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An Aberration in Political Marketing: Al Qaeda Messaging Evolution and
Positioning, 1999-2008
Introduction
The most defining moment of the 2000-2010 decade was the horrific bombing of the world
trade centre and the Pentagon by Al Qaeda (AQ) in September 2001 killing around 2,752
people (Dunlap, 2009). The act, notable for its enormous destructive power, was specifically
designed by AQ leadership to be an examplar of propaganda of the deed (Bolt, 2011) – an act
which ‘speaks for itself’. Bin Laden’s death 10 years later in May 2011 at the hands of a
SEAL special forces team was equally symbolic in the sense that the US President and his
team were televised watching the live military operation and because Bin Laden was
reportedly secretly buried at sea in a bid to end his hero-worship by AQ sympathisers (see
Burleigh, 2011). An understanding of the power and potential of propaganda is required now
more than ever. A RAND Corporation study in 2007 (Helmus, Paul & Glenn, 2007)
illustrates the direct application of marketing in the military and counter-terrorism setting in
the subtitling of its study: The Marketing Approach To Earning Popular Support in Theatres
of Operation. Nevertheless, the notion of liberal democracy being in an ideological struggle
under attack from enemy propaganda is not new. Edward Bernays, the father of public
relations, wrote a far-sighted article on how America should use marketing and public
relations techniques to position the ideology of US democracy against Fascism and Nazism
(Bernays, 1942).
Over the last decade we have witnessed terrorist bombings and terrorist spree killings
globally (e.g. New York, Madrid, Bali, London, Mumbai, Islamabad) often later
accompanied by, and frequently preceded by, the use of propaganda, designed specifically to
enhance the feeling of terror in target audiences and to recruit new supporters to their cause.
In the latter case, the AQ ‘product’ is that supporters should undertake martyrdom operations
(kill themselves and others in suicide bombings) in return for a feeling of Muslim piety and
heavenly reward. Most governments, including those in the Middle East, are extremely
concerned that propaganda, particularly from radical Islamist groups, has an important role in
the radicalization of their own Muslim populations. Radical Islamist groups, particularly AQ
and its various regional franchises (Islamic Maghreb, Arabian Peninsula, Iraq) seek to recruit
supporters by developing and projecting the idea of a battle of civilizations and value
systems. In this article, we seek to provide a rich descriptive propaganda analysis of AQ
messaging. Our purpose is to illustrate how propaganda techniques have been used to
position AQ over the years between 1999 and 2008 and the messaging content and style
associated with that positioning strategy. This article therefore seeks to define a new subgenre of political marketing research, namely, the study of the marketing/propaganda of
terrorist groups.
Propaganda has a strong role to play in radicalization given its traditional urge to violence
and dissent. At its most effective, it can bring about profound attitudinal shift in target
populations (cf. German public opinion against Jews after the rise of Hitler). Yet, such
attitude changes typically go unnoticed by the subjects themselves. In other words, they are
often unaware of the depth of their shift in attitudes, and if they are, they regard their original
attitudes as somehow wrong. The term propaganda was originally coined by the Catholic
Church, ‘to propagate the faith’, to encompass a set of activities designed to counter the
Protestant Reformation (Jowett and O’Donnell, 2012:2). Propaganda is particularly important
to study today because, despite its use over millennia, it is still poorly defined and
understood. Various (different) definitions exist. The principle aims of propaganda are: “To
provoke action … to make the individual cling irrationally to a process of action. It is no
longer to lead to a choice, but to loosen the reflexes … to arouse an active and mythical
belief” (Ellul, 1965: 25). A more recent definition also stresses the manipulative intent behind
propaganda: regarding propaganda as “the deliberate and systematic attempt to shape
perceptions, manipulate cognitions and direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers
the desired intent of the propagandist” (Jowett and O’Donnell, 1992:4).
Positioning the AQ Brand: What’s In It For Would-be Jihadists?
