The violent image: Insurgent propaganda and the new revolutionaries

The Violent Image: Insurgent Propaganda and the New Revolutionaries is at once a volume of terrorism history, an educational tool, and an academic tome. Though it has been 13 years since the 9/11 tragedy, the events of that day and the aftermath live on and, for many, continue to evoke indelible and emotion-provoking imagery. Many who witnessed the 9/11 media coverage can still see images of the Twin Towers burning to the ground and feel the associated emotions. In The Violent Image, author Neville Bolt, a Teaching Fellow and Research Associate in the Department of War Studies at Kings College in London, explains why this event and so many other terrorist deeds have the power to imprint such potent and enduring memories onto a collective psyche. Condensing an astonishing amount of theoretical literature and terrorism research, The Violent Image contains innumerable illustrations that speak to how it is impossible to separate the past from the future when it comes to examining the motivating factors and tools of terrorism. In fact, images, functioning as messages, have become a critical component of insurgent and extremist strategy. Nothing attracts the media and news cameras like violent images (p. 182). And the Internet and social media have become vehicles that position these unedited images squarely and expediently in front of audiences that can participate virtually, which include sympathizers and potential recruits. More specifically, Facebook and YouTube, in addition to circulating ideas and messages to mass networks of connected people, have become mechanisms for terrorists to engage in “soft” recruiting (“hard” or obvious recruiting content is banned and subject to removal). The process of placing images of destruction into the public domain has become easier, faster, and more accessible via computer and smart phone to a greater number of users. (Images of the recent ISIS beheadings, for example, which, when removed, crop up elsewhere on the Internet.) It has become increasingly difficult for the general public to avoid seeing and being influenced by horrific terrorism-related images.