ISIS’s hybrid identity: a triangulated analysis of the Dabiq narrative

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper analyses the means, degree, and strategic significance of the Islamic State’s (ISIS) self-representation simultaneously as a state-like entity and a terrorist organisation. We explore how ISIS strategically used the content of its propagandist magazine Dabiq to spin its dual – or hybrid – identity, with the aim of broadening its propagandist reach. ISIS’s discursive crossfading between an aspiring, state-like territorial actor and a networked, terrorist group was the central part of its ability to mesmerise multiple audiences simultaneously. The hybrid self-representation is first contextualised vis-à-vis existing academic analyses of ISIS’s magazine Dabiq and its depiction of ISIS. Then we discuss our original thematic analysis of ISIS’s narrative features and dynamics across all existing Dabiq issues. Through abduction, we identified six themes: three presenting ISIS as a state and three as a terrorist organisation. Subsequent triangulation of these themes offers a novel contribution to the academic literature and allows us to show how ISIS attempted to maintain a state-like image to increase its radicalisation potential.