Packaging Inspiration: Al Qaeda's Digital Magazine Inspire in the Self-Radicalization Process
Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: Al Qaeda is today a fragmented organization, and its strategic communication efforts now focus largely on recruiting individuals in the West to carry out “individual jihad” in their home countries. One Al Qaeda–affiliated publication, Inspire, represents an unusual use of the digital magazine format and content for recruitment. This study examines the content and design of Inspire to determine how the magazine may advance the self-radicalization that it seeks to induce in its readers. This analysis finds that the magazine weaves together jihadist ideology, a narrow interpretation of Islam, and appropriations of Western popular culture to maximize the publication’s potential for motivating readers toward violence.
Author: Susan Currie Sivek
Institution: Linfield College
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2106504398