We present an analysis of terrorist propaganda using Al-Qaeda (AQ) between 1998 and 2008 as a case study using semiotic and propaganda analytic approaches. Our findings suggest AQ position themselves using a variety of propaganda techniques, especially on the notion of a global conspiracy, an existential threat, against Islam. Their key contribution to the evolution of conflict has been to emancipate the political marketing/public relations component and, thus, to redefine the essence of conflict. AQ design sophisticated propaganda, use segmented message design and have improved their production values over time. They have also crudely attempted to influence Western European and US elections. The authors conclude that AQ’s positioning strategy is based on framing a death-centred militant worldview as its precise opposite, a pious life of struggle with rewards in the afterlife. This article makes descriptive and methodological contributions to the interdisciplinary literature on propaganda. It makes a contribution by explaining how AQ’s positioning strategy evolved between 1998 and 2008, an analysis which will be of particular interest to those who seek to understand the wider societal applications of terrorist use of propaganda and who seek to counter its effects. It makes a further methodological contribution by providing an integrated method by which to evaluate propaganda, using a combination of semiotic, content and propaganda analysis approaches.
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