used the acronym Da’ish, instead of referring to the group by its full name.”[42] Since the attacks in Paris
in September 2014, the French President, François Hollande, uses this term
consistently. The practice of using Da’ish,
as a term, emphasis that IS is a
terrorist group and not a state.[43] It is an Arabic acronym
for “al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa
al-Sham (DAIISH),” and is sometimes
spelled Da’esh or Daech, which is a
popular French version. Arabs call it ‘Da’ish’.[44]
Islamic State (IS): This is the English
version of what the terror group calls itself. In June 2014, after seizing territories in Iraq’s
Sunni heartland, including the cities of Mosul and Tikrit, al-Baghdadi as
leader of IS proclaimed a Caliphate, which is Arabic for “successor of the
Islamic Prophet Muhammad,” claiming exclusive political and theological
authority over the world’s Muslims.[45] Many governments and media
refuse to use this name because it gives the group legitimacy as a state and a
representative of Islam.[46]
Islamic State group: Some media
institutions prefer the term Islamic State group because “the word ‘state’
indicates a system of administration and governance.”[47] David L. Phillips, the
director of the Peace-Building and Rights Program at Columbia University, stated,
“it’s not a term that would be used to characterize a terrorist group or
militia that is merely rolling up territory.” The Associated Press (AP),
for example, recently used IS group “to avoid phrasing that sounds like
they could be fighting for an internationally recognized state.”[48] Table 1 illustrates the
names of the organization versus the most common users of them.
Islamism: Refers to the broad range of political
movements and parties that share the belief that principles drawn from the
Islamic tradition should have a substantial
influence on the public sphere and on the manner in which a society conducts or
organizes its political life.[49]
Islamists: Members of Islam who reject the notion of a
separation between religion and public life. Islamists believe that ideals,
values, or principles rooted in Islam are relevant to the modern world, and that they provide useful guidance on
contemporary political and public-policy issues.[50]
Jihad: According to the Islamic Supreme Council of
America, the Arabic word “Jihad” means “struggling” or “striving” for the God.
Within a religious context, as stated in the holy
book Qur’an and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (s), “jihad” refers to
the efforts to be a good Muslims or believer, as well as working to inform
people about the faith of Islam. Military jihad, which is a rare meaning of
“jihad,” is required to protect the faith against others using legal,
diplomatic, economic, and political means. Islam also allows the use of force
if peaceful options failed, but with strict rules of engagement. Innocents –
like women, children, and patients – must never be abused, and any peaceful
overtures from the enemy must be accepted. Individuals cannot declare “jihad.”
The religious authority of the military campaign, advised by scholars, declare
“jihad” when the religion and people are under threat of violence and requires
defense. The theory of “just war” is very important to this process.
Historically, political and religious groups have hijacked the concept of
“jihad” and named themselves as jihadists to justify the use of violence.
Scholars such as the Islamic Supreme Council of America consider the term “jihad”
misused and the concept and meaning contradict
Islam. They argue that “Jihad” does not declare war against other religions,
“people of the book believe in [the] same God,” who should be protected and
esteemed.[51]
Propaganda: A form of communication in which state and
non-state actors have near or total control over the transmission of
information, typically relying on mass media to reach its target audiences,
using language and symbols in a deceptive and manipulative fashion to gain
support.[52]
Psychological
Operations: Planned
operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences
to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the
behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals in a manner
favorable to the originator’s objectives.[53]
Recruitment: To seek out, evaluate, obtain commitment from, place, and orient new
employees to fill positions required for the successful conduct of the work of
an organization.[54]
Salafism: A literalist Sunni theological and legal orientation that takes its
name from the expression “al-salaf al-salih,”
which means “the pious predecessors.” This phrase refers to the first three
generations of Muslims who represent the religion’s “golden age.” According to Salafists, these early Muslims most
accurately preserved the Prophet Muhammad’s statements and actions because they
knew him or those close to him. Salafists seek to adhere to the reports of
Muhammad’s words and deeds (sunnah) and
to avoid innovation (bid‘a).[55]
Skill: An ability and capacity acquired through deliberate, systematic, and
sustained effort to smoothly and adaptively carryout complex activities or job
functions involving ideas (cognitive skills), things (technical skills), and/or
people (interpersonal skills). A technical skill is a skill that is required
for the accomplishment of a specific task. Communication skills are the ability
to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.[56]
Social Media Networks (SMNs): “Online tools and utilities that allow
communication of information online and participation and collaboration.”[57]
Task: The smallest identifiable and
essential piece of a job that serves as a unit of work, and as a means of
differentiating between the various components of a project.[58]
Technique: A systematic procedure,
formula, or routine by which a task is accomplished.[59]
Terrorism: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property
to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment
thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”[60]
Tools of social media: Are websites that “interact with the users, while giving them
information.” It is this two-way nature of SMNs, along with the role they
played in the Arab Spring’s uprisings, that is central to this argument.[61]
This thesis is organized into five chapters. Chapter 1 introduces
the problem by first focusing on how the Arab Spring reached Syria and
describing why some Syrians joined the protest. Then, IS’s use of social media
to link operations between Iraq and Syria is introduced, thus leading to the
establishment of the Islamic Caliphate that evolved into IS. Chapter 2 provides
the review of literature relevant to the study. The chapter begins with the
review of literature pertaining to the role of social media in the Syrian Arab
Spring, then the examination of expert analysis associated with IS social media
successes after 2014, followed by relevant collective action theories. Chapter
3 defines the research methodology and design applied within this study.
Chapter 4 presents the data collected categorized by the three guiding
sub-questions which are used to make
inferences that, when combined, facilitates answering the main research
question. Finally, Chapter 5 presents findings and conclusions based on the
analysis, answering the primary and the guidance sub-questions, verifying the
study assumptions, and suggesting topics for further study.
After the Arab Spring occurred in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and
finally in Syria, social media became known as a tool for social change.
Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube played a major role in the
Arab Spring. Activists used social media in Tunisia and Egypt to organize
political protests, thus increasing their size and scope. Activist leaders used
the same strategy in Syria. The leaders of IS successfully used the same social
media platforms to convince the Syrian population to adopt its terroristic
ideology.
This chapter presents a review of current and historical literature
pertaining to the use of social media to cultivate collective strength by
uniting people with a common set of objectives. Though this thesis subject is
specific to IS, the concept of social mobilization is not exclusive to them.
Other organizations have been studied to describe the concept of social
mobilization and will be critically reviewed to assist in the creation of a
conceptual framework that will be applied throughout the remainder of the
study. This chapter is organized into three sections: The role of social media
in Syria’s Arab Spring, IS’s use of social media past 2014, and theoretical
models associated with collective action
(Table 2).
The 2011 Arab Spring surprised not only the governments that were
directly targeted by the social movements, but also the international community.
Any organized political opposition may create mobilization networks in a society
that then most probably threaten the stability within
the governmental institutions. The ability to communicate on social media acted
as a catalyst for the Syrian
revolutionary movement. As such, it is necessary to understand the literature
that describes how people in Syria used social media platforms such as
Facebook, Twitter, and some instruments like the camera phones, to encourage
collective action to seek political freedom, social justice, and the removal of
the al-Assad regime.
The journalist Kimberlee Morrison in her article “The Evolution of
Social Media,” concludes that social media escalated significantly over the
last sixteen years. Since 2001, Internet users live in the ‘golden age’ of
social media.[62] There are large quantities
of data available on the Internet. There are sites like Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, and Snapchat that provide an interface for users to not only access
the vast amounts of data, but also
provide digital communities where people can congregate virtually. According to
“Kwik turn media” progress estimations,
there was an estimated 1.47 billion global social network active users in 2012,
which reached 2.55 billion in 2017.[63]
More specifically, during the 2011 Arab Spring, protestors used the
social tools available on the internet to share ideas, social mobilization
techniques, and gain popular support that allowed the rapid spread of analogous
active social movements across North Africa and the Middle East. This resulted
in mass cyber communities united by similar aspirations. In this domain, the professors
Richard Fox and Jennifer Ramos, in their iBook: iPolitics: Citizens,
Elections, and Governing in the New Media Era, wrote that social media
provide new opportunities for citizens to express and organize themselves
around their political interests.[64] The writers argue that
social media tools like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter were critical to
organizing citizen protests in Northern Africa and the Middle East in 2011.[65] The Syrian rebels used
social media tools to organize and schedule events. Syrian rebels preferred
using Facebook posts to coordinate events and prearranged protest slogans in
tweets using Twitter.[66] Experts like Deborah
Wheeler and Lauren Mintz published an article named “New Media and Political
Change: Lessons from Internet users in Jordan, Egypt, and Kuwait” that educated
activists about how to use social media to mobilize the masses and demand
better governance. SMN and tools proved instrumental by providing new tools and
resources to the opposition; however, the Syrian opposition diverged from the
other regional movements.[67]
Syria is a discrete case in analyzing the Arab Spring movements, since the timeline of events
differed from the protests in Egypt and Tunisia. A key characteristic was the
slow growth of Syrian protestors against the government, later called “Against
the al-Assad regime.”[68] It grew, in part, because
of the Syrian Armed Forces’ repression of the people to prevent them from
massing to protest. In early February 2011, Syrian protestors started creating
Facebook pages that were shared widely among
themselves, one of which called for protests across the country on February
fourth and fifth.[69] More than 16,000 Syrians,
who were informed by monitoring Facebook, expressed support. However, the
demonstrations, which were organized entirely on Facebook, did not occur
because the people feared the Syrian regime apparatus.[70] Arab Social Media
estimated that the number of Facebook users in Syria is 17.44 percent of the
Arab countries users of Facebook, even though Syria is considered low-ranked
country for the usage of Facebook in the world.[71]
The fear was legitimate because protest groups that mobilized prior
to February 2011 were violently repressed by the Syrian security forces. For
example, in 2004, Kurds revolted in Qamishli and Syrian security forces killed
at least 100 Kurds.[72] Following that incident,
thousands of Syrian Kurds fled to Iraqi Kurdistan. Another example occurred in
1982 in Hama, Syria when Islamists protested in opposition to the Syrian
government.[73] That day, now known as the
Hama Massacre, the Syrian Army killed 2000 Syrian civilians as they attempted
to quell the uprising.[74] On February 9, 2011, Al
Jazeera described Syria as a “kingdom of silence” because anti-government
protests did not happen for many years.[75] This was largely due to
fear. A 21-year-old activist who referred to herself as Rana for fear of
reprisal from the Syrian government stated, “I am too scared to speak about my
political activity on Facebook and I am not going to open a Twitter account.”[76]
Despite this valid deep-seated fear, Syrian activists understood
that the Internet was their only available option to develop safe communities,
though virtual in nature, to bring like-minded people together as well as reach
sympathizers outside of Syria to entice support for mass demonstrations. The
internet was fundamental to the coalescence of the Syrian people. Although the
internet provides relative safety, protest organizers used additional safety
measures. Opposition planners used social media to organize Syrian non-violent
collective action but they would not provide the protest location until the
latest possible time before the event. Reuters claims that “you don’t know what
time it will start until just before it actually starts.”[77] This security tactic
proved successful because in March 2011,
the protestors gained momentum partly due the creation of local coordination
committees.
