IS Propaganda

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-propaganda-machine-how-terror-group-sells-itself-idyllic-state-1522762

After looking at Nazi propaganda I’d thought I’d have a quick look at something more contemporary and so turned my attention to IS propaganda. This is where I came across the brief article, this is just my initial search, which covers some aspects of the propaganda and does provide some useful insight.

The scale of the propaganda is immense. They claim that during the Islamic month of Shawwal “1,146 instances of propaganda, of which more than half focused on civilian life and statehood in IS-controlled territories” That means there was nearly 40 articles of propaganda per day and the majority were promoting the utopia of an Islamic State. Apparently they were showing IS looking after its citizens and providing public services and romanticized the ideal of living with IS.

There was more of a focus on being part of the state caring and providing for you rather than military action. They promoted such aspirations as belonging to the group and being part of the state, which would appeal to disillusioned people from outside IS territory. With the military action being marginalized IS promotes a more peaceful and harmonious organization that has the support of its citizens.

This strikes me as being similar to the film I saw yesterday Triumph of the Will, which promoted the same thing. In that film they focused not only military might but how popular the Nazi regime was and how the state would provide (there were scenes of the army feeding people).

I’ve also found a video on the Daily Mail website http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1100813/Propaganda-video-purports-ISISs-workout-program.html that alleges to show an IS training camp. Again the similarities between this and the Nazi film are striking, both show well disciplined, organized and strong fighters or soldiers ready to do the will of the state.

However, I am now also beginning to notice that propaganda needs to be more subtle than before and I think this is because we are so used to seeing propaganda. A large amount is either distrusted or, at the very least, treated with a fair amount of skepticism. Consequently propaganda needs to be targeted to certain groups, relate to those groups and for the aims of the propaganda to be relevant to those groups. For instance I am a white British male and so I am extremely unlikely to join IS and so I am not the target of their propaganda. However, as I am a white British male I would probably be part of the target group for UKIP as most of their support has come from that particular group.