Game over: Gamification in Al-Qaeda’s Magazine Inspire To address lone-wolf terrorists

With terrorist attacks still on the rise and several terrorist organizations marginalized, ‘lone wolf terrorism’ and ‘leaderless jihad’ are becoming one of the main strategies adopted by al-Qaeda. Instead of living and training physically with al-Qaeda, more and more individuals are radicalized in their own country. With an average age of 26, al-Qaeda related lone-wolf terrorists are increasingly recruited online. The accelerating use of the Internet to radicalize and mobilize youth has become crucial for al-Qaeda. Not only does al-Qaeda launch, use and engage with several Jihadist websites, forums and social media, the use of gamification to engage with aspiring jihadists and to encourage violence is one of their newest strategies. And a very savvy one as well (Brachman & Levine, 2011). Where gamification is primarily used online, al-Qaeda uses gamification language offline as well. However, little to no research has been conducted considering the use of gamification language in al...Show moreWith terrorist attacks still on the rise and several terrorist organizations marginalized, ‘lone wolf terrorism’ and ‘leaderless jihad’ are becoming one of the main strategies adopted by al-Qaeda. Instead of living and training physically with al-Qaeda, more and more individuals are radicalized in their own country. With an average age of 26, al-Qaeda related lone-wolf terrorists are increasingly recruited online. The accelerating use of the Internet to radicalize and mobilize youth has become crucial for al-Qaeda. Not only does al-Qaeda launch, use and engage with several Jihadist websites, forums and social media, the use of gamification to engage with aspiring jihadists and to encourage violence is one of their newest strategies. And a very savvy one as well (Brachman & Levine, 2011). Where gamification is primarily used online, al-Qaeda uses gamification language offline as well. However, little to no research has been conducted considering the use of gamification language in al-Qaeda’s magazine Inspire. Even though al-Qaeda’s power has been weakened ever since the death of Osama bin Laden, a recent UN report of 2019 still warns that “Al-Qaeda senior leaders are strengthening the network’s global command structure and continuing to encourage attacks against the West” (US Intelligence Community, 2019, p.12). This research examines this question using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and gamification theory. Through this multimodal approach, this thesis analyses how al-Qaeda uses power relations through gamification language in order to create social identities and radicalize and recruit lone wolf terrorists.Show less

Leiden University Student Repository

Documents

In Collections

Game over: Gamification in Al-Qaeda’s Magazine Inspire To address lone-wolf terrorists