The Local Coordinating Committees (LCCs) were created initially to
document the Syrian revolution, but they evolved into the primary organizers of
protests and information disseminators.[78] There are 70 local LCCs that
are networked across Syria. Carnegie Middle East Center states that the
committee members include “young Syrian journalists and human rights activists
from different ethnic, religious, and class backgrounds operating within
Syria.”[79] These young Syrians
emerged as leaders because of the necessity to coordinate local civic activism
due to the absence of any other civil society organizations. The non-fanatic
religious male and female youths that act as the LCC organizers are highly
educated revolutionary volunteers, which provided a new look for the
opposition. The primary objective of the organizations is to overthrow the
Syrian regime.[80] As information
disseminators, the LCCs are responsible for reporting updates on the movement
to Arab and international media. The primary means of reporting is through the
LCC website and its Facebook page.[81]
In March 2011 and parallel to the efforts of the LCCs, Syrian
activists created a Facebook page called “The Syrian Revolution 2011,” which
was the first official Facebook page of the Syrian revolution.[82] It had up to 120,000
followers who were primarily from within Syria but there was also
representation from the global anti-Assad diaspora. This Facebook page served
as the chief communication platform to inform Syrian dissenters, which produced
a rallying effect for all those involved.[83] Furthermore, social media
provided a mechanism to reveal human rights violations to the international
media. Media channels monitored the “The Syrian Revolution 2011” Facebook page
to get pictures and videos of what was happening in Syria which facilitated the
propagation of the reality that Syrian protestors faced. In addition to this
Facebook page, other pages on Facebook emerged, facilitating the transmission
of information to both
local and worldwide audiences. [84] There were three Facebook pages in particular
that played a central role in the
revolution: ‘We are all Hamzeh
Al-Khateeb,’ ‘Syrian revolution 2011,’ and ‘Euphrates Revolution Network’
(ERN).”[85] In addition to these Facebook pages, Twitter was also used as a platform to mobilize Syria’s opposition.
In the Internet realm of social mobilization, Twitter functions in a
centralized networking role as a clearinghouse for revolutionary propaganda.[86] Twitter enabled the
leaders of the Syrian opposition to create a substantial network of Internet
supporters. On Twitter, opposition organizers published videos and tweets
revealing violence perpetrated by the Syrian regime that resulted in an
emotionally energized effect on supporters. Zeina Karam in her article “Social
Media’s role in the Syrian Civil War” estimated that in January 2012 the
twitter account “#SyrianRevolution” had 183 thousand tweets, 23.4 thousand photos and videos posted, and 144 thousand
followers. [87]
Twitter also emerged as a coordination
tool. Kim Ghattas in the article “Syria’s spontaneously organized protests,”
describes the clash between protesting Syrians and the Syrian army that
conducted operations against them. As a
result of the Syrian army operations, the protestors began to adapt by using
twitter. Twitter offered the protestors flood of slogans for people to use
during demonstrations across the country – many suggested by fellow Twitter
users such as: “Freedom…freedom…no more Baathist anymore” as the account of
@SyRevoSlogans, created on April 18, 2011.[88] Whereas, other accounts
gave motivational names as the user @syrianjasmine who named the protestors as
“thugs,” being bussed into the town of Daraa. While some accounts reflected
activities of the protestors as the account @wissamtarif that revealed the
student protests activities and arbitrary detentions in the capital Damascus.[89]
Ahmad Shehabat in his article
“The social media cyber-war: The unfolding events in the Syrian revolution 2011,”
observed that videos uploaded to YouTube from people’s cell phones were their primary
retaliatory weapon against the Syrian regime during demonstrations.[90] The people of Syria used
cell phones videos and photos uploaded to social media to expose the Syrian
regime to the whole
world. It was
an alternative method to broadcast worldwide,
since the Syrian channels did not cover the revolution because of regime
censorship. In Syria, the Media ministry controls the
TV and radio broadcast networks. The Media ministry operates two TV networks, a
satellite channel, and three radio channels.[91] Between 2011 and 2014
period, the official Syrian media only transmitted news supporting the regime,
while neglecting all protestors’ activities that occurred because the Syrian
regime believed global actors, like USA, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel, wanted
to weaken Syria.
Despite
the government’s attempts to censor the media and regime violence, shocking
bloody videos were uploaded to YouTube or sent to satellite channels like
Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabia to ensure the facts reached a wider global audience. On May 30, 2011, a video was uploaded to YouTube that showed the
dead body of a 13 year-old boy, named
“Hamzeh Alkhateeb.”[92] His body was badly
bruised, with burn marks and three gunshot wounds. This video sparked
international outrage.[93] Activists created a
Facebook page called “We Are All Hamzeh
Alkhateeb,” which attracted many followers.[94] After this incident, live
broadcast news and information usually took place on Facebook and YouTube.
Jennifer Preston in her article “Seeking to Disrupt Protesters, Syria Cracks Down on
Social Media” argues that the Syrian government began
targeting activists on social media.[95] The purpose of this
targeting was two-fold. First, the regime monitored social media in order to
identify people associated with the protests. Secondly, the regime wanted to
limit the spread of information on-line. This targeting methodology was
effective because of the regime’s extensive censorship protocols that involved
sequential blocking and allowing access to the internet and social media sites.[96] This was illustrated when
Syrian officials denied temporarily the access to the Internet as well as the
3G mobile Internet in Damascus, Daraa, and Homs, in order to control
uploading videos and photos of protests inside Syria to the world.[97] Additionally, the
Syrian regime created a cyber-army to continue the virtual conflict.[98]
As
such, the opposition developed mechanisms to remain connected. Syrians began
smuggling SIM cards from neighboring countries. The people in Daraa, which is
close to the border of Jordan, smuggled Jordanian SIM cards into Syria to keep
their phones active, while the Syrian people in the north close to the Turkish border, would smuggle Turkish SIM cards
into the country. Ahmad Shehabat stated
that smartphones and the 3G wireless
Internet access also played a significant role for the rebels despite the
Syrian government banning the use and import of iPhones into the country.[99]
As
shown from the literature review, the protestors used social media as a tool to
expedite and facilitate their protest against the Syrian regime. That
encouraged IS to use the same mean in Syria to build organizational social
media capabilities to recruit, fund, and coordinates its operations to
accomplish its goals.
Mobilization through the use of social media is not limited to
peaceful protestors. Terrorist networks require similar capabilities to
recruit, raise funds, and deter opposition. As such, this section examines the
literature illustrating IS’s successful use of social media to establish a
foundation within Syria and project the perception of strength regionally. The
literature presented within this section seeks to identify IS’s social media
achievements before and after 2014 in order to determine the capabilities that it
had between 2011 and 2014.
Often, intimidation is used to make victims succumb and not argue,
object, or ask for their basic human rights. IS use of choreographed videos in
which cameras are set to capture pictures from different angles have been very
influential, threatening and coercive. The video of 250 captured Syrian
soldiers, who were stripped and led into the desert for a mass execution in
August 2014, provides an example.[100]
Authors of the United States Department of State Publication report,
Country Reports on Terrorism 2015, cover IS’s violent activities through
the year 2015 inside and outside Syria.
In Syria, IS committed a number of brutal murders against hostages and victims,
such as the beheading of the Japanese citizens Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto in
January.[101] In February, It killed the
U.S. aid worker Kayla Mueller and burned downed-Jordanian pilot Muath
al-Kasasbeh.[102] In November, it shot to
death the Norwegian Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad
and the Chinese Fan Jinghui.[103] All these actions were
posted on social media platforms. The writers of the report posed a dilemma for
companies such as YouTube, Google, Facebook, Twitter,
and others. Facebook, for example, has grappled with whether or not to allow
videos of beheadings. On March 16, 2015, Facebook modified its “community
standards” to prohibit violence and any dangerous organizations that are
engaged in terrorist activity or organized criminal activity.[104] It also removed content
that expresses support for groups that are involved in violent or criminal
behavior. Facebook also banned the supporting or praising of the leaders of
those same organizations, or condoning their violent activities.[105]
In 2013, the reporters Ines von Behr, Anaïs Reding, Charlie Edwards,
and Luke Gribbon wrote a report named Radicalisation
in the Digital Era: The Use of the Internet in 15 Cases of Terrorism and
Extremism in the UK. They found that the Internet enables more
opportunities to become radicalized, because of its availability and enabling connection
of like-minded individuals from across the world 24/7. For all 15 individuals,
the Internet had been a key source of information and communication for their
extremist beliefs.[106]
Jihadists used social media, primarily Twitter, in their operations
in Syria, Iraq, and other countries. Jonathon Morgan and J. M. Berger assert in
their paper “The IS Twitter Census: Defining and Describing the Population of
IS Supporters on Twitter” that from September through December of 2014, IS
supporters used at least 46,000 Twitter accounts, although not all of them were
active at the same time. Most IS
supporters were located within the organization’s territories in Syria and
Iraq, as well as in contested regions of Syria.[107] Hundreds of IS-supporting
accounts sent tweets with location metadata embedded. Almost one in five IS
supporters selected English as their primary language when using Twitter.
Three-quarters selected Arabic. IS-supporting accounts were active; each
account had an average of about 1,000 followers. From September to December
2014, Twitter suspended approximately 1,000 IS-supporting accounts to block
account activities. Twitter likely suspended those accounts that tweeted most
often and had the most followers. Much of IS’s social
media can be attributed to a relatively small group of hyperactive
users, numbering between 500 and 2,000 accounts that tweet in concentrated
bursts of high volume.[108]
However, the growth of the IS movement on Twitter may not provide an
accurate number of followers. The accuracy of the volume of social media
content associated with the movement would be influenced by fake accounts and
its relative generated comments. Klausen Jytte’s
article entitled, “Tweeting the Jihad: Social Media Networks of Western Foreign
Fighters in Syria and Iraq,” collected informational data over a period of
three months, from the Twitter accounts of 59 Western-origin fighters known to
be in Syria. Using a snowball method, which is a non-probability sampling
technique where existing study subjects recruit future subjects from among
their acquaintances, 59 starter accounts were used to collect data about the
most popular accounts in the network-at-large.[109] Social network analysis on
the data collated about Twitter users in the Western Syria-based fighters points
to two conclusions. First is the controlling role played by feeder accounts
belonging to terrorist organizations in the insurgency area. Second that
Europe-based organizational accounts were associated with Al Muhajiroun, the
banned British organization, and in particular with Anjem Choudary, the
London-based preacher.[110] This gives an evidence
that extreme Jihadists work within different organizations and give inaccurate numbers of followers upon
researching.
