The Islamic State (IS) in Indonesia: The Effective Use of Social Media Campaign

Abstract

The era of communication and information technology changed the nature of terrorism in Indonesia. Direct recruitment process of conventional terrorist group, had changed dramatically by the use of social media. Indonesia as the world biggest user of social media also reflected by the changed method of terrorist groups that emphasized on the effective use of social media. IS recruited Indonesian Moslems to do Jihad (holy war) in Iraq and Syria through social media (facebook, twitter, youtube, and blogspot) campaigns. The research is focusing on IS’s social media campaign, as appeared in Islamic radical media such as Al-Azam, Al-Mustaqbal, Ar-Rahmah.com, etc. The research is analyzing on the effectiveness of IS’s social media campaign and recruitment process?” Furthermore, the research is also analyzing socio-political factors behind the success of IS recruitment process. Besides analyzing Islamic radical media, field research conducted in several cities in West Java, where recruitment process considered successful. Interviews also conducted with several IS returnees, to know propaganda methods that successfully brought them to Syria and Iraq. The hypothesis is, the success of IS’s recruitment are related to the combination of the effectiveness of propaganda and brainwashing techniques in social media, and socio-economic conditions in Indonesia.