The Thematic and Aesthetic Qualities of ISIS media production

This paper is set out to investigate the thematic and aesthetic qualities and the production process of ISIS film productions and to explore several issues arising from ISIS new trend in image production in areas of conflict. Scripted, rehearsed, performed and staged, these images can be read as “sociograms” where the director, cinematographer, subject/victim and apparatus collide to produce a Durkheimian “collective representation”.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Afif J. Arabi

Conference

Publication date: June 2019

Publication date (Print): June 2019

Pages: 1-8

Affiliations

[0001]Lebanese International University

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/POM19.1

SO-VID: 554b7b6a-8de3-4bb6-a1e6-0e34d4f7bb96

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Politics of the Machine Beirut 2019

Conference acronym: POM2019

Conference number: 2

Conference location: Beirut, Lebanon

Conference date: 11-14 June 2019

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Politics of the Machine

History

Product

1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/POM19.1

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

Al-Arabiyya TV Special Report 2017 Interview with Abu Mus’ab al-Urduni. Al-Arabiya TV Available at: https://www.alarabiya.net/ar/arab-and-world/2017/02/11 5 Apr 2019
M. BattaniM. Mankel 2017 Terrorist Aesthetics as Ideal Types: from Spectacle to ‘Vicious Lottery’ Contemporary Aesthetics 15 1
A. Berleant 2009 Art, Terrorism and the Negative Sublime Contemporary Aesthetics 7 1 14
T. Botz-Bornstein 2017 The “futurist” aesthetics of ISIS Journal of Aesthetics & Culture 9 1 1 13
R. Bresson 1977 Notes on cinematography United States
Judith Butler 2009 Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? London Verso
C. C. ByunE. J. Hollander 2015 Explaining the Intensity of the Arab Spring Digest of Middle East Studies 24 1 26 46
A. Chaplin 2005 Art and Embodiment: Biological and Phenomenological Contributions to Understanding Beauty and the Aesthetic Contemporary Aesthetics 3 1 21
R. Eubin 2017 Spectacles of Sovereignty in Digital Time: ISIS Executions, Visual Rhetoric and Sovereign Power Perspectives on Politics 15 4 1007 1033
J. Fleishman 2015 Islamic State and its increasingly sophisticated cinema of terror Los Angeles Times 26 February Available at: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-ca-isis-video-horror-20150301-story.html (Accessed 19 May 2019
M. Foucault 1990 The history of sexuality: An introduction I Translated by R. Hurley New York Vintage
S. M. Friis 2015 Beyond anything we have ever seen: beheading videos and the visibility of violence in the war against ISIS International Affairs 91 4 725 746
H. Giroux 2014 ISIS and the spectacle of terrorism: Resisting mainstream workstations of fear Philosophers for Change Available at: https://philosophersforchange.org/2014/10/07 (Accessed: 19 May 2019
L. Goldsmith 2019 The Body is a Fact Senses of Cinema 90 Available at: http://sensesofcinema.com/2019/valerie-massadian/the-body-is-a-fact (Accessed: 15 May 2019
A. S. Hashim 2014 The Islamic State: From al-Qaeda Affiliate to Caliphate Middle East Policy XXI 4 69 83
HattonT. ArthurM. E. Nielsen 2016 ’War on Terror’ in our backyard: effects of framing and violent ISIS propaganda on anti-Muslim prejudice Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 8 3 163 176
J. Juris 2005 Violence Performed and Imagined Critique of Anthropology 25 4 413 432
P. W. Khan 2009 Torture and Democratic Violence Ratio Juris 22 2 244 259
H. Kozlowska 2014 Should we be seeing gruesome acts and if so where? New York Times 25 August Available at: http://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/25 (Accessed: 15 May 2019
M. Kraidy 2017 This is why the Islamic State shocks the world with its graphically violent imagery The Washington Post 9 February Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/05/19/ (Accessed: 19 May 2019
S. Malterre 2014 ISIS jihadists put out Hollywood-style propaganda film Observers.france24. com 13 June Available at: https://observers.france24.com/en/20140613 (Accessed: 19 May 2019
J. Roberts 2014 Rethinking the Sublime: Is There an Aesthetics of Terrorism? Note by Fogarasi György Americana: E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary 10 1 Available at: http://americanaejournal.hu/vol10no1/roberts (Accessed: 15 May 2019
M. Roelofs 2014 The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic London Bloomsbury
M. Sienkiewicz 2018 Arguing with ISIS: web 2.0, open source journalism, and narrative disruption Critical Studies in Media Communication 35 1 122 135
R. Sinnerbrink 2016 Cinempathy: Phenomenology, Cognitivism, and Moving Images Contemporary Aesthetics 8 1 14
P. Smith 1999 The Elementary Forms of Place and Their Transformations: A Durkheimian Model Qualitative Sociology 22 1 13 36
E. Stakelbeck 2015 ISIS Exposed: Beheadings, Slavery, and the Hellish Reality of Radical Islam Washington, DC Regency Publishing
G. Thompson 2017 Parallels in propaganda? A comparative historical analysis of Islamic State and the Nazi Party Journal of Public Relations Research 29 1 51 66
C. Winter 2017 Apocalypse, later: a longitudinal study of the Islamic State brand Critical Studies in Media Communication 35 1 103 121

