Mara Revkin, PhD candidate in Political Science at Yale University, unveils the legal structure, recruitment, and media management of the infamous yet understudied so-called Islamic State (ISIS). As part of her research, she has conducted interviews with defectors and individuals who have escaped ISIS occupied territory. She has also interacted with active members. In the podcast, Revkin explains the legal structures of ISIS and why it is appealing to followers.
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Thinking and Writing About Terrorism: Reflections on an Uncertain World
I am writing a book that will be called Confronting Terrorism. It examines the evolution of terrorism that culminates, for now, in the Islamic State’s ability to hold and “govern” substantial amounts of territory. This requires me to immerse myself in both the literature of terrorism and to view, from a distance, the nasty realities of this topic. I do not pretend to be as intimately involved as are the people who must live under terrorism’s darkest shadows every day. But I think a lot about how terrorism’s presence changes our world...
Read More »CONFERENCE REPORT | IPI World Congress: How to Cover Violent Extremism and Survive
Under the banner “Journalism at Risk: Safety and Professionalism in a Dangerous World,” the 2016 World Congress of the International Press Institute (IPI) convened in Doha, Qatar in March to tackle the dangers of covering terrorism and other forms of political violence.
Read More »Threat of the Downtrodden: The Framing of Arab Refugees on CNN
After September 11, 2001 Arabs and Muslims became the topic of interest for the global media, drawing attention from news outlets worldwide. Recently, the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) along with civil wars in the Arab region have forced hundreds of thousands of Arab citizens, particularly from Syria and Iraq, to flee their homelands. The resulting refugee crisis drew substantial attention and debate. Therefore, studying the framing of Arab refugees and asylum seekers in the global media is of notable significance, especially in connection to ISIS, the war on terrorism, and the upheaval in the Middle East.
Read More »Obsessing over Jihadi Otherness: Radicalism’s Evolution and the Failure of the Post-Colonial Arab State
The rise of the Islamic State group (which will be referred to as ISIS), from the perspective of those in the Middle East drawn to it, rather than Europe where the French scholar Olivier Roy has proposed the idea of the “Islamization of radicalism,” can be discussed within the framework of a number of deeper phenomena in Arab societies since the mid-twentieth century.
Read More »BOOK REVIEW | Visual Propaganda and Extremism in the Online Environment
Ronnie Close, an academic and assistant professor at the American University in Cairo, welcomes the volume into the discourse on visual content. He contextualizes the scholarly work by providing information on related fields, and he assesses the compilation's overall cohesion.
Read More »Tech, Time, and Jihad
On December 28th, 2015, when the Iraqi army felt confident enough of the military situation around Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, it invited the world’s media to witness the raising of the national flag atop a central administration building. For the Iraqi government, the ejection of ISIS jihadists from …
Read More »Arab Media: From Decolonization to Arab Spring
Arab media has been a powerful tool in the hands of Arab states since the decolonization period. The Nasser regime used radio, television and print media to mobilize support for Egypt’s Non-Aligned and Pan-Arab foreign policy, and apply methods of mass media propaganda developed in Europe, establishing a model for …
Read More »PODCAST | Media Ethics & Migration: From Beirut to American Bombast
Veteran journalist Magda Abu-Fadil speaks with us about how the migration crisis has been covered in Lebanese media and beyond, and issues of media ethics in the Arab world. Magda Abu-Fadil brings years of experience as a foreign correspondent and editor with international news organizations such as Agence France-Presse and United Press International. She is director of Media Unlimited.
Read More »PODCAST | The Interrogation of Photojournalist Kim Badawi
Last week photojournalist Kim Badawi was detained and interrogated for over ten hours at Miami International Airport. Badawi, a French-born American citizen of Egyptian and Slovenian ancestry was apparently flagged for his time working as a journalist throughout the Arab world. He is now based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where he works as a correspondent for Le Monde.
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