Description
This book analyses the Islamic State窶冱 (IS) media and governance strategy from a critical media and cultural studies perspective.
It deploys Deleuze and Guattari窶冱 concept of assemblage and Foucault窶冱 theories of dispositif (dispositive, apparatus) and biopower to understand the ways in which IS governed its subjects during the tenure of its so-called 窶歪aliphate窶�. This theoretical triangulation is used to situate the group as more than just a terrorist organisation, but rather as a more amorphous force with proclivities toward governance. The analysis of globally fluid and conjunctive terrorist strategies executed through media, governance and conduct, as part of and produced by IS窶冱 dispositif, manifests in the group窶冱 epistemology, discourse and social ontology. To analyse these processes, the book deploys a dispositif analysis of official IS administrative documents, media produced by the group窶冱 English-language media wing (al-Hayat Media Center), and IS Twitter activity, including the use of nonhuman bots. In doing so, it seeks to reveal the resonance between IS窶冱 media and governmental discourses, develop dispositif theory, and to argue for more context-specific formulations of biopolitics.
This book will be of much interest to students of Critical Terrorism Studies, social theory, media theory and International Relations.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1. Mapping the Dispositif: Power, Knowledge, and Subjectivity in the Islamic State 2. Governing the IS Mediascape 3. The Machinic Entourage: Terror and the Nonhuman 4. Mediating Governance: Conduct, Space, Exchange 5. Biopolitical Configurations in the Islamic State窶冱 Administrative Apparatus Coda: Regularisation and Resilience
