Blood and ink: the relationship between Islamic State propaganda and Western media

Abstract

This study examines Western media’s unwitting complicity in spreading Islamic State (IS) propaganda using the November 2015 Paris attacks as a case study. While numerous studies have examined IS propaganda material, less attention has been devoted to the Western media’s role in disseminating the group’s key narratives, crucial to its ability to recruit new members, intimidate opponents, and promote its legitimacy as an Islamic ‘state’. We group IS’ key messages under two broader narratives: 1) ‘formidable foe’, which characterises IS as a brutal and indomitable force; and 2) ‘clash of civilisations’, which sees the West is waging a war against Islam and Muslims. A content analysis was conducted on news coverage of the Paris attacks across four newspapers: New York Times, The Times, Daily Mail, and Le Figaro. Our findings suggest these news sources replicated IS’ propaganda directly and indirectly to varying degrees. Alarmist and sensationalist reporting as well as saturation coverage fed the ‘formidable foe’ narrative, while the media’s conflation of Islam and Islamism, Muslims and terrorists, reinforced the ‘clash of civilisations’ narrative.