Campana and Ducol (2015) ‘Voices of the “Caucasus Emirate.”’
Citation:
Campana, Aurélie and Ducol, Benjamin (2015) ‘Voices of the “Caucasus Emirate”: Mapping and Analyzing North Caucasus Insurgency Websites,’ Terrorism and Political Violence, 27:4, pp. 679-700.
Theory, Research Question, Hypothesis:
Method:
Mixed methods combining hyperlink network analysis and micro-discourse analysis of the main pages of eight Emirate websites. Navicrawler used to go two levels into a website. Kavkazcenter chosen as the focal website, and decision on which websites to include based on whether they were wholly or primarily related to the Caucasus insurgency; this thereby excluded social media platforms. Websites were categorised according to type (website, forum, blog), language, server localization, insurgent’s geographical location, and discourse orientation. Networks visualised in Gephi. 4329 websites identified, of which 173 were included in final analysis. Use Snow and Byrd’s framing tasks to construct a micro-discourse analysis of Hunafa, VDagestan.com, Islam Din, Abrorinfo,wordpress.com, djamaattakbir.blogspot.ca, shamilonline.com, jamaatshariat.com, guraba.info.
Findings:
A network of websites collectively articulate the Caucasus Emirate’s political agenda and disseminate frames. Local references are not eliminated by the jihadization of discourse. 53% of websites were in Russian, 17% in English, 6% Arabic, and 13% in Turkish, Polish, Uzbek, French and German. 55% located in US, 5% in each of Russia, Lithuania and Poland.
Abstract: This article looks at Internet use by insurgent groups in the North Caucasus in the context of a regional diffusion of violence. Using a mixed methods research design that combines hyperlink network analysis and micro-discourse analysis, it examines the online characteristics of the Caucasus Emirate and the main frames conveyed by the websites affiliated with the Emirate. It demonstrates the existence of a network of cross-referencing websites that, collectively, articulate the Emirate’s political agenda online and allow for the dissemination of frames across the Web. It also shows that while jihadism provides a cultural resource that fosters a global sense of community, the jihadization of discourse does not eradicate local references as the local dynamics of the conflict have a strong impact on online communicative strategies. Finally, although based on a specific case study, this article highlights the potential of a mixed methods research design as applied to an analysis of virtual insurgent networks.
Notes:
Campana and Ducol (2015:679): In the North Caucasus, “insurgents have used the Internet to frame their political struggle against the Russian State. Chechen insurgents began to use the Internet as early as the late 1990s.”
Campana and Ducol (2015:680): Following the start of the second Chechen war, “Given the context of government control of the domestic press and lack of diplomatic support from the West, the Internet quickly became a ‘‘natural’’ venue through which local militant groups attempted to rally international support to the insurgent cause. Since then, the Internet has become a widely used tool for communication about this conflict, especially once the conflict expanded into the whole region, a process that culminated in 2007 with the creation of the so-called Caucasus Emirate.”
Campana and Ducol (2015:680): “We argue that the Internet is more than a tool as it provides an additional space in which insurgents can establish links with groups or sympathizers who share a similar agenda as well as common interests and values. It is also a space in which insurgents and incumbents fight to frame the dominant narrative over a particular conflict.”
Campana and Ducol (2015:680): “the online voices of the Emirate form a flexible network composed of very prolific sites that root the Emirate’s struggle in a global jihadi rhetoric but, first and foremost, reflect local dynamics”
Campana and Ducol (2015:681): “The Internet has changed the asymmetrical power relationship that exists between insurgent groups and the state by allowing the former to recast their struggle outside a strictly local framework. The Internet has become an additional space in which symbolic fighting and competition takes place between insurgent movements and states, and, very often, between insurgent factions. Websites and blogs play a strategic role in presenting a movement’s ideology and making information publicly available to followers without making it necessary for insurgents to support the cost of a territorial presence”
Campana and Ducol (2015:681): “The Internet allows militant groups, in their quest for overseas support, to transcend sovereign territories and appeal to people with a shared—ethnic, religious, political, or ideological—background.”
Campana and Ducol (2015:682-3): Notes first websites appeared in 1990s, and were mostly run by people outside Chechnya and Russia and were in English. In mid-1990s, “a second category of websites appeared, founded by armchair jihadi propagandists who initially had no links with Chechen armed groups but hoped to raise awareness of the ongoing conflict as well as promoting their own jihadi agenda.” Chechenpress.com and Kavkazcenter founded in 1999.
Campana and Ducol (2015): Identified three clusters: Emirate, global jihadi and Chechen nationalist. Nationalist cluster less linked than Emirate one.
Campana and Ducol (2015:691): “The websites included in our study use devotion to jihadi imaginaries as a structuring reference at three interrelated levels. First, the visual components of these websites convey a symbolic message to those who access them. Second, they provide information about the cultural and political background in which framing is embedded. The thematic content and the materials posted online are also strong indicators of the purpose attributed to the website (information-sharing, recruitment, education, network-building, and so on). Finally, the terms and expressions used in the spoken and written materials make it possible to deconstruct the dominant frames elaborated by these websites. The analysis, which moves from the most visible aspects of the sites to textual content, shows that while each group claims to belong to the global jihadi community, the way their fight is described remains mostly local. In other words, other than the jihadization of the discourses and the use of a jihadi iconography and imaginary, the frames elaborated demonstrate that the local dynamics of the conflict have prevailed over global objectives since the insurgency began.”
Campana and Ducol (2015:692): Websites acts as resource banks for global jihadist material, including statements by people like Maqdisi and Abu Qatada. They help to foster a transnational jihadist identity, educate potential recruits and sympathisers, inform the oustide world about the conflict, and act as a bridge between the local and the global.
Campana and Ducol (2015:692): “The Emirate websites, which use buzzwords and an Islamist/jihadi terminology also employed by many of their counterparts, agree on the nature of the problem and the way to solve it.”
Campana and Ducol (2015:693): “It is worth noting, however, that although the Emirate’s leader declared in May of 2012 that ‘‘I am the enemy of all of the enemies of Allah,’’ no special emphasis is put on the ‘usual’ jihadi enemies—the U.S. and Israel—except in the ‘icon’s’ diatribes. The actual enemies are local and the fight is defined as local.”
Campana and Ducol (2015:693): “The websites in our study are committed to increasing the Emirate’s legitimacy as a trans-ethnic regional Islamic state. They share the same objectives: increasing the Emirate’s legitimacy as part of a local competition for power, enhancing a sense of local community based on religion, justifying the use of violence, and mobilizing supporters. To achieve these ends, they use three main rhetorical strategies, which inform their motivational frames and call for action in the name of common values. The first strategy consists of recasting the history of the whole region as a continuous jihad against the Russians. The rationale for this re-reading of history through an Islamist lens is a political attempt to stress historical precedent and the role Islam has played in encouraging mobilisation against the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century.”
Campana and Ducol (2015:693): “The second rhetorical strategy portrays Muslims as systematically victimized by ‘infidels.’ […]Violence by the state is said to be aimed not at individuals but at whole communities. From such a perspective, jihad can be seen as a collective action of self- defence. Although all Emirate sites touch upon this theme, vdagestan.com is the most vocal.”
Campana and Ducol (2015:693): “The third rhetorical strategy aims at glorifying violence and death to establish a cult of martyrdom.”