Social media companies have to address IS threats to their employees
as well. IS has not only put journalists to death but also threatened employees
of Twitter. Twitter employees attempted to block accounts promoting violence at
crucial times because the timing of the release of information on social media
is decisive to the success of planning, recruiting, and funding of terrorist
networks.[111] The larger the prospective
audience, the more the intended message is propagated. Timing contributes to
the terrorists’ message reaching the masses, reflects violence, and is deeply
internalized into people’s minds.[112]
Brenden I. Kderner in his
article “Why ISIS is Winning the Social Media War” in April 2016, groups IS’s
social media achievements in five themes: (1) Cultivate the brand, through
messaging propaganda on social media to win the hearts of potential recruits
and to boost the organization’s ghastly brand. (2) Innovate across platforms, in
taking pride in its flair for developing innovative and repugnant content through
high-tech scenes videos some of which captured by a drone. (3) Crowdsource the
distribution, by means of its widely distributed high-quality media via
different social media channels. (4) Inspire real-world action, as a result of recruiting
people and convincing them that recruiters’ violence actions must show their
following to God and their pledging allegiance to IS. Finally, (5) steer the
conversation, via focusing on their ability to governance In the area it
controlled.[113]
In the article “The Media Strategy of IS,” James Farwell provided an
analysis concerning IS’s social media strategy. IS leaders seem to recognize
that social media is a double-edged sword. The group tries to protect the
identity and location of its leaders by minimizing electronic communications
among top cadres. The leaders often use couriers to hand deliver
command-and-control messages, and use
social media primarily to deliver propaganda. Still, advances in technology may
eventually leave IS vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Similar to those US
intelligence sources reportedly used to intercept and seize funds belonging to
Mexican drug cartels. Ultimately, defeating IS will require focused efforts
aimed at discrediting and delegitimizing the group’s narrative among Muslims,
while working towards its eradication. One hopes the policymakers building
coalitions and launching strikes against IS have these aims in mind, and will calibrate their narratives,
themes and messages accordingly.[114]
Social media networking organizations located in Silicon Valley, are
considered the media and social media capital of the world, are fighting against terrorism and violent extremism to
maintain a free and open network. Facebook, Twitter,
and Google (YouTube) have censured terrorism and have pledged to crack down on
terrorists who use their sites. As IS grows, the networks have worked to take
increased action against terrorism by updating their “terms of service”
policies. For example, Twitter forbids “direct, specific threats of violence.”[115] YouTube states that it’s
“not okay to post violent or gory content that’s primarily intended to be
shocking.” [116] Facebook specifies that it
does not allow “terrorist activity” and “organized criminal activity” and
states that “supporting or praising leaders of those same organizations, or
condoning their violent activities, is not allowed.”[117]
Twitter and Facebook recently updated their terms of service, the
first in February 2015 and the second in March 2015. Twitter released a blog
post in February 2015 titled “Combating Violent Extremism,” stating that it had
suspended 125,000 IS-related accounts over the past six months.[118] Yet, Twitter users
regularly criticized this site when any violent incidents occurred, whether
related to terrorism or not. The latest critique to these sites was in a
lawsuit over their supposed roles in fueling the rise of IS by allowing it to
use their networks for spreading propaganda, raising funds and attracting
recruits.[119] The lawsuit’s plaintiff
was Reynaldo Gonzalez, the father of Nohemi Gonzalez, an American who was one
of 130 victims of the Paris attacks on November 13, 2015.[120] Because of the volume of
materials posted, these companies often rely on users reporting problematic
content. the philosophy of these companies is generally to err on the side of
non-censorship and freedom of speech.
In addition to actions taken by social media platforms, other
programs were developed to fight terrorism on-line. The article written by Anne Aly, Weimann
–Saks Dana, and Wimann Gabriel, named
“Making ‘Noise’ Online: An Analysis of the Say No to Terror Online Campaign,”
described a study that examined the master narratives that online campaign. “Making
noise” on social media means to talk about something a lot, so that people will notice it and show them a kind of
disapproval for a specific activity. The
writers made the noise in order to assess whether the key elements of the ‘Say
No to Terror’s campaign, which are aligned
with the application of “noise” as a strategy against terrorists’ appeal on the
Internet. The authors found that while the master narratives of ‘Say No to
Terror’ align with suggestions based on empirical research for the development
of effective counter campaigns. However, the campaign does not meet the
essential criteria for effective noise. Its spread was limited without
noticeable effect.[121] The Noise against
terrorism program needs to be conducted on a larger scale in order to see
effective results.
The analysis of SMN, based on all the data found in the tools and
applications like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and others, leads to a good
understanding of the structure of the terrorist
organization. Richard Medina in Social Network Analysis: A Case Study of the
Islamist Terrorist Network, illustrates the flexibility of the terrorist
network structure. He refers to the terrorist network as a system composed of
various terrorist organizations who have connections through social media to
share ideas and coordinate to accomplish the same objectives. The network
develops a communication medium for the organization,
and offers the analyses to characterize this system on users, network, and
wider spectators. Leaders’ positions in the SMN lead the users to identify
them. The terrorist network structure is resilient and efficient structure.[122]
During the Syrian Arab Spring, social media was one of the means to
formulate the gatherings and mobilize the demonstration against the Syrian
regime. One Syrian activist acknowledged that demonstrations are difficult to
organize in areas where people do not know each other and, perhaps as a result, do not trust each other.[123] Doug McAdam and Paulsen
Ronnelle in their article “Specifying the Relationship Between Social Ties and
Activism” claim that a key element of a social movement is the importance of
strong, interpersonal social ties, as well as dense social ties in networks, as
a means of facilitating individuals’ participation. These connections decrease
the uncertainty of mobilization and fear
from of the security apparatus.[124] Protesting is a risky act
that can easily result in death. Protesters’ social ties are of great
importance. As a result, the Syrian security forces tried to use brutal force
to break these relationships.
As McAdam and Paulsen highlighted too, when a person resides in the
same area as close friends or relatives this increases the likelihood of
participation in neighborhood organizations. Living in close proximity provides
the strong and dense network ties that encourage and facilitate participation.[125] It makes sense then that
areas experiencing fewer protests were most likely unable to galvanize people
on the ground because of weaker social ties. In addition to this, context
regarding individuals’ multiple, simultaneous social ties can also be relevant
in their decision to engage in protests, since the nature of these ties can
provide sometimes-conflicting influences on whether or not to participate in
the movement.[126]
The Internet and social media provide the means to establish virtual
communities to bring dissatisfied individuals together. Clay Shirky describes
social media as a new social networking tool for people to access more
information for collective action.[127] The emergence of YouTube,
Facebook, and Twitter as a method to communicate proved to be one of the means
to society. The article of Dorothy Kidd titled “The Global movement to
transform communications” claims that social media played a central role in
democratizing communications; challenging the top-down frame of most
conventional media and allowing a more shared communications between users.[128] Shirky argues that social
media became the new coordinating tool because of its ability to comprise
communication, organization, mobilization, validation, and scope enlargement.[129] This is an argument for
plenty of information spread widely from social media platforms that broadcast
from one user to groups of people.[130]
Clay Shirky in his book The Political Power of Social Media: Technology,
the Public Sphere, and Political Change, asserts that social media did not
play a central role in the evolution of social mobilization. It is difficult to
judge whether recent uprisings such as the Arab Spring would not take place
without social media tools.[131] Social media allowed
protestors to perform differently by the way they spread the word through
social media to gather and demonstrate.[132] Social media can create a
booster to stimulate the formation and development of social movements.[133] Accordingly, social media
plays the role of associate factor rather than causative
factor in social movements.
IS also used social media platforms to
facilitate its collective actions. Social and political theorists attempt to
describe how populations are motivated toward collective action and introduced
a variety of terms to illustrate their findings. One of the social science
phenomena to develop social media strategies is the theory of “Domino Effect.” The Domino Effect illustrates potential causal
linkages between events. Initially theorized in association to the spread of
communism into Indochina, now the domino effect describes the proliferation of
ideas through social media.[134] Ideas
perpetuated through communications cease to be isolated but can be joined together
to create a synergy. Though this social phenomenon can happen randomly without
intervention, social media marketing experts use the domino effect concept to
engineer effective strategies to coalesce social capital.[135]
Gerri Baum, a marketing and communications
professional, proposes in her blog titled “Social Media Strategies and the
Domino Effect,” that there are six questions that address the creation of an effective social media strategy:[136]
“1. Who are the people that we want to reach?
2.
Where and how do they consume information online?
3. How
are we going to attract these individuals?
4. What
do we want to happen?
5. What
methods or platforms will work best to achieve our goal?
6. How will we measure the results?” [137]
Shivani Sinha in her article
“Will There Be a Domino’s Effect on Social Media?” counter argues effectively
that the problem of Domino Effect Theory is that the user must be active online
to view the websites and social media forums’ outputs. This might give the user
more than enough time to think of the issue.[138] She mentioned this
question: “What will the implications of this strategy be in the world of
digital media?[139] The effectiveness of this
campaign remains to be seen, but the tactics used could have an overwhelming
impact on the way big organizations publicize products to their consumers.[140]
New technological domains inspired most organizations to have a
strategy on social media using a valid theory to match their goals and touch
their organizational vision. IS is one of the terrorist organization who
focused on social media means to follow a mobilization and propaganda strategy
using social media to recruit, fund, and coordinate its operations.
In this chapter, major concepts,
theories, and studies have been reviewed in an attempt to generate a
comprehensive and thorough discussion about social media, and its use during
the Syrian Arab spring and the rising of IS. Reviewing these issues not only
clarifies the general discussion of this thesis,
but also serves as a theoretical base to the coming chapters. For those organizations that use SMNs as a means or tactic to
recruit or disseminate propaganda, timing is essential. Posting at the correct
times aids recruitment because it increases engagement with more potential followers.[141] Choosing the correct time
to upload propaganda and messages or to ask followers to respond to something
is also extremely vital. The efficacy of choosing the appropriate time varies
because some issues are time sensitive.
In 2011, Syrian protestors used social media successfully for the
first time in its modern era as a vehicle to coordinate meetings with nations
and countries of the world stage.[142] This was achieved by uploading photos and videos that reflected a large number of peaceful protestors who were
seeking reformation of the Syrian State. During the reign of the Al- Assad
family (the Father “President Hafez” and the Son “President Bashar”), which
started in 1971, the oppressed extreme Islamists in Syria abused the people’s
peaceful revolution to transform it into a nucleus of IS emergence. It has been
the dream of extreme Islamists since the Middle Ages to build an Islamic State
in the World. The extreme Islamists determined that the most appropriate way to
transform the peaceful demonstrations into riots and vandalism was through
showing the brutal repressive acts of Syrian armed forces on the Syrian Sunni
population. The Syrian military also committed atrocities against Sunni People,
which the extremists then posted on social media. On the other side, IS spread
its ideology and Islamic Sharia to followers. IS published its own videos to
threaten its enemies and attract more Islamists to join it.
This
descriptive study seeks to determine how IS used Facebook,
Twitter, and YouTube to radicalize
peaceful protestors during Syria’s Arab Spring in 2011 and create a foundation
of tacit and explicit support from within the Syrian population. This chapter
outlines the methodology of the present study; more specifically, this chapter
presents the (1) research question and guiding sub-questions, (2) description
of the instruments and sources used, (3) subjects of the present study, (4)
data collection procedures, and finally (5) data analysis processes. The
research for this thesis was conducted in the framework described in this chapter with the goal of finding
trustworthy, authentic, and credible evidence for analysis.
As
stated in Chapter 1 and in the light of the literature presented in Chapter 2,
the present study seeks to answer the following primary research question: How did IS use Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to radicalize peaceful
protestors during Syria’s Arab Spring in 2011 and create a foundation of tacit
and explicit support that enabled them to evolve into a viable terrorist group
that had global aspirations? The guiding sub-questions include:
1. What social media capabilities did the Islamic State develop and use
between 2011 and 2014?
2.
What subgroups of the Syrian population did the Islamic State target and why?
3.
Did these subgroups of the Syrian population have increased access to Islamic
State information?
The primary research question and the
guiding sub-questions are illustrated in the vertical nesting diagram (Figure
3) and aligned with the topic, research problem, and the purpose of the
research presented in Chapter 1.
In
this study, the topics used for collecting qualitative data include social
media capabilities, the application of these capabilities by IS, which
subgroups within the Syrian population had increased access to social media,
and what subgroups IS targeted. These topics are directly linked to the guiding
sub-questions. The sources used for the study are a selection of United
Nations and U.S. documents, books, magazine articles, newspapers, Internet
websites, and open media that provide information about the IS’s social media
usage. Particularly relevant to the research are studies based on sampling and
data from YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. These provided detailed and essential
background information related to the study, which will facilitate the understanding
of how the use of social media platforms lead to the rapid rise of IS.
