ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes four children’s educational mobile apps used by ISIS (Letters [in two parts], Night and Day Supplications, and Alphabet Teacher). Using the Walkthrough method, which discusses the different features of each app, the author provides a detailed description and contextualization of these apps, supported by screenshots, external sources, and other school textbooks produced by ISIS propaganda machine. The author argues that the terrorist group aimed at providing well-designed and executed apps that not only offer important language- and religious-learning potentials, but also aim at convincing children to believe in militant jihad, to hate non-Muslims, and other beliefs that ISIS held. This study fills a major gap in the research, as there are no previous empirical studies that focused on these educational apps and their jihadist objectives. Theoretically, the chapter is situated within the discussion on nation-state building because these standardized educational apps are meant to project a unified image of a terrorist group that claims to be a state.
