Towards a new Web genre: Islamist Neorealism

Abstract

The connection between online Islamist visual culture and the so-called War on Terror represents a new chapter in the circular history of aesthetic creation and violent conflict. Like the non-state terrorist networks they spawn, Islamists' media manifestations often seem frustratingly ephemeral, ad hoc and without manifestos. Problematically, they fail to fit into pre-existing aesthetic/generic paradigms familiar to media scholars an untenable situation, given the gravity of the movement. Moreover, issues surrounding cross-cultural media analysis and confusion over where religio-political websites fit into previous research regarding the Web and politics demand careful consideration. Adopting a genre studies perspective, I composed this paper as an initial, provisional step and as a corrective to this deficiency. Twelve representative Islamist websites were interrogated on the basis of narrative, characterization, theme, setting, iconography, filmic technique, mood/tone and subject matter. These entities' commonalities merit their classification into a distinct Web genre, Islamist Neorealism (IN). IN websites seek to normalize Islamist political and spiritual messages of resistance through the intriguing adoption of a hybridized narrative format. Additionally, the IN genre is capable both of strategically managing information in contemporary global society and producing a phenomenon I term infospiritualism (the inducement of heightened spiritual awareness and exhortation to moral purification through the provision, cultivation and reflection upon information).