The
subjects of the present study are social media users, mainly males who access
social media through their mobile phones and laptops; mostly from the Syrian
population who followed or shared the continents of social media platforms
published by IS. The information collected on these subjects already exists and
no generation or outside collection of
external personal data is needed.
The study incorporates a mixed method approach consisting of both archival and statistical research. The data collection method used in this thesis is the document review method.[143] The document review method is a way of collecting data by reviewing existing documents. The documents in this research were both internal and external to the IS and available both electronically and hard copy. The documents included review reports, monographs, scholarly articles, statistical information found in research reports, dissertations, media documentaries, interviews with experts, and newsletters.
Diverse
and rich data already exists in the form of online articles that illustrates
the effects of social media tools in helping IS to rise and spread rapidly. IS
posted written messages and oral messages online through its magazines, TV, and
radio, which revealed IS ideology and strategy to establish the Islamic
Caliphate. Moreover, the IS videos posted on YouTube as well as Twitter photos
supplied evidence for its social media capabilities, provided perspective on IS
social media activities, and how IS used these platforms to perpetuate its philosophy in order to increase recruitment and
support. It is important that this qualitative data have the characteristics of
all research data, “truth value, applicability, consistency, and neutrality in
order to be considered worthwhile.”[144] The data must also be
reliable by meeting the following criteria: “Credibility, transferability,
dependability, and confirmability.”[145]
The
qualitative research design methodology used for this thesis is the narrative
design. The narrative design is a frame of reference, a way of reflecting
during the inquiry process, a research method, and a model for representing the research study, which allows for the comprehensive interpretation of
the facts and experiences addressed within
the data. These experiences are structured and organized into meaningful units
from the collected information.
The
inductive approach used to analyze the data collected was the Framework
Analysis, which is similar to both thematic analysis and content analysis.[146]
Framework Analysis is used to discover similarities and variances within
collected data that facilitates the
formation of descriptive conclusions based on inferred thematic relationships.[147] Jane
Ritchie and Liz Spencer from the NetCen, an applied research agency in the UK,
developed this approach in the 1980s.[148]
Framework Analysis is a systematic process consisting of five steps. The first step is called Familiarization, which is the process of gaining understanding by collecting data from secondary sources. The second step is identifying a thematic framework by articulating themes that emerge. The third step is indexing or coding by selecting relevant evidence to answer the guiding sub-questions and the research question. The fourth step is summarizing the evidence within the thematic framework developed in step two.[149] The fifth step is mapping and interpretation, which involves making inferences from the categorized evidence and identifying potential relationships that then is described in narrative form. Each of these steps was applied throughout the study as outlined in Figure 4.
The
collected data in this study was categorized within the following three themes:
The social media capabilities of IS, classification of the targeted Syrian
population, and the usage of social media by the Syrian population in Syria.[150] These themes correspond to
the guiding sub-questions, which will help to answer the research question and
developing conclusions.
Organizational Capability analysis was used to analyze evidence associated with guiding sub-question one, determining IS’s social media capabilities between 2011 and 2014. Organization’s capabilities are all what an organization has to perform its tasks and publicize its products to match its goals. It is about having a value creating strategy. An organizational capability is determined by establishing that a group has the combination of (1) processes, (2) tools and systems, (3) knowledge, skills and behaviors, and (4) a campaign that allows an organization to deliver a specified outcome.[151] Although organizations may have many of capabilities, there are handful capabilities known as the differentiating capabilities, which are truly essential for the organization to develop its full potential, accomplish its tasks, and achieve its goals.[152]
In this thesis, IS’s processes and
campaign factors are fixed; the studied processes are limited to Facebook,
YouTube, and Twitter platforms, besides IS’s campaign is the informational
domain who is launching the social media products. Technological resources
(tools and systems) and technical expertise (knowledge, skills, and behaviors) as illustrated in Figure 5 can summarize the
remaining two variable factors of organization’s capabilities. This framework
is used to derive IS’s capabilities to perform specified tasks to recruit, create
fear, fund, and coordinate and synchronize, and achieve established goals. Some
of the evidence concerning IS’s organizational capability
occurred in 2015, which is outside the
frame time of the study, but remain important because the operational
capability of an organization accumulates over time.
The concept of having technical
expertise in an organization is defined as having the ability to use
technology.[153]
The development of the organizational technical expertise through technological
capacity requires an investment of time
and resources to establish a structure for the development and maintenance of
this capacity.[154]
The increase of this capability does not happen by chance but by evolving and
changing the existing technology for the development of technological
capability.[155] In
other words, technological capacity is the ability of an organization to modify
its technological techniques and skills as technology evolves.[156]
It is important to examine and understand how IS used social media platforms to expand its influence worldwide beginning from within the Syrian Arab Spring, and the response of the Syrian population with respect to IS’s expansion. The narrative as a unit of analysis provides the means for doing this and the results can be used as thought-provoking tools and recommendations within the field of military doctrine and training, as well as provide awareness of social media effects in the cyber domain.[157]
The information gathered was analyzed
using the framework provided by the instruments of social media. The results of
the analysis are then used to determine if and how
social media contributed to the rise of IS in Syria. The study provides
answers to the main and the guiding research questions (Table 3). The Domino
Effect Theory matched perfectly the primary research question and the sub-questions as illustrated in Figure 6. By
creating and implementing a comprehensive strategy for the organization that
contains well-defined goals and objectives backed by solid tactics and
measurements.[158]
It can leverage the power of a chain-like reaction that has the greatest
potential to help an organization to meet and surpass its social media
endeavors.[159]
“Unlike in the past when the processes of mobilization, manpower recruitment and training mainly took place in the physical realm, today the Internet has become a central and anonymous arena in which these activities take place.”
– Homeland Security Institute, April 2009.[160]
This chapter presents the findings of
the present study and is subdivided into four sections. The first section
presents the evidence concerning what social media capabilities IS developed
and used between 2011 and 2014 to target specific populations within Syria. The
second section details the specific subgroup within the Syrian population that
IS targeted for recruitment and propaganda distribution. The third portion
reports how the targeted group had increased access to IS social media
platforms. Finally, the fourth section covers IS’s use of social media in Syria
to gain the support of the Syrian people evolved in the Arab Spring, which
enabled IS to evolve into a reorganized terrorist group.
The first
guiding question of this thesis addresses the social media capabilities that IS developed and used to establish a foothold in
Syria. Social media was essential to IS’s rise between 2011 and 2014. It
enabled IS militants to be first among equal terror groups acting in Syria. It
served to coordinate troops in battles, facilitated governance in its area of
control, and act far beyond its physical territories. The posted hi-tech videos
of group and individual execution of
victims blasted across the social media platforms through an offensive hacking
capability using imitated Twitter accounts. Moreover, it showed an advanced
capability to humanize its fighters and recruit more people of both genders
using online magazines, televisions, and radios.
IS executes a portion of its psychological
warfare campaign using Twitter because it offers the capability for users to
tweet and retweet automatically by using keywords
and hashtags. In April 2014, IS tweeters began using an Arabic-language Twitter
application called “Fajr al-Bashaer,” or
“The Dawn of Glad Tidings” (@Fajr991).[161]
The application is an official IS product
promoted by its top users. Hundreds of users have subscribed to the application
through either the Internet or the Google Play store on their Android smartphones.[162]
The application sends junk emails to “Fajr al-Bashaer”
followers. Twitter subsequently flags the emails as “potentially harmful” and
proceeds to request user data and personal information from the receiver (Figure 7), which is then collected by
the application. After downloading this information, the application begins
sending news and updates on Islamic State fighting in Syria and Iraq to those
addresses.[163]
In addition to sending updates on the
fighting, IS also uses this capability to prove that they are able to govern
the controlled areas in Syria. The photos distributed attempt to demonstrate
that IS is responsible for restoring security. Twitter enabled IS to showcase
their programs developed to build economic security in Syria, including tourism
and distribution of financial aid. Most of the photographs posted to the
Twitter feed show marketplaces with plenty
of food, groceries, and vegetables as well as most of other living
requirements.[164]
IS also publishes photos of people defendant of committing various crimes being
executed to illustrate the establishment of governance (Figure 8). However,
Twitter is not the preferred method to disseminate IS’s violent media.
IS used Twitter as a tacit platform
to reach its followers, spread its message, and publicize
its achievements. It is characterized by
its quick spread through tweeting and
retweeting IS’s message all over the virtual globe.
YouTube is IS’s primary technique to
propagate its brutal tactics, which requires a significant video production capacity.
These YouTube videos are filmed in documentary style and available in high
definition and in multiple languages that are available by conducting simple searches
on the internet (Figure 9). IS recruited skilled film crews and invested in
Hollywood-caliber software to produce its videos. The videos portray violent
executions by various means such as shooting, drowning, and being thrown off of
buildings. The videos have a psychological impact on its viewers, who cannot
help but tense up when watching the cruel acts depicted on screen. The tension
can be classified as either excitement or fear. As such, the videos are used as
both a recruitment tool and a terror tool.
IS taped and posted on social media platforms most of the mass executions of Syrian Army soldiers and other ethnical and religious executions in order to threaten and discourage their enemies who are fighting them. On 14 and 16 May 2013, IS posted two videos of the execution of Syrian soldiers in eastern Syria. In the first video, fighters of the IS shot dead three Syrians, one Army officer and two Alawite civilians, in the middle of Raqqa square.[165] The other video showed the execution of 11 Syrian Army soldiers in the eastern Deir al-Zor province.[166] Between 27 and 30 July 2013, IS killed between 50 and 70 residents in “Tell Aran” and “Tell Hassel” after they captured the Kurdish enclaves from the Kurdish Front.[167] Moreover, on 28 August 2014, IS militants massacred 250 of captured Syrian soldiers near Tabqa. The soldiers’ video, which was posted on YouTube, showed the prisoners stripped to their underwear and marched across the desert to be executed.[168] The videos are made to go extremely brutal using bizarre inhumane executions. They threatened bloodshed against any Muslims thinking in joining other Syrian rebel groups in Syria to fight IS.[169] This, in return, led to the reinforcement of IS rules in the area of control and showed the power of the organization to its followers for the ability to gain territories and executing the enemies in groups.
The flow of IS’s media productions is
illustrated in Figure 10. It starts with capturing the murder of the victim
with a professional crew, for group
executions and celebrities like journalists and pilots, or with IS fighters.The
executors download the taped video on
someone’s computer. Then, the process begins inside the IS’s media office that
has an art video production team. The video is edited, exported, and protected
as a compressed file with a strong 34-character password.[170]
The video goes in two directions, directed by the “logistics team” of
IS’s media production office. First, the team uploads
the video to a number of free, anonymous hosting services like YouTube, Vimeo,
Daily Motion, and Archive.org. Second, the team publishes the links on
anonymous text sites or Arabic-centric services.[171]
Once the video is released, it is coupled with a download link. The linked
pages are shared as an “invite-only” and password-protected through a
closed-registration message board to IS fighters and leaders.[172]
At the same time, these downloads are tweeted on Twitter, which is the most
vital part of the entire IS media operation for a rapid and wide spread of the
publication. A number of IS’s followers are actually analysts and journalists
who download the video on their part, and help indirectly IS to jump with the
video from Twitter to international media channels for a wider spread for the video.[173]
The execution of a Jordanian pilot, named Maaz Kasabeh, showcases the professionalism of
IS’s production capability in terms of filming. The camera operators
demonstrated their technical proficiency by how they choreographed the scenes.
