Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication Releases CARGC Briefs Volume I
The essays include some of the most innovative approaches to understanding Islamic State communication to date.
The Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication is proud to present CARGC Briefs Volume I: ISIS Media. The essays that comprise this volume began their lives as presentations at a small, by-invitation workshop, “Emerging Work on Communicative Dimensions of Islamic State,” held on May 3-4, 2017 at CARGC world headquarters in Philadelphia, and were originally published online in conjunction with global-e (UC Santa Barbara).
Under the impetus of CARGC Director Marwan M. Kraidy’s 2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, “The War Machine in the Age of Global Communication,” CARGC established a research group, Jihadi Networks of Communication and CultureS (JINCS), consisting of Ph.D. students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty from the Annenberg School for Communication, the University of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. JINCS was established as a space that would spark and nurture original scholarly contributions that grasp the communicative activities of Islamic State and other radical groups from a broad multi-disciplinary perspective, encompassing the humanities and social sciences.
Consistent with CARGC’s mission to mentor early-career scholars, the workshop was a non-public event featuring graduate students, some affiliated with JINCS and CARGC and others from around the United States and the world, in addition to postdocs and faculty members. Parameters were purposefully broad to encourage independent thought and intellectual exploration: contributors were asked to write short essays focusing on any single aspect of Islamic State that was part of their research.
The result is a group of fascinating essays. Using mostly primary sources (textual, visual, or audio-visual), examining several media platforms and modalities, considering multiple levels of theoretical deployment and construction, and shedding light on various aspects of Islamic State communication against the broad back drop of history, ideology, and geopolitics, the essays include some of the most innovative approaches to Islamic State to date, and promise a wave of fresh voices on one of the most important challenges to global order.
Download CARGC Briefs Volume I here.
Read other CARGC Press publications at ScholarlyCommons.