According to Kimmage (2008), most Jihadist material connecting AQ and associated
movements to their audiences is provided through three media entities: al-Fajr Media Centre,
the Global Islamic Media Front and as-Sahab Institute for Media Production; the latter being
the principal and most prolific AQ media production house. The three organisations show a
clear understanding of branding, and its application in their communications (Magnet, 2001).
Up until the end of our period of study (i.e. January 2008), there was public recognition that
the West had been failing to provide an effective response to extremist propaganda (Dombey,
2008). George W. Bush’s coining of the military operation to capture Bin Laden and the
Taliban leader, Mullah Omar a 'crusade' in a press conference constituted a propaganda owngoal (Taylor, 2003: 316), playing clearly into AQ’s desired positioning (of West against
East). Part of the problem was that it was only really after 2008 that the West recognised it
was fighting an ideological, as well as a kinetic battle against AQ. This was at least partly
because US public diplomacy activity was downgraded after the Reagan Administration
(Taylor, 2003), and partly because recent efforts at using marketing techniques for public
diplomacy purposes were seen (perhaps erroneously) to have had disastrous results. The
former US under-secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Charlotte Beers – previously a
senior Coca-Cola executive – was forced to resign after a major State Department campaign
to improve public perceptions of the US in Muslim countries backfired (Kendrick &
Fullerton, 2004).
The question arises: why have AQ devoted so much time and energy to their positioning
campaign and how has it helped their effort? (Tatham, 2008). According to Richardson
(2006), terrorists want revenge, renown and reaction. Therefore, to answer Tatham’s question
directly of why AQ have focused so much on the use of media, a plausible answer might be
that it provides the rationale for revenge, builds renown through interpersonal and mass
media networks, and creates an impetus for action. In the latter case, this could either be the
Jihadist actions of supporters in taking part in suicide-bombings (and/or spree killings) or the
over-stretch of the enemy (viz. NATO and individual country members) in restricting the
liberties of their own citizens or in changing their foreign policies. A good example of the
attempt to generate reaction was the Madrid bombings: the Spanish prosecutor Olga Sanchez
outlines how the Madrid bombings were inspired by AQ propaganda, “in a speech inspired
by bin Laden in 2003 in which he threatened prompt and severe actions against the countries
that participated in the War in Iraq, including Spain and Britain” (Burke, 2007: 269). The
attack, carried out shortly before the 2004 Spanish General Election, in March 2004, led
indirectly to the defeat of the Popular Party government and the surprise election of the
Socialist Party, who consequently pledged to withdraw their armed forces from Iraq. If this
was the intention of AQ’s influence strategy, they completely achieved their objective. AQ’s
focus on the media campaign was partly because it allowed them to project a force greater
than they really possessed and to recruit foot-soldiers and financial supporters. In an
asymmetric environment like that operating between AQ and its adversaries, namely NATO
and its individual country members, the media campaign sustained their insurgency and terror
campaigns. The aim became one of persuading recruits to join the cause, then actually
recruiting them, conducting or providing the necessary training and then conducting military
operations. The message serves first to exploit or create a personal crisis, then to encourage
subjects to internalise the movement’s religious or political doctrines, and then to justify
violent action (Neumann, 2008: 43). Yet AQ’s brand of Muslim theology is a death-centred
ideology (Khosrokhavar, 2009). The question arises as to: why their warped vision is so
attractive to so many?” (Burke, 2007: 311). Part of the reason why AQ supporters might
choose to believe in such a ‘twisted worldview’ is because, according to Pyszczynski (2004:
832), “cultural worldviews manage existential terror by providing a meaningful, orderly, and
comforting concept of the world that helps us come to grips with the problem of death ...
[this] cultural worldview imposes order, meaning and permanence on existence, and selfesteem, which enables us to view ourselves as important contributors to this meaningful and
eternal reality”. According to Richardson (2006:188) religion facilitates recruitment by
providing legitimacy and rewards in the afterlife to those prepared to pay considerable costs
in this life. In other words, belonging to a special group – one with religious connotations provides the meaning of life for AQ supporters that they would otherwise not have.
