ISIS outpaced US forces in online propaganda and recruitment

Evidence

The United States has focused on its military campaign against ISIS but has neglected the online media campaign, which was underfunded, unco-ordinated, and of little interest to military and security agencies (Schmitt, 2015). In contrast, ISIS has made heavy use of social media to glamorize its mission, recruit fighters, and expand its reach through affiliates in the Middle East and North Africa. It has portrayed itself as fighting against the West’s war with Islam. To counter ISIS’s growing influence, the Obama administration created the National Center for Counterterrorism. In a counternarrative, the president argued that the United States is at war with terrorists, not with Islam. Muslim scholars and Islamic leaders condemned ISIS for violating tenets of Islam and self-proclaiming a caliphate by force (Markoe, 2014). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2474

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Bandura’s euphemistic labeling and moral justification - both sides construct competing narratives of the same conflict.
• SEED: Angle: how asymmetric warfare now extends to the narrative domain, with state militaries losing information dominance to insurgent social media - a case study in moral framing as a strategic asset.