Quest for Immortality: An Analysis of ISIS’s Dabiq

Abstract

The digital communication strategy of terrorist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is an essential tool in recruiting new followers and for fomenting individual acts of violent extremism. Scholars have sought to understand how and why these publications prompt individuals to join such groups. This study explored this phenomenon using terror management theory as the theoretical lens for an analysis of 15 issues of Dabiq in an effort to discern how ISIS constructs death for its readers. The findings suggest a conceptualization of immortality promised to those who die in the name of Salafi jihadism.