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Al-Arabiyya TV Special Report 2017 Interview with Abu Mus’ab al-Urduni. Al-Arabiya TV Available at: https://www.alarabiya.net/ar/arab-and-world/2017/02/11 5 Apr 2019

[2] M. BattaniM. Mankel 2017 Terrorist Aesthetics as Ideal Types: from Spectacle to ‘Vicious Lottery’ Contemporary Aesthetics 15 1

[3] A. Berleant 2009 Art, Terrorism and the Negative Sublime Contemporary Aesthetics 7 1 14

[4] T. Botz-Bornstein 2017 The “futurist” aesthetics of ISIS Journal of Aesthetics & Culture 9 1 1 13

[5] R. Bresson 1977 Notes on cinematography United States

[6] Judith Butler 2009 Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? London Verso

[7] C. C. ByunE. J. Hollander 2015 Explaining the Intensity of the Arab Spring Digest of Middle East Studies 24 1 26 46

[8] A. Chaplin 2005 Art and Embodiment: Biological and Phenomenological Contributions to Understanding Beauty and the Aesthetic Contemporary Aesthetics 3 1 21

[9] R. Eubin 2017 Spectacles of Sovereignty in Digital Time: ISIS Executions, Visual Rhetoric and Sovereign Power Perspectives on Politics 15 4 1007 1033

[10] J. Fleishman 2015 Islamic State and its increasingly sophisticated cinema of terror Los Angeles Times 26 February Available at: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-ca-isis-video-horror-20150301-story.html (Accessed 19 May 2019

[11] M. Foucault 1990 The history of sexuality: An introduction I Translated by R. Hurley New York Vintage

[12] S. M. Friis 2015 Beyond anything we have ever seen: beheading videos and the visibility of violence in the war against ISIS International Affairs 91 4 725 746

[13] H. Giroux 2014 ISIS and the spectacle of terrorism: Resisting mainstream workstations of fear Philosophers for Change Available at: https://philosophersforchange.org/2014/10/07 (Accessed: 19 May 2019

[14] L. Goldsmith 2019 The Body is a Fact Senses of Cinema 90 Available at: http://sensesofcinema.com/2019/valerie-massadian/the-body-is-a-fact (Accessed: 15 May 2019

[15] A. S. Hashim 2014 The Islamic State: From al-Qaeda Affiliate to Caliphate Middle East Policy XXI 4 69 83

[16] HattonT. ArthurM. E. Nielsen 2016 ’War on Terror’ in our backyard: effects of framing and violent ISIS propaganda on anti-Muslim prejudice Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 8 3 163 176

[17] J. Juris 2005 Violence Performed and Imagined Critique of Anthropology 25 4 413 432

[18] P. W. Khan 2009 Torture and Democratic Violence Ratio Juris 22 2 244 259

[19] H. Kozlowska 2014 Should we be seeing gruesome acts and if so where? New York Times 25 August Available at: http://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/25 (Accessed: 15 May 2019

[20] M. Kraidy 2017 This is why the Islamic State shocks the world with its graphically violent imagery The Washington Post 9 February Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/05/19/ (Accessed: 19 May 2019

[21] S. Malterre 2014 ISIS jihadists put out Hollywood-style propaganda film Observers.france24. com 13 June Available at: https://observers.france24.com/en/20140613 (Accessed: 19 May 2019

[22] J. Roberts 2014 Rethinking the Sublime: Is There an Aesthetics of Terrorism? Note by Fogarasi György Americana: E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary 10 1 Available at: http://americanaejournal.hu/vol10no1/roberts (Accessed: 15 May 2019

[23] M. Roelofs 2014 The Cultural Promise of the Aesthetic London Bloomsbury

[24] M. Sienkiewicz 2018 Arguing with ISIS: web 2.0, open source journalism, and narrative disruption Critical Studies in Media Communication 35 1 122 135

[25] R. Sinnerbrink 2016 Cinempathy: Phenomenology, Cognitivism, and Moving Images Contemporary Aesthetics 8 1 14

[26] P. Smith 1999 The Elementary Forms of Place and Their Transformations: A Durkheimian Model Qualitative Sociology 22 1 13 36

[27] E. Stakelbeck 2015 ISIS Exposed: Beheadings, Slavery, and the Hellish Reality of Radical Islam Washington, DC Regency Publishing

[28] G. Thompson 2017 Parallels in propaganda? A comparative historical analysis of Islamic State and the Nazi Party Journal of Public Relations Research 29 1 51 66

[29] C. Winter 2017 Apocalypse, later: a longitudinal study of the Islamic State brand Critical Studies in Media Communication 35 1 103 121

Celebrating 65 years of The Computer Journal - free-to-read perspectives - bcs.org/tcj65