ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to compare Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) execution videos to those produced earlier in the century by Al-Qaeda (AQ) and its affiliates, notably AQ in Iraq (AQI), to illustrate key differences that the literature suggests might make ISIS videos more persuasive with a wider array of persuadable audiences. Social messaging apps that traffic in a kind of virtual interpersonal communication and creation of terrorist opinion leaders within those networks have been shown to be dangerously effective and hard to counter, especially in Europe. ISIS videos’ utilization of pop culture formats allows them to cast a wider net than AQ’s violent videos because they create more emotional distance between the audience and the violence, and may have stronger, more enduring effects because they prime preexisting efficacy-reinforcing mental models and induce cognitive elaboration.
