Digital terrorism: The new face of psychological warfare

Introduction:

The word “propaganda” comes from the Latin verb “propogare” which means to propagate, generate or reproduced. Broadly speaking, propaganda refers to an attempt to influence the attitudes of a large number of people with the aim of coming onto common grounds with a relevant group.

Another extension of propaganda that is now so widely used that it has moved on from its under its umbrella to now a full-scale method is “Psychological Warfare”. The term psychological warfare is a step above the normal usage of propaganda.

Additionally, it involves the spread of propaganda along with psychological techniques aimed at intimidation, demoralizing and influencing the thinking or behaviour of an opponent. In the earlier days, psychological warfare was treated as a prelude to war and propaganda or used simultaneously with it.

Today, the terrorist organizations have also managed to make it one of their most powerful means of sending a message out to the public and whoever is watching. Furthermore, the groups like ISIS, AL QAEDA has now treated new age media centric psychological warfare as half a part of jihad. In psychological terms, the ISIS has truly transformed its play.

It’s vast propaganda and psychological warfare techniques are unrivalled with a team of dedicated members across the world. Moreover, the ISIS and it’s now separated umbrella organization the AL- Qaeda, has been using the ever-expanding horizons of digital media and the reach of the internet.

Consequently, the terrorist organizations has launched a new propaganda war, one that reaches not only to an audience larger than ever before but also targets the younger generations, at an alarmingly successful rate.

Against the background of 24-hour connectivity, intimate access to each moment happening in a person’s life and unrestricted access to content on various platforms from every imaginable corner of the world, one of the most important soldiers that rise in the ranks of terrorist organisations today are the “army of the media personal”.

With propaganda spreading through immensely popular mediums such as Twitter, Facebook and videos uploaded on various platforms their publishing target various “audiences” throughout the scale.

Battle of Perception –  Social Media:

The exploration and effect of social media, it’s reach and power gives more command and strength to the organisation and its agenda making it into one of the strongest and perhaps most catastrophic wars of the modern day.

Additionally, this ‘idea’ partly resides in that fact that terrorism is launched, maneuvered, and magnified disproportionally in the virtual world. In other words, the main weapon is not the physical weapon itself but what is perceived and imagined by the public.

Terror is in the eyes of the beholder (audience). As Ayman al-Zawahiri, then al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, wrote to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2005, “We are in a battle, and more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.”

The international fight against terrorism is not only beyond its military dimension but also battle of perception and ideas a struggle for the attention and minds of global audiences.

Terrorist audience:

Various audiences tend to give different interpretations to terrorist acts. They are viewed as heroic by some and as cowardly by others. Actually, there are many audiences to a campaign of terrorism:

Ten terrorist audience

• The adversary/-ies of the terrorist organization (usually a government)
• The constituency/ society of the adversary/-ies
• The targeted direct victims and their families and friends
• Others who have reason to fear that they might be the next target
• “Neutral” distant publics
• The supporting constituency of the terrorist organization
• Potential sympathetic sectors of domestic and foreign (diaspora) publics
• Other terrorist groups rivaling for prominence
• The terrorist and his organization
• and last but not least: the media

Martha Crenshaw, one of the most seminal authors in the field, concluded, in a study on the causes of terrorism, that

 “The most basic reason for terrorism is to gain recognition or attention…”.

More recently, L. Weinberg and A. Pedahzur have made another attempt to arrive at an academic consensus definition, basing themselves on 73 definitions gained from academic journals on terrorism. They came up with this “minimalist” definition:

“Terrorism is a politically motivated tactic involving the threat or use of force or violence in which the pursuit of publicity plays a significant role.”

The way these consensus definitions were reached was by looking at the building blocks the fundamental component elements of many existing definitions and establishing common elements.

Key Characteristic Elements of Terrorist Incidents

A similar approach is to look at the key elements of terrorist incidents. I would submit that many of the following key elements can be found in most “terrorist” incidents:

1. The demonstrative use of violence against human beings
2. The threat of (further) violence.
3.  The deliberate production of terror/fear/dread/anxiety in a target group.
4. The frequent targeting of civilians, non-combatants, and innocents.
5. The purpose of intimidation, coercion, and/or propaganda.
6. The fact that it is a method, tactic, or strategy of conflict waging.
7.  The importance of communicating the act(s) of violence to a larger audience.
8.  The illegal, criminal, and immoral nature of the act(s) of violence.
9. The predominantly political character of the act.
10.  Its use as a tool of psychological warfare

Unlike the guerrilla the terrorist does not occupy territory on the ground. However, if engaging in a well-orchestrated campaign of intermittent attacks, he might succeed in occupying the minds of targeted groups by creating a climate of fear, thereby manipulating target audiences at the emotional level. To the extent that these audiences are not direct witnesses of the terrorist deed, “the success of a terrorist operation depends almost entirely on the amount of publicity it receives,” as Walter Laqueur once put it.

If audiences are the target, the terrorists are the star performers and the public space where they create a violent reality becomes the stage of their theater from which they impress and shock the public.

Violence and Propaganda:

There are many definitions of propaganda but most of them refer to verbal or visual persuasive information strategies only, rather than stressing a broader set of “psychological activities in peace or war, directed at the enemy, friendly and neutral audiences in order to influence attitudes and behavior affecting the achievement of political and military objectives” what one terms as “psychological warfare.”

