Analysis and Effects of Jihadist Propaganda in the Media in Spain

Academics have traditionally accorded extensive attention to the link between propaganda and terrorist violence. More recently, as a result of the emergence of jihadist terrorism and its use of new information technologies, the focus has broadened to other issues, including the influence of these new instruments of communication on processes of violent radicalisation, strategies for tackling the new phenomenon, the impact of counterterrorism on the communications actions of terrorist groups, etc. The media effects of jihadist terrorism have made a great deal of contributions to both political communication and security and defence studies. The websites containing jihadist propaganda and their evolution have been a constant concern for military members, politicians and academics. The present research contains the twofold purpose of showing how the jihadist communications have been in the Spanish territory during these recent years and measuring the impact of such communications in the Spanish media, specifically the press. Based on a classic and quantitative methodology, content analysis, this research provides novel data on the media significance of groups such as Al-Qaeda or Daesh in Spain. Press (El Mundo, El País, ABC and La Vanguardia) analysis has been carried out on the basis of framing theories, mainly with the aim of extracting the main media themes when dealing with jihadist terrorism. From the data extracted from the Observatory on References to Spain in Jihadist Propaganda, it is demonstrated how a high percentage of the communiqués are made by groups of no media relevance. In addition, it has an on the ability of Daesh and Al-Qaeda to occupy the maximum visibility in the Spanish press. The research provides novel data on the media impact of 9/11, because even though Al-Qaeda is not the most communicated group, it is the group most associated with the threats that point directly to Spain (Hypotesis 1). To sum it up, this work attempts to give an empirical view on the relationship between jihadist communications and digital media coverage, a subject rarely explored in the Spanish academic field.