BigShinyThing

Bruce Sterling points us towards a new book-length study from RFE/RL, entited Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War Of Images And Ideas. The study offers a fascinating insight into the strengths and weaknessess of insurgent tactical media, including an evident technological and organisational sophistication — handy for production and distribution under extreme conditions:

Biographies of the best-known martyrs are sometimes lavish affairs. Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, the most famous jihadist to have died in Iraq, was the subject of a downloadable “encyclopedia” that includes not on numerous materials on the Jordanian militant’s life, but also a complete collection of his statements, essays on his beliefs and influence, and statements on the jihad in Iraq by Osama bin Laden. Formatted as a 7.7-megabyte self-contained mini-browser, the “encyclopedia” provides users with a table of contents and a convenient graphics interface.

[...]

The impressive array of products Sunni-Iraq insurgents and their supporters create suggests the existence of a veritable multimedia empire. But this impression is misleading. The insurgent media network has no identifiable brick-and-mortar presence, no headquarters, and no bureaucracy. It relies instead on a decentralized, collaborative production model that utilizes the skills of a community of like-minded individuals. (…)

The study authors conclude that:

The popularity of online Iraqi Sunni insurgent media [...] reflects a genuine demand for their message in the Arab world. A response, no matter how lavishly funded and cleverly produced, will not eliminate this demand. [...] efforts to counter insurgent media should not focus on producing better propaganda than the insurgents, or trying to eliminate the demand for the insurgent message, but rather on exploiting the vulnerabilities of the insurgent media network.