Studio Session 1 Reflection - Lena Badr

In today’s studio session, my group and I spent our time finding what we could..find, essentially anything that connected ISIS and social media. What we discovered was astonishing. Articles that detailed how mothers had found their lost children on ISIS media, gruesome videos that showcased beheading after beheading and even contrasting videos showing ISIS passing out candy to children were all found online. My initial thought after our first researching session was “where do we begin?” It was alarming to see that there were so many problems associated with ISIS and that all of these problems were vibrantly showcased through social media. ISIS had twitter accounts, Facebook pages, Instagrams and even apps. However, with each ISIS presence there was a presence of opposition. There were hashtag campaigns to combat ISIS twitter accounts, groups of hackers dedicated to shutting down those accounts, articles detailing the government’s attack through social media and the dark web and so much more. The brief and simple conclusion that my group and I made after our session was that ISIS had a major social media presence that reached men, women and children all over the world but that the movement was being combated with social media as well.