The Islamic State (IS) has become notorious for violent, brutal actions and the presentation of these actions in social and mainstream media. Excessive violence creates a spectacle for the news media. However, IS propaganda also emphasizes its role in state building and its engagement in social and welfare work. This twofold propaganda enables the mobilization of different audiences, but it also sends conflicting messages about the organization. In this article, we study the e-magazine Dabiq, emphasizing their methods of gaining support and attempting to recruit Western participants to violent jihadism. We use theories of social movement and subculture to reveal some of the underlying tensions in IS's communicative strategies. The analysis first identifies how IS frame their propaganda attempting to mobilize widespread support. Then, it highlights another dimension of IS's rhetoric; provocations, the creation of sensationalist spectacles of violence and links to excitement seeking, stardom and popular culture. We conclude that combining general anti-Western rhetoric and religious imagery with extraordinary depictions of violence has been both a strength and flaw in the organization's propaganda.

This article explores the boundary work of incels (involuntary celibates), to counter negative media coverage and online ridicule. Attempting to claim rational status, incels have created alternative information channels that reframe their situation of involuntary celibacy as a legitimate life circumstance. I examine the symbolic boundaries within the incel subculture, using the Incel Wikipedia page as a specialized encyclopedia for their online milieu. After describing the incel worldview and subcultural identity, I analyze how incels engage in boundary work to differentiate and solidify their statuscategorizing themselves and other people. The article draws on theories of narrative and cultural criminology to present how incels negotiate their identity by establishing symbolic boundaries that exclude out-groups such as women, sexually successful men, and mainstream society. It concludes by considering how boundaries within the in-group are based on degrees of inceldom, gender, and violent actors. As a site of resistance, the boundary work of the incel wiki reveals how the social incel identity is formed and given meaning by contrast to symbolic others. I argue that narrative and cultural criminology can help us unravel the online ecosystem by analyzing the negotiation of external and internal subcultural boundaries.