“ISIS’ Dabiq communicative strategies, NATO and Europe. Who is learning from whom?”: Review of an article by Michelangelo Conoscenti

Abstract

This article is a review of the work of Michelangelo Conoscenti, professor of the Turin University (Italy), “ISIS’ Dabiq communicative strategies, NATO and Europe. Who is learning from whom?” The author of the review analyses M. Conoscenti’s work from the standpoint of the communicative strategies between such actors of international relations as NATO and ISIS. The review focuses on the nine sections of M. Conoscenti’s work: introduction; review of the literature; corpus description and names of the entity; the corpus linguistic analysis; a linguistic interpretation of Dabiq; deception, in Dabiq and in military doctrine; Dabiq as Armageddon? A Western isotopy for a Western narrative trajectory; the narrative against Europe; conclusion. The author of the review pays precise attention to the fact that M. Conoscenti, exploring the content of eleven issues of the journal, uses the techniques of corpus linguistics and the theory of meme introduced by Dawkins. M. Conoscenti writes that NATO uses narrative of fear and military discourse to establish its communication with the world. The review focuses on M. Conoscenti’s evidence in favor of the failure of NATO’s strategic communication in comparison with the advanced strategies of Dabiq.