ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the public is confronted, indirectly or directly, with images of the sacred and the profane through the strategic diffusion, re-diffusion, and use of the transparently grotesque. It explores how the grotesques and esperpentic images conveyed by militant groups are consumed by a public that sometimes prefers the bliss of what Roy has called the "saint ignorance", where shared emotions overtake discursive knowledge that is often depicted as "secular vanity". The religious, in its duality condition of sacralization and profanation, is more than ever present in the public sphere through the transparent display of terrorism or the ludic carelessness of digital games. It is obvious that ISIS or Al-Qaeda (AQ) propaganda looks to instil fear in what they consider the enemy, either the "near enemy" or the "far enemy". Both ISIS and AQ have incorporated media, and particularly digital networks, as their sites for political action.
