ISIS Group Blog: A Conclusion

Marco Pura                                                                                        December 3, 2014

 Writing a Group Blog on ISIS

This semester our group researched and wrote about the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a militant Islamist organization currently controlling large swathes of Iraq and Syria. In our first blog post, we covered the group’s origin in Al Qaeda’s Iraqi branch and the rubble of the Syrian revolt against Bashar al-Assad, its Salafist ideology, and the immediate and dire security threat it poses to the region and their brutal treatment of anyone not deemed sufficiently Islamic.  In the second blog post, we analyzed women’s role in the organization and how women members they receive recognition and a sense of identity, even if it is one that is rooted in a deeply misogynistic ideology. The third blog post analyzed ISIS’ financial organization, their seizure of Iraqi and Syrian army equipment, and sources of revenue: bank vaults, extortion and oil sales. In the final group blog post, the group discussed ISIS’s cunning use of social media and video propaganda to attract angry young Muslims from around the world, and their use of kidnapping and extortion to both fund their activities and to intimidate and control populations.

The group conducted research by divvying up the selected facet for a post (for example, ISIS and women) into smaller topics. Members of the group would each find a few articles, do analysis on them and contribute that information to the group’s pool of research. Some posts would have fewer authors than others; for example I wrote the first post, but the articles and analysis came from the group. Having access to Google Docs allowed us to share work easily and communicate. Working in a group allows for greater depth in both research and analysis as each member can focus specifically on one facet of a complicated issue like ISIS.

I gained a lot of familiarity not only with ISIS as an organization but the geopolitics of the Middle East. Understanding the logic behind the brutality of ISIS is important as it allows us to consider the complexity of the situation in Iraq and Syria. I think our blog posts do a reasonable job of cutting through media sensationalism regarding ISIS’s crimes (which are indeed horrible), and instead focus on their strengths and weaknesses. If the international community is to deal with ISIS they need to understand them not in a context of a “clash of civilizations” but in the context of the complex history of the region. Working in a group has taught me some valuable lessons in organization of tasks and time management. I found that the method of divvying up research and analysis to multiple people but having one person format and post was more efficient in getting the post done and in making the post coherent. On the last blog post regarding ISIS and propaganda the members of the group each contributed one paragraph, and the result was a post that was disjointed with clashing writing styles. Different people can conduct research but to yield a composition one person is preferable. A blog may not be an essay, but it still needs to have one voice to make it easy for the reader to absorb its information.