By using proper placement of the subjects and appropriate camera angles, the
cameramen are able to evoke significant emotions. This is apparent in the
section of the video that shows the pilot’s face from dramatic viewpoints,
which attempts to convince the viewer that the pilot is remorseful for his
bombardment of areas in Syria that also appear in the video. Despite the fact
that the pilot may have been drugged or tortured prior to the filming, viewers
are unable to tell what caused the pilot to act in this way to give this
dramatic and penitent impression but are convinced of the veracity none the
less.[174]
An IS follower commented about the Jordanian pilot video on twitter stating,
“IS wants the heedless people about Islamic religion to wake up to IS voices
and understand the moral of its goals well.”[175]
In addition to the high-end camera work,
editing plays a significant role in successfully propagating IS’s message on
YouTube. The recruitment of trained producers and the investment in
Hollywood-caliber software improves the editing quality. This is evident when
viewing the transition scenes in the Maaz Kasabeh video. To achieve this
dramatic transition, the section requires two layers of editing between the
scenes. The end of the first scene is overlapped with the beginning of the
second scene, which is a difficult process. Innovative visual effects are also
used to increase dramatic results. Editing expertise is observable in the
creation of IS montages, which are comparable to high-tech professional films.
“In filmmaking, a montage is an editing technique in which shots are juxtaposed
in an often fast-paced fashion that compresses time and conveys a lot of
information in a relatively short period.”[176]
The information conveyed is violent in nature and meant to rouse or agitate the
viewer. The producers and editors exclusively commission narrators with British
accents in an attempt to manipulate its viewers. In the film industry,
narrators are known as the “voice of god.”[177]
The voice-over is an influential force because it states unquestionable truths.
British narrators are considered most desirable because the voice is believed
to belong to a person that is high class, knowledgeable, and trustworthy. The
addition of this kind of voice to an IS documentary adds perceived legitimacy
to the video.[178]
IS’s production team also uses sound as a
means to arouse emotion. IS produced a short film named Fateh Baghdad Sulil al-Sowarm,
which means “Screech for Invading Baghdad,” that used the sound effects from
the American movie Kingdom of Heaven.[179]
This film proposes that Al-Baghdadi is comparable to the historical leader
Saladin, who was the first sultan of Egypt and Syria.[180]
The subject draws on the emotions of viewers who respect Saladin’s legacy. The
poignant subject matter is intensified by the inspiring music. The intention of
these videos, is to attract both people
who support or in opposition to IS. There are some people who want to watch the
short film and discuss the technological aspects used by the film-makers rather than for the brutality
presented. Alternatively, others, that are not violent themselves, are
attracted by this type of display of cruelty and violence.
IS began amassing a significant cyber warfare capacity in 2014. IS Hacking
Division, also known as the Cyber Caliphate, officially launched in 2014 when
it published recruitment ads on extremist internet sites.[181] The
Cyber Caliphate has the ability to breach other networks defenses by exploiting
network or computer program weaknesses. IS’s cyber-soldiers are as important as
the IS’s ground forces, and were trained by Junaid Hussein, who was recruited
from England to teach IS hackers how to conduct cyber warfare.[182] In
England, Junaid Hussein, under the handle “Trick,” was sent to prison in 2012
for hacking Prime Minister Tony Blair’s computer, acquiring his address book
and subsequently divulging the information over the internet.[183]
Following his release from prison, he fled to Raqqa, Syria to join IS.[184]
Now known as “Abo Hussain Al-Britani,” which means “the British Abo Hussain,”
Junaid Hussein became a prominent leader within the organization, the head of
the Cyber Caliphate, and a celebrity.[185]
After IS’s declaration in September
2014 to create a Cyber Caliphate, it took until January 2015 to evidence IS’s
cyber-attacks in hacking websites and posting extremist propaganda on defaced
websites.[186]
The group launched itself into the spotlight timing its attack on the Twitter
and YouTube account of US Central Command (CENTCOM) with President Barack Obama’s
cyber security speech on January 12,
2015.[187]
Cyber Caliphate also hacked the Twitter handle of Newsweek, the International
Business Times, two local US news stations, Charlie Hebdo French
magazine, and 19,000 French websites.[188] Another
capability was shown in December 2014 when IS hackers conducted a
spear-phishing attack against a Syrian group, named “al-Raqqah is being
Slaughtered Silently” (RSS), that posts IS’s
abuse of the human rights in the city of
al-Raqqah. IS unmasked the group’s location and posted messages negating the
group’s focus. [189]
There is an argument between cyber
experts that some of the defaced pages and cyber-attacks are not the work of IS
Cyber Caliphate. Experts argue that Anonymous used the name of IS to gain media
attention and magnify fear.[190]
Yet, there is an agreement that these cyber-soldiers of IS use their knowledge
and electronic expertise to fight fierce wars no less ferocious than those run
by armed vehicles and artillery. The goal is to manipulate social media to
facilitate recruitment and funding while also showing their capacity to project
power beyond Syria.[191]
For IS, Twitter is a critical means of social
communication, which terrorists use for interaction and coordination. It
provides virtual communities that are composed spontaneously during major
events, which would benefit those groups by following up the latest information
about any issue that appears in the public domain. The group has exhorted its
followers to strip from their tweets and other social-media posts any
information that might give away the geographic location from which the message
sent to protect themselves from IS opponents’ cyber technology. [192]
IS has
increased its ability to coordinate operations under the radar of its enemies,
keeping its electronic communications hidden. IS’s use of cyber experts to stay
several steps ahead of law enforcement. IS recruited communication experts.
They teach terrorists how to use encryption and communication platforms like
Silent Circle, Telegram, and WhatsApp.
Aaron F. Brantly and his colleagues at the U.S. Army-affiliated Combating
Terrorism Center have found that IS uses 120 platforms, mostly encrypted, to
communicate and share information between its cells. Telegram is the most
highly encrypted form of IS’s communication.[193]
Telegram, a
non-profit, social media messaging site
that cannot be spied upon. It can deliver fast messages that are totally
secure, can self-destruct, and can be used on multiple devices. The founders of
Telegram, Pavel and Nikolai Durov, argue
that site and user’s privacy is more important than fear of terrorism.[194] IS has always used whatever communication
platforms are available as soon as they become available.[195] IS has proven exceptionally difficult to
track and kill because of encrypting its communications and taking steps to
avoid being detected by U.S. surveillance, especially communications at the top
of the organization.[196]
IS use
multiplayer on-line games like World of Warcraft for meetups. It uses
gaming consoles like PlayStation 4 to converse and communicate with each other.[197] IS spells out its
attack plans with its cells. There are many ways IS could communicate through
the gaming console. PS4 users can send messages through the PlayStation Network
online gaming service, use voice chatting or even communicate through a
specific game.[198]
“DABIQ”
is a monthly online magazine of high quality, issued in different languages,
which covers the building of IS as an organization and its insight. It talks
about the “World War” against it through the coalition strikes led by USA, the Russian strikes, and the conspiracy
hatched against it from some Arab countries. It also publishes articles of some
Arab intellectuals and foreigners who belong to IS that made it one of the
heavy intellectual productions of the organization. It discusses the extreme
Islamic thoughts, ideology, faith, and the importance
of jihad in its fields: by money, by hands, and by tongues. It covers how to
execute a person and make bombs and describes the Western society’s mentality
and relative contradictions to Islam in their view. It believes in the collapse
of the “American Empire” which is ruling the world. IS recruited economists who
write articles about economic analyses of the organization and some regional
countries. IS visualizes a culture distinct from the Islamic culture. It
spreads the culture of what is called “radical Islam” as a culture of
atonement, brutality of offenders, and the legalization of bloody attacks to
rule and spread the State. In general, the magazine encourages people who read
it to join the Islamic State in the way they show itself as the right
destination to follow and meet God in the proper way.[199]
IS launched the State Radio
“al-Bayan,” which means “the declaration,” in Iraq and Syria in early 2015. It
broadcasts al-Baghdadi speeches and vocal newsletters that contain the local
news of the organization in Syria and Iraq. In addition, it covers IS’s battle
achievements in its perspectives in addition to the “World War” against them.
IS also launched a television channel in early 2015 called “Caliphate Channel,” which broadcasts over the Internet,
focusing on encouraging the Muslims to join the organization. It also tries to
convince viewers that this is the right time for joining IS, broadcasting the
program of recruitment, locations to recruit, and recruiting advertisements.[200]
Online radio and online television made IS reaches wider audiences, especially who prefer to get information through
audio and visual instruments rather than other texting tools of social media.
IS uses sexual violence as a tactic
to increase the returns of its field achievements and inflate the base to
recruit followers, as well as destroying the social unity of the communities
targeted. They displayed women as sexual slaves as a strategic pull factor in attracting
men, including local youths and foreign fighters, to join the organization. The
organization describes the captivity and enslavement of women and children
“infidels” as an expected result of the invasion of new lands and pursues to
legalize sexual slavery. This develops the justification explicit of
sexual slavery in their perspective. Trafficking of women and children is an
essential component of financial flows to IS, as it continues to exploit social
media platforms to extort money by trafficking and selling of women.[201]
The innovative applications of social
media platforms, such as the use of private instant encrypted messaging
applications, allowed the organization of IS to sell women and girls in the
auctions on the Internet.[202] In addition, the posted picture of
women dressed in traditional Islamic dress holding weapons next to luxury
vehicles has proved proactive and enticing to both young men and women to join
the organization. IS’s leaders believe that this leads to recruiting more
females which will result in more families and a more socially stable Islamic
State.[203]
IS used social media platforms as a
means to humanize its followers. It showed scenes of soldiers visiting their
wounded peers in the hospitals, which reflected the comfort of the injured
soldiers. In addition, the videos showed IS fighters handing out candy and ice
cream to children who smile at the fighters. It organized, imaged, and
displayed entertainment for children and elderly people in Aleppo and Raqqa.
The organization installed “media points” kiosks as informational points. The kiosks distributed all publications of
the of the organization for free as a replacement of the social media, and announced specific times so people
can gather and watch on TV its media publications in areas near the kiosks.[204]
IS are active users of popular social
media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram for financing
and fundraising. It utilized social media to attract and direct funding to buy
weapons, pay salaries, improve infrastructure and operate civil and social
services in the areas of control. IS has relied on some of the fatwas from some
preachers who tweeted on Twitter for the sacrifice of money and souls (Figures
11-12).[205]
In addition to financial support, IS
got moral support from social networking
sites. Some web pages have seen what is called the virtual allegiance. After IS
leader came in the wake of the declaration
of the establishment of “Caliphate State,” it featured pages on social
networks, including “allegiance of the faithful Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,”
“Forensic Alliance of the faithful Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Advertising” and
others. These pages played a role in the spread of the organization and the
expansion of its supporters across the virtual world.
The analysis of the first research sub-question,
using the Organizational Capability
Analysis, achieved its goals to derive IS’s capabilities to accomplish tasks of
recruit, fund organization, create fear, and coordinate its activities using
social media platforms. Each of the derived capability proved that IS had both
the required tools and systems found in its technological resources to spread
its message, and the knowledge, skills, and behaviors through its technical
expertise in various domains of social media. All this will guide the research
to answer the primary research question and lead to reasonable conclusions for
chapter 5.
