Why Is The Media Taking These ISIS World Domination Maps So Seriously?
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 3rd, 2014 11:08 pm by HL
Why Is The Media Taking These ISIS World Domination Maps So Seriously?
In a rush to sensationalize growing violence in Iraq at the hands of religious extremists, media have circulated dubiously sourced maps which purport to illustrate plans for a future Islamic caliphate that extends from Spain to the southern and easternmost reaches of India.
A Sunni Islamist militant group calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIS) has torn through Iraq in recent weeks, violently capturing several cities and straining the Iraqi government’s ability to respond. On June 29, according to the Wall Street Journal, ISIS “announced itself as a new Islamist ‘caliphate’ … unilaterally declaring statehood and demanding allegiance from other Islamist groups.”
In the wake of this news, media outlets from Fox News to ABC have issued reports on the militant group’s future plans based on maps culled from Twitter to declare that ISIS is strategizing to take over swath of territory larger than the Roman Empire within the next five years — a goal that would include, among other feats, conquering Spain, Portugal, Greece, and most or all of India. The maps resemble the geographic dominance of the historic caliphates that ended with the demise of the Ottoman Empire.
Map #1
On June 3 ABC News published a map — also cited by Breitbart.com — which was “purportedly published” by ISIS and “widely shared on Twitter.” According to ABC, the “terrifying” map was “published at the same time that ISIS announced the creation of a caliphate.”
But ABC News didn’t actually trace the image to ISIS, and instead relied on a tweet of the image from American Third Position (A3P). ABC didn’t disclose that A3P is a white nationalist political party in the United States.
As iO9 pointed out, “This is one of those ‘garbage in, garbage out’ stories, since ABC News’ source was Twitter.” The outlet cited to analysis from Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who explained, “It’s an old image put out by fans of the group … There is nothing official about it nor is there some alleged 5-year plan.”
Map #2
Fox News reported the same day that a “chilling new map reveals the ISIS plan for world domination,” displaying an expanded, translated map the network claimed was “released by ISIS” to lay out “its five-year plan.” Several days ago the Daily Mail similarly highlighted the map as a “chilling five-year plan,” as did The Blaze, the website of notorious caliphate fear monger Glenn Beck.
While Fox attributed the map to ISIS, the Daily Mail described it as having been “widely shared by ISIS supporters on social networks.”
Despite the serious tone of their reports, neither the Daily Mail nor Fox News cited any experts to discuss how realistic it would be for ISIS to conquer a swath of land that envelops half of Africa and India and includes territory protected by NATO (Spain, Portugal).
