Mediatising the radical: the implied audience in Islamic State propaganda videos

Abstract

This essay seeks to analyse the al-Hayat Media Centre’s visual propaganda of the so-called Islamic State (IS) so as to trace the visual and verbal recruitment strategies designed to cater to an implied audience. The profile of this implied or intended audience will be examined on the basis of a framing analysis of the key themes identified in seven videos of al-Hayat IS propaganda, presupposing that the videos indicate how recruiters try to impart their message to certain cohorts. The profoundly dichotomous structure of ‘ingroup’ and ‘outgroup’ that provides the background for the framing of certain key themes in the videos analysed, affords the justification for Jihad, or Holy War, through the invocation of emotional and moral modes of address.