However, Violence and propaganda have much in common. Violence aims at behaviour modification by coercion. Propaganda aims at the same by persuasion. Terrorism also can be seen as a combination of the two. Eugen Hadamovsky, already noted in 1933 in his book on “Propaganda and National Power” that “Propaganda and violence are never contradictions. Use of violence can be part of propaganda.” Terrorism, by using violence against one victim, seeks to coerce and persuade others. The immediate victim is merely instrumental and serves to achieve a calculated impact on a wider audience.

Effects achieved by terrorist propaganda:

By tailoring their violence to some of the news values of the media “If it bleeds, it leads” terrorists can gain, as we already noted, access to mass audiences.

Similarly, the media not only transmit their message a deed that speaks for itself or a communiqué to go with it almost in real-time. They also publicize the terrorist’s cause free of charge which makes their strategy very cost-effective. Empirical research has shown that a number of goals are pursued in this way:

Terrorist Goals associated with Publicity for their Violent Deeds:

• Winning or enlarging sympathy among “their” public
• Winning new recruits for terrorist organization
• Demoralizing targeted sectors of the public
• Demonstrating the vulnerability of authorities
• Polarizing the political situation.

Media- a weapon of mass communication:  

The media have become a weapon of mass communication in political conflicts and even more so in armed conflicts.  Josef Goebbels noted in 1942 that:

Each side in a conflict wishes to give a certain media “spin” to events, so that they are interpreted favorably for one side or another. However, terrorists go beyond what generals of conventional armies and guerrilla leaders do.

Terrorists prioritize psychological impact over physical violence, convinced that terror’s power depends entirely on media representation. As David Witzhum, director of Israeli Television, noted: ‘Without media coverage, terror loses its meaning and effectiveness as a weapon. Terrorists try to influence not only the size of the media coverage but also its spin and direction by clever timing and symbolic targeting.

Additionally, the effectiveness of a terrorist act is determined by a number of factors, including the degree of publicity obtained, the degree to which demands are met by the adversary, the degree of support generated from the terrorist’s existing or envisaged constituency, the amount of disruption and damage inflicted, and last but not least, the amount of panic and terror created in the target group.

ISIS – Weaponizing Social Media for Global Impact

The effective use of media has been considered a crucial player in IS propaganda since Zarqawi time. In this regard it seems significant to point out that before Zarqawi, bin Laden believed that ninety percent of the preparation for war was the effective use of the media. As Zhawiri  has put it,

“More than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.”

At the same time, this terrorist group has become one of the most important phenomena in digital public communication since the beginning of the century.

In fact, the analysis of the digital audiovisual campaigns released by ISIS since January 2014 suggests that ISIS has established a new kind of terrorism, using marketing and digital communication tools not only for “socializing terror” through public opinion as previous terrorist groups did, but also for making terror popular, desirable, and imitable.

It is perfectly understandable that United Nations has expressed its “grave concern at the increase of foreign fighters joining the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant/Sham”.

According to UN estimates, over 25,000 foreign citizens from more than 100 countries have joined ISIS and other branches.

ISIS is following an unprecedented and sophisticated audiovisual strategy, consisting of the massive elaboration and distribution of audiovisual images that are highly salient and resonant in the culture of their targeted audiences.

Furthermore, ISIS’s audiovisual campaigning is massive in scale. According to the data I have analyzed, the terrorist group released 845 audiovisual campaigns between January 2014 and September 16, 2015, or more than one every day for a year and a half.

According to Brooking Institution research, ISIS supporters control more than 46,000 Twitter accounts, through which they release their messages directly to the smartphones of their audiences, avoiding the mediation of gatekeepers in traditional media.

Conclusion:

The interplay between psychological warfare, terrorist organizations, and social media presents a complex and ever-evolving challenge. Addressing this threat requires a multi-pronged approach: countering disinformation, promoting media literacy, fostering community resilience, and developing effective de-radicalization strategies. Understanding the psychological tactics employed by these groups and their online modus operandi is crucial for dismantling their narratives and mitigating their impact.

Ultimately, safeguarding the digital commons from manipulation and abuse demands collective action from governments, tech companies, communities, and individuals all united in the fight against online extremism and its psychological warfare tactics.

References:

• Alex Schmid. (n.d.). Terrorism as Psychological  Warfare. Terrorism Prevention Branch, UNODC, Vienna, Austria, Democracy and Security, 1:137–146, 2005(ISSN: 1741-9166 print/1555-5860 online). https://doi.org/10.1080/17419160500322467
• Yeung, J. C. (2015). ISIS propaganda and social media strategies. Salford. https://www.academia.edu/13555570/ISIS_Propaganda_and_Social_Media_Strategies
• On social media, ISIS uses modern cultural images to spread anti-modern values | Brookings. (2016, July 29). Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/on-social-media-isis-uses-modern-cultural-images-to-spread-anti-modern-values/
• Ghofaili, F. (2016). ISIS Propaganda: A Sophisticated Policy to Achieve Publicity and enhance Recruitment. academia.edu. https://www.academia.edu/23501402/ISIS_Propaganda_A_Sophisticated_Policy_to_Achieve_Publicity_and_enhance_Recruitment