The Social Influence of ISIS Beheadings
“Kill one, warn a thousand.” Chinese proverb
Terrorism works. It works in similar fashion as good advertising and marketing work. When an effective social influence campaign is well designed and executed, the audience reacts as desired. Fear is what terrorists are selling and it is their main marketing campaign for socially influencing the consumers of fear. The use of extranormal violence ensures a wide audience for the social influence of fear. Anthony Pratkanis, in his “Winning Hearts and Minds: A Social Influence Analysis,” defines social influence as “any technique, device, procedure, or manipulation that relies on the social-psychological nature of human beings as the means for creating or changing the belief or behavior of a target.” This definition fits squarely into ISIS’s (The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) strategy to instill fear and terror into the hearts and minds of their opponents. To conceptualize social influence, there are three primary paths to influence attitudes and behaviors: control of critical resources (coercion), deception, and social influence. For this paper, I’ll examine ISIS’s social influence enhanced by digital technologies and social media and the recent acts of horrific violence by beheading through the Yale Model of social influence.
The Digital World and Social Influence
It wasn’t long ago that the haute art of terrorist propaganda was a shaky recording from a cave in Pakistan that sent first year media students into fits of giggles. Well, those times have changed. We are now witnessing a completely new phenomenon whereby a jihadist Islamic group called ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) is conducting a sophisticated, highly effective and well-orchestrated social media campaign designed to propagate the group’s overall awareness and strike fear into their enemies. How do they do this? By understanding network dynamics, using social media, ubiquitous digital technology and smart devices. To some it is hypocrisy of the highest order, on one hand they are trying to establish an archaic form of Islam into the areas they control such as beheadings, corporal punishment and punitive measures against women and non-believers. However, they are managing in part to enforce their archaic rule by using the very symbol of modern western democracy: social media. Building on techniques pioneered by other terrorist organizations, such as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Al Shabaab, ISIS not only employs social media to spread its messages and recruit followers, including Westerners, but also to empower its supporters to take part in that process. Furthermore, ISIS has successfully used psychosocial dynamics to advance their cause. To be more specific, social psychologists describe one’s environment as the place where a person’s behavior is influenced by the social settings in which they live and their psychological predispositions. But first and foremost, it is a sphere of social influence, an area where people attempt to influence the behavior and beliefs of other people. Therefore, the psychosocial perspective is viewed as several social interactive processes that take place both in inter and intragroup environs. The harrowing images of Americans with knives to their throats has given the threat from ISIS an emotional resonance and stoked calls on Capitol Hill and elsewhere for President Obama to act more boldly. Prior to the videos of violent beheadings of American journalists, support for more involvement in the Middle East was low. However, after the beheadings, the news — the images — penetrated the dense, complex U.S. media sphere with 94 percent of Americans stating they were following media coverage of the executions. Public opinion began to change, with now 61 percent of Americans who think military action against ISIS in Syria is “in the national interest.” The rapid turn-around of public support for action regarding ISIS and the Middle East is quite astounding and evidence that terrorists were successful in manipulating our collective amygdala. With no framework to understand the social complexity of terrorist messaging and social influence, the American public used their most basic heuristic or a rule of thumb understanding. People learn and adopt these decision making shortcuts to simplify a complex world and compensate for insufficient information. Part biological, part social, the American heuristic is fight back and with fury.
Timeline of American Journalist Beheadings by Terrorists
August 19, 2014 — In a video posted on YouTube, U.S. journalist James Foley, missing in Syria since 2012, is decapitated by ISIS militants. The militants then threaten the life of another captured U.S. journalist, believed to be Steven Sotloff.
September 2, 2014 — ISIS releases a video showing the beheading of U.S. journalist Steven Sotloff. Sotloff’s apparent executioner speaks in what sounds like the same British accent as the man who purportedly killed James Foley. He’s dressed identically in both videos, head to toe in black, with a face mask and combat boots. He waves a knife in his left hand, as did the militant in the video of Foley’s death.
Framework for Examining Social Influence: The Yale Model
One framework that can be used to examine terrorist social influence is the Yale Model. Carl Hovland and his colleagues during and after World War II examined the Yale Model of persuasion based on learning theory. There are two broad dimensions of the Yale model: the process of persuasion and the variables of persuasion. As the Yale model suggests, a look at the process of any social influence attempt will reveal six stages: exposure, attention, comprehension, acceptance, retention, and translation that must be navigated to successfully persuade a target audience. Additionally, terrorist communication also includes several elements of persuasive communication including transmission capability, vividness, fear content, dual processing, credibility and power, authority and legitimacy and enforcing loss aversion or avoidant motivation.
