Ideocide: Disrupting the Strategic Communication Systems of Islamic Extremist Organizations

Kelly Gleason

Advisor: Anne M. Nicotera, PhD, Department of Communication

Committee Members: Sergey Samoylenko, Richard Craig

Horizon Hall, #5225
April 21, 2026, 01:00 PM to 03:00 PM

Abstract:

This dissertation examines Islamic extremist organizations’ strategic and internal communication systems as integrated mechanisms for recruitment, governance, and organizational survivability. The broader problem is the persistent effectiveness of extremist influence operations despite sustained counterterrorism pressure and platform disruption. Rather than treating extremist propaganda as isolated messaging artifacts, this study conceptualizes communication as a constitutive organizational capability that shapes authority, identity formation, command-and-control continuity, and ideological transmission.

The study is grounded in strategic communication theory, communicative constitution of organizations (CCO), framing theory, semiotics, the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), and informational network theory. Together, these frameworks support an analysis of how extremist organizations construct meaning, manage secrecy, adapt across digital and physical environments, and sustain mobilization through sacred narrative structures. The phenomenon under investigation is the integration of recruitment messaging and internal communication into a unified strategic architecture within Islamic extremist organizations.

A phenomenological methodology guided the research design to capture the lived experiential interpretations of subject matter experts (SMEs) who have directly engaged with or analyzed extremist communication systems. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 45 SMEs, including military officers, intelligence professionals, strategic communication practitioners, human terrain analysts, cultural advisors, and diplomatic officials with operational exposure to ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban. Data analysis employed horizontalization, open coding, and thematic clustering to identify recurring patterns across recruitment processes, internal communication structures, propaganda governance, worldview formation, and decision-making dynamics.

Findings demonstrate that extremist recruitment functions as a staged behavioral pipeline beginning with vulnerability profiling and grievance alignment, followed by incremental commitment and relational brokerage. Propaganda serves not only persuasive purposes but also governance signaling, compliance enforcement, intimidation, and legitimacy construction. Internal communication systems are compartmentalized, redundant, and template-driven, enabling secrecy, adaptability, and resilience under pressure. While ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban share core structural similarities, they differ in technological sophistication, narrative tempo, doctrinal rigidity, and centralization of authority.

This dissertation introduces the concept of ideocide, a term coined to describe the dismantling and disruption of an ideology, along with its “hopeful” death. The term is described as hopeful because ideologies rarely disappear entirely once embedded in collective consciousness. Islamic extremist organizations’ online propaganda plants ideological seeds through violent imagery and utopian narratives promising belonging, dignity, and communal purpose. Ideocide therefore emphasizes the systematic disruption of ideological transmission pathways, recruitment pipelines, and communication systems that enable organizational regeneration, rather than assuming the permanent eradication of belief.

The study concludes that an effective counter-extremist strategy must move beyond reactive counter-messaging and instead target the communication architectures that sustain extremist survivability. The implications extend to strategic communication scholarship, organizational communication theory, and defense and intelligence practice in contested information environments.