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“Brother, Who Still Believes the Newspaper?”

Media as Enemy and Point of Reference in the Communication of Islamist Online Actors

Violence Prevention Network Publication Series – Issue 12
2. expanded and updated edition

By Niklas Brinkmöller, Benedikt Büchsenschütz and Margareta Wetchy

This issue was first published in the summer of 2023, before the events on 7th October and the resulting escalation of the Middle East conflict, which brought suffering to many civilians in the region. In addition to its massive impact on global politics and society as a whole, these events also continue to influence actors in the sphere of Islamist extremism and their relationship with (mass) media. To that extent, the expanded new edition of the article provides updates to the overall societal situation in Germany and references by Islamist accounts, which appear to make sense based on the developments in recent months.
The watershed moment caused by 7 October 2023 and the ongoing violent escalation in Gaza, Israel, Lebanon and the West Bank (as of November 2024) have led to an increased prevalence of anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim narratives in both analogue and digital spaces.

Introduction

“Brother, Who Still Believes the Newspaper?” The Nasheed “Medienhetze” (Media Incitement) by singers Mo Deen and Redlion starts with that question. This sentence symbolises the positioning of many online actors1 from the sphere of Islamist extremism2 towards mass media. The nasheed goes on to say: “I don’t believe a word they say; Read the press, the media is inciting; When it comes to Islam, the crooks show up right away; So many lies that my ears bleed; We talk about peace, they talk about murder; It seems to me that lying is their sport; But I won’t keep quiet, I’ve sworn to that” (Mo Deen and Redlion 2022, min.: 0:15).

The narrative of the “fake news media” with hostile intentions can be found in the communication of various Islamist online actors. However, the media is not used exclusively as a bogeyman. A closer look reveals a more nuanced picture. An ambivalent relationship between actors from the Islamist scene and the mass media can be observed in social media. Reporting in general as well as individual headlines of articles are used as evidence to show that the media (and consequently also the majority society that consumes them) are Islamophobic.3 Differences in the type and quality of reporting, such as between the tabloid press and “quality media”, are often ignored. By contrast, individual media reports or excerpts are used as sources for their own narratives, provided they are congruent with their own position. Similarly, the reach associated with reporting or requests for interviews by (traditional) media is sometimes even desired. These observations raise the following questions:

How do actors from the sphere of Islamist extremism refer to mass media?
What framing of the media and journalists do they adopt and what role do they ascribe to them?
What linguistic and staging techniques do they use?
And can the reference be identified within the scope of their general communication strategy?

This publication is dedicated to these questions with the goal of shedding light on the communication patterns of Islamist actors in social media in relation to mass media and journalists. Understanding how communication takes place appears to be a relevant option to facilitate prevention and counselling work and to counteract the messages conveyed. In this respect, analysing the communicative means and strategies does not just serve to gain insights. Ideally, it also offers ideas and starting points for countering extremist content and narratives.4

Please download the complete Violence Prevention Network Publication Series – Issue 12 here.

  1. The protagonists of the channels that appear in the analysed examples are all male. Therefore, the term “protagonist” is not gender-specific here. For the role of female actors on social media, see: Violence Prevention Network Publication Series (No 11/2023) “The invisible sisters: female actors on TikTok and Instagram in the context of extremism, Salafism, Islamism and activism” (https://violence-prevention-network.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Violence-Prevention-Network-Schriftenreihe-Heft-11-EN-2.0_web.pdf) by Margareta Wetchy and Meike Krämer. ↩︎
  2. The selection of accounts and sample posts discussed in this publication series is limited to German-language accounts and based on impressions from social media monitoring KN:IX plus (https://kn-ix.de/knixplus/) in which the three authors are involved. With the exception of Mo Deen and Redlion, all of the accounts and actors discussed (Abul Baraa, Botschaft des Islam, Generation Islam, Hassan Dabbagh, Muslim Interaktiv, Pierre Vogel and Realität Islam) are currently considered to be relevant to the field. ↩︎
  3. The relevance and various facets of anti-Muslim sentiment in Germany, including in media coverage, are highlighted in the report by the Independent Expert Group on Islamophobia (Unabhängiger Expertenkreis Muslimfeindlichkeit, or UEM) entitled “Muslimfeindlichkeit – Eine deutsche Bilanz” [Islamophobia – The Current State in Germany] (2023). https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/kurzmeldungen/DE/2023/06/dik-uem.html ↩︎
  4. As exemplified by Dr Götz Nordbruch, recognising and addressing structural discrimination is an important part of approaching prevention work: https://www.ufuq.de/aktuelles/woke-islamist/. In this respect, addressing islamophobia in society and the media as well as awareness of its instrumentalisation by Islamist actors appears to be paramount to being able to respond appropriately. ↩︎