Between 2006 and 2011, a catastrophic
drought overwhelmed the Middle East, including Syria. 800,000 Syrians lost
their jobs and approximately 3 million Syrians became impoverished. In the
northeastern portion of Syria, which is ethnically mixed, 75 percent of the
farm crops failed and herders lost almost 85 percent of their cattle.[206]
This resulted in over 1.5 million people moving to temporary camps around
Aleppo, Damascus, and Daraa.[207]
These temporary camps lacked running water and electricity.[208] The
Syrian government failed to address the concerns of these displaced people.
This dire situation made the affected people a vulnerable target audience for
any movement that promised to improve living standards.
IS targeted the Syrian population and
used social media as a part of its recruitment procedure to encourage new
followers and fighters to join its ranks. The targeted population can be
categorized into three groups. The first group was the Syrian extreme Islamists
who share the same religious ideology of the Islamic Caliphate. The second
group was the majority of people, primarily Sunni youths and poor people, to
get their support and win the public opinion in order to assert influence on wider community. It was a support that resulted
from either fear and terrorism or the need of power to defeat the Syrian
regime. The third group was the armed people of other rebel groups that were already
in Syria and fighting the regime. By that, after having the sharia of caliphate
posted on social media to rule, the recruited population through social media
platforms to support and follow the rules, and a recruited army who can fight
for IS as “bakia wa tatamadad” which means
“everlasting and expandable” IS became Clausewitz follower in his trinity:
government, people, and army through
social media ways of war.[209]
Syrian extreme Islamists were the
first supporters of IS who saw in it the power and will to achieve their goals
through the organization’s ideology and achievements on the battlefield. The
short-term goal of IS and extreme Islamists was to get rid of the Syrian
regime, and the long-term goal was establishing the Islamic Caliphate. Extreme
Islamist dream may come true. Not only that, they might also take advanced
ranks in the organization. IS focused its information programs to get youths to
join for they can fight with the organization. IS skillfully used its powerful
religious ideology to convince these Islamists of all ages to leave other rebel
groups and join the organization. IS publications on social media typically use
out-of-context or out-of-period quotes from the holy book Qur’an as an alluring
religious attraction such as Jihad for God’s sake as obligatory, and the true
presence of living is in “al-Janna” which means Paradise.[210]
Journalist Lydia Wilson interviewed in 2015 with prisoners who joined IS, and
concluded that many recruits were miserably unfamiliar about Islam and Islamic
Sharia. They barely knew the fundamentals and principles of Islam. Several
recruits have their own understanding of
Islam rather than the one IS offered. These recruits, she concluded, joined IS
not only to fight for IS shocking dream, but for other reasons like gaining
money, power, and sexual relationships.[211]
IS focused its social media
capabilities on the Sunni population in Syria. It used the aggressiveness of the
Syrian regime against the population of Sunni
majority. Shia military organization coming from abroad like Iraqi militias and
Hezbollah from Lebanon, IS claimed, are supporting the Alawi regime. This
aroused the religious background of young Sunni Syrians, who are jobless and
have low standards of living, to join who calls for the Islamic Sunni rights and Sharia law.
Some of the Syrian population saw on social media platforms that IS was the first force
to promise to get rid of the uncertain and shameful life such as being loyal to
rulers under civilian laws and propose a route to a brilliant environment for
Sunnis. It is an expression of religious identity, culture, and tribe
regulations. The access to the organization, the financial benefits, and the
social services attracts some Syrians.[212] Some of the Syrians consider what is happening in Syria as an
adventure that is good to experience. These recruits are considered dangerous, because they might go to extreme
actions for the sake of their adventure.
IS has a long-term strategy of
recruitment to create and support the theocratic empire it seeks to establish.
So IS has tried to show that the world of radical Islam is not just death and
demolitions, but that it is a supportive organization. IS offered complete
installations of social service networks in the areas it rules. It pays good salaries, and tries to provide an acceptable
social atmosphere to facilitate the living in its areas.[213] According to Thomas Hegghammer of the New York Times, IS
strives to offer its supporters a rich cultural space in which they can
entertain themselves, including music, poetry, and even dream explanation. In
addition to the Muslim culture, the IS fighters have put a radical ideological
flavor on it, composing their own ideological songs about their preferred
themes, such as “My Ummah, Dawn Has Appeared” song.[214]
Many of the experienced retired Sunni
soldiers and officers of the Syrian Army, who have had trouble earning a
living, were happy to join IS. By joining it gave them employment, a renewed
sense of honor, and a way to continue their fight against Shia Muslims and the
Baathist party who rule the army. These veterans have provided IS with seasoned
military and organizational expertise. They saw the shift from a retired person
seeking to work for living to a zone commander ruling their local area. Social
media platforms offered them a good medium to communicate with the organization
to prepare meetings in mosques and join processes for local recruitments.
IS worked hard on social media to
encourage those who joined the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to join them. It used the
intimation and coaxing methods on the Free Army followers. The rigid ideology
that is part of IS propaganda on social media attracted the rebels to join it.
Others were attracted by the money. Others saw that they have the power to put
an end to the Syrian regime. The brutality shown on social media towards people
against IS made the rebels fear the organization and forced them to join the
organization to save their lives.
The analysis of the second research
sub-question focused on recruiting manpower to build an organization. IS built
its manpower mainly from the Syrian populations to have a tacit and explicit foundation
to order to initiate the promised Islamic Caliphate. The first guiding
sub-question showed that IS has capabilities in using social media to influence
people to join the organization, or in worst case scenario, to make them
neutral and to refrain from fighting IS. The three sub-groups of the Syrian
populations showed some similar interests and other distinct interests in joining
IS. In addition to guiding sub-question one, sub-question two, which focuses on
IS’s supporters and followers, also guides also the research to answer the
primary research question and lead to rational
conclusions for chapter 5.
The third
guiding question of this thesis addresses whether the subgroups
of the Syrian population had increased access to IS information or not. It is
evident that there was an increase of social media users who followed IS social
media platform from 2011 till 2014. Internet users in most countries of the
world have increased access to social media to learn about what is happening in
Syria. Thus they have the ability, if
they want to investigate what IS is, and what propaganda it issues. They could
have accessed IS information through YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook mainly.
Some people who accessed the social media platforms vary from followers to
supporters to neutral people and to opposers of IS. Mainly, any brutal
published video from IS has a shocking
increasing number of followers; essentially from Arab countries. It is
evidenced by the rapid increase in the number of viewers of the brutal videos on
YouTube. What follows is a personal
example about people Syrian refugees in Lebanon, when somebody hears that a
brutal video or a song that is published from IS, he/she directly goes to
YouTube to watch it before Youtube deleted it. Even people who are strongly
against IS ideology watch the videos.
Regardless of weak Internet
infrastructure, online restrictions, and harsh punishments for online
activities against the government,
Syrians have made extensive use of social networks and online tools to document
human rights abuses and mobilize protests.[215] In 2007, roughly two-thirds of Syrian homes have a satellite dish
allowing access to foreign TV broadcasts and
the first private radio station launched in 2005, which was subsequently censored. The regime prohibited
the station from transmitting news or any political content in 2007.[216] According to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in July 2013,
the Syrian population was estimated at 22.5 million people, of which 13 million
Syrian people used Mobile phones.[217] As stated by Internet World Stats (2014), that the number of the
Internet users in Syria increased by around 5 million users from June 2011 to
June 2012.[218] The Internet live stats give viewers detailed statistics of Syrian
population and Internet users between year
2000 and 2016 as illustrated in Table 4. The study shows that the population in
Syria at the beginning of the revolution in 2011 was around 20,720,602. The
rise of IS caused the population to
reduce in 2014 to 18,772,481 which is a drop of 10.3 percent. Meanwhile, during
the same period, the Internet users had increased from 4,612,763 to 5,273,190
users that is an increase of 14.3
percent. That means the number of Internet users has increased in spite of the
decrease of the Syrian population. From
the population values between 2011 and 2014, the increase of the Internet users
is around 25 percent Syrian users of the Internet.[219]
In reality, numbers of Syrian users
of social media, whether they are IS followers or other rebel groups, or even
ones with the Syrian regime, is very
complex to determine in Syria. This is in addition to the lack of a stable
connectivity to access the Internet for
Syrians. Moreover, most statistics of social media platforms cannot be verified
by time because most of them are deleted according to social media platforms
policies like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. The Syrian civil war has been
widely recorded on videos that are often uploaded to YouTube, shared on
Facebook, and then tweeted around the world. All the sides in the Syrian
conflict use numerous social media accounts.[220]
To
differentiate among a follower, a supporter, a hacker, a pre-fighter, a
recruiter, or an inductive person while tracking social media platforms is too
difficult. Accuracy varies due to the absence of any criterion or reference
system. Some social media researchers use buzz terms to detect users, such as terrorist, jihad, IS, Islamic Caliphate,
ISIS, how to make a bomb, yet it is not accurate. Identifying the precise image
of social media activity on the real situation of an organization’s status is
difficult.
In February
2014, according to the researcher Derek O’Callaghan at University College
Dublin, a study on 600 Twitter and YouTube accounts that posted or link a
content related to the Syrian conflict.
The accounts categorized 16 distinct communities which formed four aligned
groups. The first is jihadists of three communities including accounts
associated with AQ. The second is Kurdish group of two communities (political
parties and youth organizations). The third is Syrian regime supporters of one
community, and the fourth is of 10 communities of moderate opposition groups
such as supporters of the FSA. The
analysis was run on one community from each group. The most relevant were the
following two communities. The community supporting FSA consists of 105 social
media accounts including one with 73,000 followers that posts photographs of anonymous
bodies so that viewers can identify them. By contrast, accounts of one of the
Jihadist communities has tweeted photos that include weaponry attacks,
close-ups of fighters, and individuals holding up cut human heads. After
analyzing the data, O’Callaghan’s concludes in a logical and reasonable manner that “social media activity in Syria
is considerably more convoluted than reported in many other studies of online
political activism that find a straight forward polarization effect.”[221]
Furthermore, in mid-2015, it is an
important issue to highlight on that IS released a statement obliging the cyber
coffee shops in its areas of control to “remove Wi-Fi boosters in internet
cafes as well as private wireless adapters, even for soldiers of IS.”[222] The action is an attempt to limit private Internet access in Raqqa
and Deir El- Zoor to public locations
that might have extremists accessing them in order to restrict reporting by
activists as well as GPS-tracking of fighters using the social media platforms.[223] Through cyber war
efforts, IS is negatively affected because users can be detected and attacked.
The analysis of the third research
sub-question validates the fact that users of social media who followed IS
activities increased by the time frame between 2011 and 2014. Moreover, the
analysis showed that social media users varied between being fighters,
supporters, followers, hackers, recruiters, opponents, or inquisitive persons. This
sub-question corroborates that IS’s social media capabilities and the targeted
Syrian populations guide the research for the primary research question because
of the increased numbers of social media users.
IS leaders used the following tactics
to establish the foundation of tacit and explicit support from within the
Syrian population: sending representatives to identified groups, focusing on
illegal behaviors by Syrian’s armed forces, emphasizing the need for an Islamic
State, emphasizing the state of victimized prisoners, and connecting those in the
subgroup with diverse social media platforms. They also employed social-media tactics that expanded its message.[224]
The majority of the Syrian rebels in
2011 did not intend to establish any type of religious governance or thought of
reestablishing the ancient caliphate. A large number of Syrian rebels were
youths, as were shown in relevant videos, who wanted to examine the western way
of living that influenced them through
all the available media platforms. These youths, however, did not have adequate
expertise to determine effective, durable methods to realize their ambitions.[225]
The smartphones became their tongues to
express, their pens to write their opinions, and their weapons in both ways: to
attack their government and the rulers. They also offered the technology of the smart phone as a weapon
for others to get its benefits to use and reach the hidden goals, one of which
is IS.
