A guileful ruse: ISIS,media, and tactics of appropriation

When Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), in the throes of territorial demise, laid claim to the deadliest mass shooting in US history, the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, pundits declared it a sign of desperation. This paper begins from a different premise: that the case simultaneously exposes how ISIS regularly appropriates rather than inspires violence and the limits of this tactic. An analysis of ISIS propaganda and three ISIS-attributed incidents reveals that the group’s ability to claim violence depends not on tactically rerouting media discourse, representation, or practice, but on taking these to their expected end, telling “us” exactly what we want to hear.