Yale Mode Framework
Exposure
The first step in the terrorist marketing of fear campaign is to make sure the message reaches the correct audience. On August 19, ISIS posted a video of journalist James Foley’s murder to YouTube. Links to the entire video of Foley’s murder spread through Twitter in minutes. Even now, though YouTube quickly took the video down, the video remains available through other channels of social media. Still photos from the Foley execution video have appeared in newspapers, on websites, and TV. And, the videos popped up on Facebook feeds, as well. Americans saw his face, his shaved head and steely resolve. They learned of the Islamic State’s first American victim. Now, as Americans, all of us, are watching — and participating in — a cultural debate on the consequences and import of ubiquitous, Internet-connected photography and terrorism. This debate is the product of a world in which 1.5 billion more people have access to cell phones than have access to toilets. Within minutes of video release, Americans were watching the beheading of an American citizen on handheld screens all over the nation. Social media and the constant 24 hour cable news networks ensured that the social influence of beheadings had saturated the airwaves and smart devices for transmission capability. Virtually anywhere in the world at any time with technology in the palm of the hand, the beheadings of American and British journalists and aid workers were the ready fodder for public viewing. ISIS chose journalists on purpose, an avenue of ready media interest.
Attention
The second step is to get everyone’s attention. Even if the message is transmitted through the correct channels, the appropriate audience still might not notice it. Attention can sometimes be difficult to achieve but the terrorists took care of that by making sure the message was so horrific, it could not be ignored or get lost in the fog of social media buzz. Terrorists were able to capitalize on the vividness factor fostered by technology’s ubiquitous nature to get everyone’s attention to the shocking nature of the beheadings. Not knowing when or how the next message will come, keeps the public’s collective amygdala on edge and high alert. The terrorist’s ability to turn on and off the messaging, choosing the time, place and manner gives the terrorists perceived credibility and power.
Comprehension
An influence campaign must ensure that the intended audience understands the persuasive communication. The more horrifying the act the better persuasion of fear content messaging when calibrated correctly. The intent is to clearly demonstrate what will happen to those who do not relent to terrorist’s demands.
Acceptance
The target audience must not only comprehend the message but also accept it. In the case of ISIS, the American public rejects horrific beheadings, but none the less the message motivates the public to do something about it, even if it is difficult. This is the one element of the Yale Model that is an obstacle to the terrorist messaging as a vector of social influence — the American public will never accept beheadings as legitimate messaging, however, they will insist that their government leaders keep them safe. It is in this context that “acceptance” takes on a new meaning.
Retention
The influential message must have a durable effect on the target audiences. Mental health professionals have great concerns about how watching extranormal violence affects people. Clinical psychiatrist Dr. Dale Archer joined the terrorist social influence conversation to discuss what can happen to our brains when we watch the beheading videos rather than just read about them. He said, “We don’t have any studies which look at this specifically … but we can extrapolate from studies that have looked at violent video games and violent movies, and we know that there are brain changes that take place when that occurs,” Archer said “[It] desensitizes the brain to impulsive behavior and violent behavior.” Bearing witness to another person’s trauma can also have long lasting effects, such as vicarious trauma, often referred to a secondary trauma. More studies are needed on the psychological effects related to viewing images of extranormal terrorist trauma, such as beheadings and suicide bombings have on the public.
Translation
Translation entails cognitive change leading to behavioral change or the translation of perception into action. The fear context of extranormal violence as social influence, such as beheadings, is used to make the target of messaging fearful but also to make the public question the current government’s ability to protect them. This is the translation benefit of one horrific act to reach multiple audiences. Wielding the power of life and death can place the terrorist group as an authority and legitimate power player in the world’s governments. And with the perception of authority comes the real power to persuade. For the American public, viewing the extranormal violence of ISIS, can send subtle messages too that get translated into loss and suffering such as, “obey us or we will wreak more havoc and carnage on you.” This social influence technique uses loss aversion theory to manipulate behavior. Loss aversion theory refers to people’s tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains. Social influence techniques that emphasize loss and suffering are more effective than those which highlight gain.
These acts by terrorists, especially extranormal acts of violence have tremendous social influence on their opponents. Revealing the manipulative quality and intent of the social influence of terrorists is key to counterterrorism efforts and to helping citizens understand the context in which terrorists are attempting to influence them. It is time to talk plainly and frankly about the social influence of terrorists acts which are meant to cause fear and panic in the general public. Arming everyday Americans with insight and information about terrorist’s attempts at social influence by their use of extranormal violence is empowering and can assist with psychological buffering.