Syrian rebels and exiled persecuted
Syrians abroad established social media communications to express their ideas,
especially their loss of freedom of speech and their regret at having given
their submission and loyalty to the Syrian government and especially to
President Bashir Assad’s rule. These Syrians abroad encouraged those who still
lived in Syria to use social media to proceed with their uprising. Meanwhile,
every sect of these elite Syrians abroad started building its own dream to
returning and becoming the next ruler of Syria. Efforts did not combine into
one aim that gave Islamic State militants an opportunity to lead the ground
movement in a very professional, well-organized
way to move some of the Syrian rebels
towards them. The IS militants, in contrast, had a definite vision in mind,
with a religious aspect, and a well-developed strategy for using newly
developed weapons: social media tools as illustrated in Figure 13.
Terrorists exploited the chaos and
power vacuum when the uprising generated. Terrorists used social media to
inflame civil instability and then took advantage of the chaos. Historically,
anarchy, disorder, and frustration follow a revolution. In Syria, this enabled AQ
branches and arms to spread their power and influence. Juan Zarate, former
Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism in U.S.A., in April 2011 predicted that AQ’s leaders knew that
this was a strategic moment. AQ relied on the disillusionment and anger that
certainly follows revolutions to confirm its eminence in the region.[226]
The Arab Spring in Syria produced
many radical movements, such as: “Jabhat Ansar al-Islam,”“al-Rahman
Legion,”“Army of al-Islam,”“Army of al-Nasr,” and “Army of al-Izzah,” that
utilized social media to spread information and promote their agendas. This use
of social media affected Syrian users’ opinions and international support, news
broadcasting, messaging spread-out, and the ability of the user to communicate
and share information within the rebellions. Similarly, regimes and
counter-insurgency forces can use social media to accomplish their plans in a
technological way. Messaging, information, ideology and narrative are the
features of a successful revolution.[227] FBI Director James Comey noted that, through Social media, IS’s propaganda “buzzes in the pockets
of troubled souls, unmoored people all across Syria every day.” The FBI and
other international agencies are reporting new threats like social
media-inspired “crowd-source” terrorism. IS has successfully targeting younger
recruits, especially females, to increase their numbers.[228]
IS is
notorious for its sophisticated use of social media to achieve its goals. It
declares to all Muslims that battling to restore a caliphate is a religious
duty. IS portray itself as an agent of change, the true advocate of supreme
faith, a leading power of its own perverse notions of social justice, and a
collection of avengers bent on settling accounts for the perceived sufferings
of other Muslim militias. This narrative suggests that the physical Islamic
State is gaining numerical strength and massive power of weapons and money, and
that victory is inevitable. The group has employed social media tools to threat
and influence opponents and journalists equally not to come to Syria. Figure 14
illustrates the fates of 23 IS’s hostages
which made Western journalists fear to come
to Syria to cover the incidences.[229]
IS depict its members both warriors and social service. Images of gore, beheadings, and executions are intended to intimidate opponents, while also recruiting new members. The group has also released images showing foot soldiers eating Snickers chocolate bars and nurturing kittens to show the entertainment life of fighters in their noncombat time on the lands of IS’s control. This illustrates a historical reference, as Danish strategic communication expert Thomas Elkjer Nissen has pointed out, to Prophet Muhammad’s companion Abu Huraira who was fond of cats. These images aim to deliver the message that IS promotes the welfare of its people, not its murder.[230]
Another image of IS reflected on
social media platforms is its call for Sharea
rules to punish people. Sharia calls for harsh punishments, such as stoning,
amputation or execution. Most Muslim countries do not strictly employ these religious
punishments. Furthermore, the United Nations’ report in 2010 estimated
thousands of women are killed each year in Sharia-justified “honor killings”:
victims murdered for bringing “dishonor” to one’s family. Consequently, IS has
become infamous for employing other Sharia measures (Table 5) such as genital
cutting, child marriage, stoning (crime of fornication) and execution by
crucifixion (crime of robbers who kill and steal).[231]
An examination of how it uses social
media and how effective its campaign to recruit, fund, spread message, and create fear that reveals that thousands of men from all
over the globe have joined the group as a result of its powerful iconography
and seductive online narratives. However, IS also came to the conclusion that
it cannot control the narrative the way AQ did. The spreading use of social media, coupled with the availability of
smartphones, made individual fighters instant reporters who could film and
upload events to the Internet thoughtlessly and recklessly. Other issues that
had a negative effect for individual
fighters engage in is tweeting about their experiences, sharing pictures of
daily life and bragging about their military accomplishments. These men
sometimes portray what the leaders of IS would like to have kept hidden. IS, on
the other hand, refutes criticism from religious preachers, promotes its
narrative, and spreads its image as a compassionate follower of Islam.[232]
The rebels in Syria were easily led
to repeat any slogan, or accept any propaganda. The extreme Syrian Islamists
found an opportunity to manipulate the various sects of the Syrian Sunnis as
well as foreign Muslims to take revenge on the Syrian government, which blocked
their freedom of speech and made them keep silent to survive. The Islamists
believe that Islamic rule is the blessed destiny for all social, political, and
economic domains in a nation. The ideology of “Salafi Ansar al-Sharia” (AAS) of
the Muslim Rule,[233]
which calls for Islamic sharia law to establish
aligns with IS’s ideology.
Before the Syrian uprising, the
Sunni-Shiite divide was not a subject for preachers to discuss in Mosques or on
TV shows like those of TV performer Amr Khaled, and the Muslim Brotherhood
advocate Tareq Mohammad al-Suwaidan to name a few. Their topic had been just a
general Islam discussion, yet their shows formed an Islamic base for youths in
the Arab countries, such as Syria. The violence of the Syrian uprising
transformed Islamist speech from an uprising of the Syrian people to an
uprising of Sunnis to fight the Syrian “Alawite” regime. IS posted photos and
videos of the Syrian regime, especially the online videos that showed Syrian
armed forces arresting Syrian Sunni fighters to say “la Illaha illa Bashar al-Assad” (no God except Bashar
al-Assad). [234]
Also, the Syrian men obliged to pray on the Syrian President’s photos; that fueled the Sunni-Shiite division in most
of the Arab countries, especially Syria
that was shown in the increased number of protests. That has encouraged the extreme
Islamic Syrian Sunnis to join IS in Syria. [235] In
addition, using social media platforms, IS highlighted the assistance Syrian
regime got from Iran and the Shiite militant groups from Lebanon (Hezbollah)
and Iraq.[236]
By 2012, the extreme Islamist groups were
using social media tools to build coalitions with other Islamist factions in
Syria. Some of the Islamist Syrians who hated the regime and the Alawi –Shiite connection
made them join IS; it was shown on the issued slogans against that connection.
The slogans changed from yelling “silmeyyah
silmiyyah” (peaceful, peaceful) to
“Allahu Akbar” (God is Great) with bearded rebel fighters posting their brutal
videos of the executions of the Syrian soldiers on YouTube and Facebook.
Actually, all Muslims respect and follow the slogan of “Allahu Akbar” because
it is one of the basics in believing in God. Yet, the slogan influences all
Muslims to trust in God and follow his rules and sharia.
Extremists have posted on social
media their brutal actions with the yelling of religious slogans to convince
the viewers that they are accomplishing the Islamic Sharia, of which it is a wrong image of Islam when an
extremist removed the heart of a Syrian soldier that was the turning point of
extremists to be terrorists. The majority of IS’s leaders kept silent on this
video as an approval for the action. The spread of this video went global and
was covered by most international media channels. In April 2013, the AQ
affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra established a sharia council and enforced the Islamic
law in Aleppo, and later, in Raqqa and Deir al-Zour. These activities made the
Syrian population link between what they are watching on social media platforms
and what could be established in their communities’ councils yelling for
sharia.
At nearly the same time, Turkey’s
borders with Syria were intentionally opened for jihadists to enter Syria.
Through social media encouraged extreme Islamists to come and fight against the
Syrian regime and also to help build an Islamic state in Syria. Some clerics,
like the Saudi Mohammed al-Arifi, called for jihad in Syria. Al-Arifi action paved
the way for some legitimacy of jihad in Syria that helped IS get more fighters
from abroad, and within Syria. The Islamic rebels in Syria moved from one militia to another by time in a way to achieve their goal by changing the Syrian regime. This
gives a good example of the social media messages of different groups; and how
their propaganda influenced the viewers. The nomatic
nature of rebels suggests that social
media is an effective tool.
This chapter has reported the
findings of the present study and discussed these findings in light of similar evidence in the body of literature. The
three research sub-questions guided the primary research question by detecting
IS social media capabilities and determining the targeted Syrian populations to
accomplish its planned tasks between 2011 and 2014 by radicalizing the Syrian
protestors of the Arab Spring in 2011 and created grounds of support from some
of the Syrians to rise among other extreme terrorist groups acting in Syria
that had vision and long-term goal of establishing the Islamic Caliphate. Social
media platforms acted as a good means for IS to facilitate its capabilities to spread
its message and ideology, show ability to
govern its controlled areas, and expand
its propaganda worldwide in a very rapid
way and in a short time. Chapter 5 will summarize the findings of the present
study, make several conclusions, point out the limitations, list contributions,
discuss pedagogical implications and finally propose several recommendations
for further investigation and research.
Social media plays an important role
in many communities, where the use of these sites is not limited to younger
members of the community, but extends to
their elders. Moreover, these sites have played an important role in the
process of democratic transformation in many Arab countries. This was reflected
clearly in the Arab Spring revolutions that occurred in Tunisia, Egypt, and
Libya, where the primary means of the coordinating action was the young people
activities on social media. The increased use of social media to mobilize
support has led to its use by many of the terrorist organizations, IS in
particular. This was reflected clearly in the recruiting of many young people
to its organization through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and
YouTube.
The protesters in Syrian, including many Syrian
rebels desired democracy and freedom of speech, as well as social and economic
improvement. However, the turmoil surrounding the uprising allowed for the rise
of IS, and the rise of the Islamic Caliphate, a terrorist organization that
used social media platforms. Typically social media is intended to share ideas,
wishes, and love between people through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other
social networks. Instead, IS used social media as a tool to share brutality, hatred,
and its ideology globally.
The vision of the leaders of the IS is that it survives and expands. A way to
achieve those goals is the effective use of social media. IS uses the Internet
and social media for propaganda, and recruitment of foreign terrorist fighters,
and communications and operational tool for planning, coordinating, and executing attacks. It is used also as spread fighter
weapons’ characteristics information and technical knowledge for manufacturing
explosives.
It is clear that IS wants to share its
actions and views in public, and propaganda. International media institutions
indirectly helped IS to rise, by highlighting its videos, speeches,
publications, and its flawed concept of Islam as an ideology. Many people,
especially in the Middle East, are drawn to watch its videos, irrespective of
the brutality and violence after the international media reports about a certain
publication. IS’s strategy is based on the use of physical force and a commonly
believed frame of ideas: ideology. Based on the analysis of IS’s social media
use, ideology is a powerful stimulator behind IS’s formation and establishment.
Ideology, when coupled with armed forces, makes IS believe that its dream of a
caliphate may come true.
