Event Title
Deadly Cyber Geography, Jihad goes Social: ISIS and Media (Panel A)
Location
Room 407, South Hall
Start Date
30-9-2016 10:15 AM
End Date
30-9-2016 11:45 AM
Description
I use the Scalar platform to trace how ISIS creates deadly geographies around the world through its “terror talks.” This project will analyze how these deadly spaces are created—cyber space/geography through social media, such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter (the processes of blogging, hacking, tweeting etc.) It is interesting and at the same time emotionally challenging to trace the history of ISIS’s deadly violent propaganda, and how it terrorize the cyber space and create deadly geographies within it. And it uses a media strategy as aggressive as its military tactics to extend its influence around the world and adopts the most violent tactics for propaganda such as beheadings. It is surprising that online jihadists adapted very fast to the migration from internet chat forums to social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. ISIS is also strategically very successful in creating its own secluded extremist forums, hierarchies and trusted inner circles. I draw on Michael Taussig’s theory to gain a scholastic understanding of my project. To use Taussig’s words from “Terror as Usual,” there are “terror talks” circulating about the dangers of the deadliness of ISIS. Thus my paper looks forward to promote a scholarly conversation about how these kinds of violent religious, inter-racial, inter-ethnic, sectarian spatial interactions, can become fatal and problematic in a multicultural world. As a Digital Humanities scholar working towards the goal of common good through collaborative knowledge sharing, through this project I also aim at creating an awareness about the precarious deadly cyber space or even you can call it, “the maze of terrorism” in which people from across the world are lured into and trapped in.
Deadly Cyber Geography, Jihad goes Social: ISIS and Media (Panel A)
Room 407, South Hall
I use the Scalar platform to trace how ISIS creates deadly geographies around the world through its “terror talks.” This project will analyze how these deadly spaces are created—cyber space/geography through social media, such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter (the processes of blogging, hacking, tweeting etc.) It is interesting and at the same time emotionally challenging to trace the history of ISIS’s deadly violent propaganda, and how it terrorize the cyber space and create deadly geographies within it. And it uses a media strategy as aggressive as its military tactics to extend its influence around the world and adopts the most violent tactics for propaganda such as beheadings. It is surprising that online jihadists adapted very fast to the migration from internet chat forums to social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. ISIS is also strategically very successful in creating its own secluded extremist forums, hierarchies and trusted inner circles. I draw on Michael Taussig’s theory to gain a scholastic understanding of my project. To use Taussig’s words from “Terror as Usual,” there are “terror talks” circulating about the dangers of the deadliness of ISIS. Thus my paper looks forward to promote a scholarly conversation about how these kinds of violent religious, inter-racial, inter-ethnic, sectarian spatial interactions, can become fatal and problematic in a multicultural world. As a Digital Humanities scholar working towards the goal of common good through collaborative knowledge sharing, through this project I also aim at creating an awareness about the precarious deadly cyber space or even you can call it, “the maze of terrorism” in which people from across the world are lured into and trapped in.