Q

What we can learn from Dabiq, the ISIS magazine

Two journalism experts look at what ISIS aims to accomplish with Dabiq, the organization's official magazine.

You can learn a lot about the music industry by reading Rolling Stone, or the political elite about reading The Economist. Magazines are a reflection of the organization making them, and the readers they serve.

It's no different for Dabiq — a slickly produced online magazine produced by the Islamic State.

With 12 issues released so far, and disseminated throughout ISIS's social media channels, Dabiq is both a news and current events magazine and a recruiting tool for the extremist organization.

Today on q two journalists discuss Dabiq and what it says about the Islamic State's goals.

  • Kim Pittaway is a leading magazine consultant who teaches magazine journalism at the University of King's College.
  • Graeme Wood is a Canadian journalist and the Edward R. Murrow press fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His article What ISIS Really Wants was published in March in the Atlantic.

You can find .pdfs of Dabiq at The Clarion Project. (warning: graphic content in the issues.)