After the Arab Spring started in
Syria, social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube were
central tools for the protests. IS successfully used social media platforms to
attract multiple segments of the Syrian population; first the extreme Syrian
Islamists, who share the same religious ideology. Then, the youth and poor
people were influenced by different motives, whether financial, psychological
or moral or ideological, or to fight against the Shia and Alawi who support the
Syrian government to join IS. Lastly this is in addition to the armed people of
other rebel groups that are “ready soldiers” to fight under IS flag. Not only
young people joined IS, but also mature men and women. This was reflected
clearly through Facebook and Twitter accounts created by women that belong to
this organization. These women sought to communicate with females all over the
world, and encourage them to join IS in Syria. Some Syrians joined the
organization although of its terroristic ideology. On one hand, IS changed the
peaceful Syrian Arab Spring into a bloody terroristic civil war. On the other
hand, it affected indirectly the whole world by spreading fear and terror
through attacks here and there.
The analysis showed that IS uses
social media platforms in more than one language, for example, Arabic, English, French, and German. It also uses quotes
from the holy book Qur’an, to influence the greatest number of individuals. It
clarifies the power of the organization through broadcasting its field of
operations. In addition, IS followers showed that they enjoyed the life in the
area IS controls, which made many Syrian youths want to experience it as well.
On the other side, IS publishes many of the videos on YouTube, that show its
use of violence and brutality. The strange thing is that in spite of this
brutality, many young people join IS
after viewing these brutal videos, which may appeal to their desire for
authority in spite of their conscience.
What is distinct about IS is the way
that it merges traditional media broadcasting like television, radio, and jihad web forums, with pop cultural platforms,
such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, to intensify its message. IS’s use of
Twitter is particularly remarkable,
because it has become the primary means of media propagation; its online publications are public and characterized in
its efficient, controlled, and decentralized plan. Twitter allows IS to reach
its audience very rapidly, within seconds, which makes the relation between IS
leaders and followers closer and in real time. Tweeting and retweeting is a
simple procedure to interact and spread the posts. This tactic of IS convinces
the followers that they are part of the decision-making for establishing the
Caliphate and provoke them to join physically.
Social media companies, like Twitter,
Facebook, YouTube, have adjusted their regulations to block the accounts related
to IS that shows brutal content substances. However, because of the
decentralized social media tactics of IS, it is difficult to control the
suppression of the material issued. IS’s social media users are able to create
new accounts rapidly and with ease. This contributes to a partial failure of
social media companies’ strategy to stop IS on the Internet. IS has the ability
to spread false information and hack others’ sites and pages with ease through
the Internet. IS’s social media users formed well organized and methodical
networks through which social media followers access and distribute IS
publications, like “Dabiq,” and synchronize posts and hashtags.
Through social media posts and IS
publications, IS has shown a long-term strategy, which is the establishment of
the Islamic Caliphate. IS finds the use of brutality and bloody scenes in Syria
against the regime or innocent populations who refer to other religions, a
necessary means to reach the desired end of establishing the Caliphate. In
Syria, IS ran many features to sustain the area it controlled through social
media platforms. For example, it launched public services including medical
aids, education, local and religious security services (sharia courts), and
infrastructure projects. It made the Syrians in those areas dependent on IS to
get the required resources to live. This encouraged some of them to join IS to
get more money on one hand, and to submit to the authority of IS on the other
hand.
The present research had two
assumptions which helped in narrowing the focus of the study. The first
assumption was too essential to study,
since it assumes that social media played an important role in the
metamorphosis of IS in Syria between 2011 and 2014. After answering the
subquestions and the primary question of the research, and upon analyzing the
extracted outputs, all concluded data validates and matches the assumption
which turned into fact upon relying on modern social media theories and
frameworks to build organizational social media strategy to publicize its
products, spread out its messages, and maximize its reach to its consumers. IS
was a very fit organization to such strategy.
In return to the second assumption
related to the relation between IS and JN, and the fact that JN was a
subordinate to ISI during the period of the study, the subject matter may
confuse some researchers to identify who of them is doing what, and for the
sake of whom. But throughout the research, this study focused mainly on IS to
show its actions on social media and its relative effectiveness to show that
the first assumption turned into fact. The researcher kept the second
assumption throughout the research to make it suitable for future research
studies.
The effectiveness of the three
research sub-questions was revealed by the smooth flow of information to answer
the primary research question. It was based on a scientific framework to analyze
the relevant collected data throughout the research and backed up with significant
pieces of evidence. The use of Domino Effect Theory showed that the research
questions answered seamlessly the Domino Effect questions in developing social
media strategy without any gap. Another evidence of research questions
effectiveness is that the indexing or coding used to answer the guiding
sub-questions and the primary research question formulated acceptable themes
that were mapped and interpreted in a
suitable narrative form that verified the importance of the study, and gave creditability to the results.
As a result, because IS succeeded in
influencing some of the Syrian population and other young people from other
countries to join it through social media, whether on Facebook or Twitter or even
YouTube, this study recommends the following:
Syrians
must unite and stand together against all extremist groups. Syrians must
encourage a return to their diversity and the acceptance of other partners in
the country from other sects and religions. They should think deeply of what
these groups made in their country. All terrorists’ social media platforms must
be blocked in Syria. Syrian must launch counter social media activities to show
the IS followers illusions and the psychological traps of their ideology. When
there is a will, there is a way to come back and let Syria rise and thrive in
the hope for a better opportunity, more tolerance, and a promising future.
Jihadists must view social media posts defining the real meaning of “Jihad” as
what Islam religion instructed and the Prophet Muhammad called for in the forgiveness
and respect of others.
Muslim voices who
represent the real Islam should be enabled to reach young Muslims in each
country who are vulnerable to radical extremism through social media platforms.
Starting from the Syrian population, Middle Eastern, and Western countries,
Muslims must post on-line what Islam really calls for and how these groups are
shifting the religious concepts to match their goals. It must be simple and
easy to understand. Arab countries must set a distinctive counter social media
strategy to fight terrorism of extremists. They must take actions rather than
wait for the West to solve their problems.
Military
campaigns striking IS without targeting the extremist ideology posted on the
internet of terrorist communities are not enough. Without defeating the extreme
ideology now will lead to new IS in a coming
couple of years. This extreme ideology must be changed to a moderate
one, reinforced by education over all its platforms, backed up with scholars’
efforts, and de-radicalization through
on-line programs. Western democracy cannot be set easily for communities who have
not experience it before. The only solution for the Syrian crisis is the
political one. Power nations such as U.S.A., United Kingdom, and France must
set this solution to save the soul of the Syrian people. Power nations must
encourage some neighboring countries to cut internet facilities on terrorists,
cut off arms, and funding to extremists. Scholars and moderate organizations’
minds and pens can resolve the radical ideologies by their posts and tweets,
not by weapons and missiles. Stability will allow Syrians to think about what
is suitable for them to set the true meaning of Democracy. Offering them a good chance of a decent life that will show
them how IS example was weird for living and practice. Democracy is the enemy
of extremists; it ruins their ideology in spreading their message and expands
their territories.
Countries
must work to fight this terrorist organization in all ways. The focus must be
in the fight against intellectual, media, and technological mediums of IS to
stop the recruitment of many individuals to this organization. These
recruitments resulted from delusions and wrong beliefs of jihad, and the
concept of Syria and Iraq are the land of the Caliphate, which convinced them
that in order to go to heaven, you must fight the infidels and apostates. This
contradicts with the Islamic instructions and dogmas.
Countries
must work to fight IS through social media platforms too. Some countries have
already begun to do so, as they closed many of IS pages. In addition, they
deleted the brutal and violent videos the organization published to provoke
horror to the community. Also, the recruiting videos that were posted to
attract many young people to the idea of
a Caliphate should be obstructed or stopped.
Schools and
universities, mainly in the middle east, must use social media platforms to set
educational programs to warn students from the terrorist groups’ misleading online
propaganda and recruitment strategies. That will decrease the online threat of
IS on the youths. Schools and universities must launch anti-IS social media
messages and videos that can be shared with
educational institutions and local media. By doing that, the number of social
media intelligence experts will increase in communities to fight terrorism
electronically.
Social media companies must update
their policies against terrorism and brutality scenes, and coordinate with
governments to infiltrate and abolish the SMN (real and virtual) behind IS’s
social media campaign. By detecting and targeting IS followers Twitter accounts
individually, social media companies might be able to break IS’s global social
media campaign. It is a difficult mission for social media companies to
accomplish, but it is necessary to shut the door on IS social media campaign.
Finally, IS always work to achieve its
end state goals, in terms of the availability of land, the people, and the
recognition of the Islamic Caliphate worldwide. Countries must fight the spread
of violence and terror on the land, and IS always works to distort the image of
Islam and through the wrong beliefs and ideas about Islam, and to convince
people that this is what God wants, so
that they get the paradise. Therefore, IS’s ideas must be fought on social
media, and all Muslims must not hesitate to fight it and not to fall in its
trap name: IS, because it does not tie to Islam in any way, and Islam is
innocent of it.
At the beginning of this project, the
goal was to conduct a narrative study analysis using the methodology
illustrated in chapter 3. Because of the depth of the methodology and the
wealth of information available in IS social media capabilities in Syria, this
rapidly exceeded the limitations of this thesis for the interpretation and
analysis of a large amount of data. The methodology is nonetheless sound and
would benefit from further testing against the social media usage that ties the
terrorist groups found in Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria,
Egypt, and Libya to name a few and the lone wolves found all over the world. These
are people who are ready to explode themselves among innocent people, and the
trigger is set by a tweet on social media.
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[160] Homeland Security Institute, “The Internet as a Terrorist Tool for
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[161] J. M.
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[162] Ibid.
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[190] Ibid.
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[227] Richard A. Lindsey, “What the
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Movements,” Small Wars Journal, July 29, 2013, accessed January 15,
2017, http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/what-the-arab-spring-tells-us-about-the-future-of-social-media-in-revolutionary-movements.
[228] Dan Walsh, “As ISIS’ Social Media
Tactics Prompt Changes in U.S. Counter-Terror Strategies, We Should Be
Educating Our Students,” Hillars Heintze, October 20, 2015, accessed
January 17, 2017, http://www.hillardheintze.com/blog/asisis%E2%80%
99-social-media-tactics-prompt-changes-in-us-counter-terror-strategies-we-should-be.
[229] Farewell, “The Media Strategy of
ISIS.”
[230] Ibid.
[231] Attkisson, “How Arab Spring
Opened the Door to Terrorism’s Ugly March.”
[232] Ian Black, Rania Abouzeid, Mark
Tran, Shiraz Maher, Roger Tooth and Martin Chulov, “The terrifying rise of Isis: $2bn
in loot, online killings and an army on the run,” The Guardian, June 16,
2014, accessed January 12, 2017,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/16/terrifying-rise-of-isis-iraq-executions.
[233] “Salafi Ansar al-Sharia” means “the Salafist followers of Sharea.”
[234] Diab, “How the Syrian uprising
led to ISIS’ rise, not democracy.”
[235] Diab, “How the Syrian uprising
led to ISIS’ rise, not democracy.”
[236] Halla Diab, “How
Syria’s uprising blurred moderate, extremist lines,” Al Arabia English,
October 12, 2014, accessed January 11, 2017, https://english.alarabiya.
net/en/views/news/middle-east/2014/10/12/How-the-Syrian-uprising-led-to-ISIS-rise-not-democracy-Part-2-.html.
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