Methodology
The research considered the following objectives:
1. What symbolisations, themes and messages exist in our selection of Islamist media
material?
2. How have these symbolisations, themes and messages changed over the period from
1999-2008?
The research project incorporated 7 stages as follows:
1. An initial literature review, including academic reports and articles, newspaper
stories, RAND and think-tank reports on AQ was undertaken to identify what is
known about how AQ communicates and the way this has changed over time.
2. Next, a judgmental sample of 37 audio-visual clips was selected from those available
from www.intelcenter.com and specifically those clips produced by as-Sahab Institute
for Media Production. It is important to note that the clips selected were the
unclassified clips IntelCenter makes available to public researchers rather than the
classified material made available to government researchers (and which can either
contain details of how to undertake operations, make bombs or contain graphic
images of live violence). The researchers were also granted the permission of a UK
government department to undertake this analysis.
3. To be eligible for analysis the clips had to satisfy the following criteria:
(i)
They had to be from AQ or a known AQ affiliate or make significant mention of
AQ in terms of policies, messages and/or key AQ personnel (e.g. Al Zawahiri,
Bin Laden, etc.).
(ii)
They had to have been originally distributed after August 1998, the date of the
first US military strike against AQ in Sudan and Afghanistan.
(iii) They had to have discernible propagandist production values, e.g. Islamic
polemic, incitement to violence, preaching of hatred.
(iv)
They had to be in English, Urdu or Arabic (and have English or Urdu subtitles).
(v)
The spoken content had to be clearly audible and the visual content discernible.
In order to understand the nature of evolutionary change in the design of the clips, they were
divided into 3 distinct time phases as follows:
(i)
Pre 9/11 (August 1998-August 2001)
(ii)
War Begins in Afghanistan and Iraq (September 2001- June 2006)
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
(iii) The Renaissance of AQ in Afghanistan (post July 2006)
An interpreter fluent in Urdu was used to translate Urdu only clips into English and
provide some guidance on symbolisations for those clips.
The researchers watched the pre-translated clips (with translations provided either
originally by AQ or by IntelCenter) and the clips with Urdu translations.
The interpreters viewed and reviewed the clips and completed an analysis for each of
the 37 clips.
An analysis of the spoken and visual content of the clips using the qualitative software
package, NVivo 8, was undertaken.
After integration of the spoken and written content analysis, together with the
semiotic analysis, an integrated report was produced.
Key Findings
Our analysis indicates that AQ messaging changed considerably over the time period from
1999 to 2008. Compared with the early sermon-like ‘talking head’ productions in the years
prior to 9/11, AQ media productions have gradually become more sophisticated as they have
become less fiery, and overtly prejudicial. The clips were identified to determine if any of up
to 16 forms of propaganda technique were present (see Appendix A for full details of each of
these techniques). Character assassination, appeals to prejudice, the presentation of the world
in black and white terms, the incorporation of half-truths, labelling and stereotyping were all
still dominant themes in AQ messaging up until the beginning of 2008. AQ continued to
justify their actions and seek sympathisers and activists through association with, and claimed
endorsement by, the Qur’an. Throughout the period of analysis, AQ produced/released their
messaging appeals either to commemorate specific attack events (principally but not
exclusively in Afghanistan), or with anniversaries of 9/11. In some cases, the material is
notable for its deliberate intention to influence politics (e.g. in the US, Europe, Pakistan and
in a 2008 tape not analysed for this study, Germany). However, AQ’s later messaging
material, aimed at destabilising the political situation in Pakistan, emphasised secular, rather
than just the religious, appeal. Appendix A indicates that, broadly over the period from 20012008, the clips tended to be less hysterical, i.e. namely by making less use of: constant
repetition, appeals to frighten the audience by instilling fear or anxiety, the appeal to
prejudice, use of the ‘big lie’ – the idea of the mythical global conspiracy against Islam,
intentional vagueness, labelling (calling Westerners and Jews, pigs, swine and monkeys, for
examples), stereotyping (against American, Israel and Britain in particular) and the use of
virtue words (e.g. bin Laden as the ‘Lion of Islam’, for example). Nevertheless, the use of
character assassination (e.g. attacking specific personalities), the appeal to prejudice, the
black and white fallacy (e.g. good and evil), half-truths, labelling, and stereotyping all
occurred in half of the clips in each case. The pre-9/11 tapes were substantively different in
the sense that they tended to be bin Laden sermons with consideration/citation of Sura in the
Qur’an, followed by a diatribe against America and the call for Muslims to act in Jihad,
deliberately labelling Jihad as armed struggle (as opposed to the internal peaceful struggle to
be a believer).
