| Mustafa, Balsam 2022. Executions videos: Evolving genre, coherent narratives. Islamic State in Translation: Four Atrocities, Multiple Narratives, Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 107-130. (10.5040/9781350152014.ch-004) |
Abstract
Execution videos were a turning point in ‘IS’s’ portrayal of its atrocities. Heavily relying on moving visuals as a tool for establishing political authority and bolstering its narratives, the group had released a series of execution videos since August 2014 and up to early 2018. While the majority of the videos were shot in Syria or Iraq, a few others were filmed elsewhere, including Libya. Therefore, unlike the previous two cases, which started as fragments of a narrative, execution videos were built around well-structured narratives that ‘IS’ aimed to control. Such narratives were mainly shaped using visual significations highly loaded with several possible interpretations. I argue that this was due to the evolving genre of execution videos which allowed ‘IS’ to consolidate its narratives. Execution videos share similar motives, functions and structure. The first execution video released through the internet dates back to 2001 when al-Qaeda disseminated its beheading of a US citizen. With ‘IS’ releasing its first beheading video, it was therefore continuing an old practice and transforming it to new levels of global publicity thanks to the sophisticated technologies of media and visual communications. Although western media censored the videos following decisions by political authorities, they still reached a wider audience as they were shared, copied and redistributed through the internet....
| Item Type: | Book Section |
|---|---|
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Modern Languages |
| Publisher: | Bloomsbury Academic |
| ISBN: | 9781350152014 |
| Last Modified: | 24 Jul 2025 15:30 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/179998 |
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