Audiovisual Narrative, Ontology and Terrorism: Communicative Paradoxes in the Islamic State Videos

Abstract

This article analyzes the processes of significance and overall impact of audiovisual material generated by the self-proclaimed Islamic State. It is undoubtedly an object of contemporary and first-order study, insofar as a large part of the geopolitical crisis in the Near East, as well as the migration flows to Europe, now hang from the warlike actions of the terrorist forces that emerged from the so-called Arab Spring. Our starting hypothesis is that the communication technique of the Islamic State is not just a wild evolution of the communicative processes themselves in post-modern societies, but it is profoundly paradoxical and inconsistent as far as its meaning processes are concerned. To analyze this material, we will use a hybrid composite methodology, first through a political ontology, where the relations between spectacle, atrocity, terrorism and political control are traced, including references to the existence of the obscenity law as an ideological basis for generating messages. Then, we will briefly review some of the audiovisual narrative resources that generate meaning in these pieces.