From an evolutionary perspective, the development of film techniques can be seen such as
use of the split screen (cf. Andy Warhol) and later the use of computer-generated video
graphics (e.g. to recreate the King’s Cross underground train explosion as it goes into a
tunnel). In general, there is an evolution from a loose rambling structure in early volumes to a
tighter more coherent structure, although there are exceptions to this even in the later tapes.
One cannot entirely generalise about what is in effect a very heterogeneous collection of
volumes which exist for different purposes and targets. There is a marked increase in the use
of the idea of talking directly to the people (i.e. the target audience) akin to the ‘talking head’
used in the political marketing genre during elections, and these AQ clips are themselves
sometimes just before elections, aimed over and above the heads of adversary leaders in an
attempt to speak directly to foreign populations: to Americans, to Pakistanis, to Europeans.
This is a very significant evolution. What we see is an overt attempt to influence the domestic
politics of the individual member countries of the NATO alliance. There is a specific rise of
the rational self-interest appeal to Europe with the message seeming to be: ‘vote your leaders
out or we will bomb you’.
Atrocity propaganda, i.e. propaganda depicting or implying evidence of atrocities, of a very
crude nature is the core of the early, 2000-2003 tapes. This element is played down
subsequently. The themes of AQ propaganda also change according to the flux in the
international scene. For example, the war in Chechnya is substituted by the Gaza conflict, and
after 2006 there is a new focus on the iniquity of the Pakistani regime and the inertia of
Hamas. Whatever the latest international crisis involving Muslims, AQ mobilised it for its
imagery, sometimes within days of the event (e.g. the release of Al Zawahiri’s tape on the
Pakistan earthquake was made the next day and released by al Jazeera after 15 days). In early
2011, AQ’s attempt to take advantage of the Arab Spring was to be much less successful.
Throughout the clips, the notion of a great conspiracy against Islam – what the authors call
‘the big lie’ – is ever present and ever in need of refreshment, though somewhat less so post2006. AQ chart their movement backward in time, despite the fact that AQ itself only
emerged in the late 1980s. The cast of villains is not however the same: the place of the
Russians has been taken by the Indians, for example, in clips aimed at destabilising Pakistan.
The role of America is always central. We evidence a slight toning down of the rhetoric
observable over the period of study: from labelling Westerners and Jews as the harshly
pejorative swine, pigs and monkeys, the Zionist-Crusader (and sometimes Hindu-ZionistCrusader) alliance, to the less vicious ‘polytheists’. Target audience analysis indicates that
AQ tapes are sometimes aimed at an internal audience (to rally ‘troop’ morale), sometimes at
external audiences (to recruit suicide bombers and sympathisers), sometimes at enemy
publics (to influence their political stance on foreign policy on Iraq/Afghanistan) and
sometimes at Western political elites (to goad, to sap morale and to force over-reaction). The
structure of AQ videos also changes over time with videos becoming significantly shorter in
length from 53 minutes on average in Phase 1 to the more watchable 32 minutes in Phase 3.
Conclusion
Between 1999 and 2008, AQ propaganda was positioned as a Jihadist message (spiritual
struggle) aimed at cementing a religious anti-Western worldview, by articulating a global
conspiracy against Islam. Their approach to propaganda has been to design it to recruit
would-be suicide bombers and financial supporters and to agitate individual countries in the
West (and potentially impact on foreign policy). Given AQ’s ability to recruit suicide
bombers and members from around the world during the period of the study, its positioning
and recruitment strategy appears to have met with some success. Through this article, the
authors provide a call to arms to (political and social) marketing researchers to undertake
further research into how effective such terrorist positioning strategies really are, why they
are as effective as they are, and importantly how they can be countered. The use of political
marketing to advance Islamist fundamentalism, or indeed fundamentalism of any sort,
illustrates just how powerful marketing/propaganda methods can be when used in the wrong
hands. Whilst we understand that there are sensitivities and ethical consideration to
undertaking research of this kind, such research would also provide a rich vein of insight into
how ideological propositions more generally might be effectively marketed (and countered).
References
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Appendix A: Propaganda Technique Presence by Proportion of Total Sample by Time
Phase
Jan.
Sept.
Jul.
Technique
Explanation
%
1998 – 2001 – 2006
Change
Aug.
Jun.
– Jan. 20012001
2006
2008
2008
N=4
N=18 N=15
Attacking a person rather than an 100% 61%
53%
Character
-8%
argument.
Assassination
Tireless repetition of an idea.
100% 72%
47%
Tireless
-25%
Repetition
Citation of prominent figures to
100% 56%
47%
Appeal To
-9%
support a position, idea, argument
Authority /
or course of action. The use of
Testimonials /
quotations to support of reject a
Quotes Out Of
given policy, programme or
Context
personality. The reputation of the
respected person or authority is
exploited as a result. Selective
editing of quotes which can
change original meanings.
47%
Appeal To Fear To build support by installation of 100% 78%
-31%
anxieties and/or panic.
Using loaded or emotive terms to 75%
78%
60%
Appeal To
-18%
attach value or moral goodness to
Prejudice
believing the proposition.
Use of ‘inevitable victory’ appeals 50%
17%
20%
Bandwagon
+ 3%
to persuade target audience.
Presentation of only two choices
50%
78%
67%
Black And
-11%
as the only choices available.
White Fallacy
The repeated articulation of one
50%
72%
47%
The Big Lie
-25%
false explanation for a complex
set of often non-related events
Use of simple populist language
25%
61%
47%
The Common
-14%
to persuade the target audience
Man Approach
The attempt to demonstrate how
50%
50%
47%
Euphoric
-3%
being part of the group generates
Appeal
euphoria and a sense of oneness.
A deceptive statement which
75%
61%
60%
Half-Truths
-1%
contains some element of truth to
camouflage false statements.
By deliberately confusing the
25%
78%
47%
Intentional
-31%
audience, there is an attempt to
Vagueness
force the audience to forgo
judgment of the ideas in order to
simply work out what is being
said.
Appendix A: Propaganda Technique Presence by Proportion of Total Sample by Time
Phase (Continued)
Technique
Explanation
Labelling
The use of euphemism to present
negative concepts as sounding
better than they are and
dysphemism to present positive
concepts as sounding worse than
they really are.
The attempt to rouse audience
prejudice over a specific social
group / country.
The projection of positive or
negative qualities of one person,
entity or object onto another
either to make the second more
acceptable or to discredit it.
Words in the value system of the
target audience intended to
produce a positive image when
attached to a person/ idea.
Stereotyping
Associative
Transfer
Virtue
Words
Jan.
1998 –
Aug.
2001
N=4
75%
Sept.
2001 –
Jun.
2006
N=18
83%
Jul.
2006 –
Jan.
2008
N=15
60%
%
Change
20012008
75%
78%
60%
-18%
50%
39%
40%
+ 1%
25%
67%
47%
-20%
-23%