Jihadist Journalism: Exploring the Geographic Coverage of al-Masra Newspaper

Recent terrorism research has explored jihadist groups’ discourse surrounding different countries by exploring the content of various magazines. We build on existing literature by examining al-Masra, an Arabic-language newspaper linked to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). We created an original dataset from 1,250 articles in fifty-eight al-Masra editions, utilizing content analysis to code for each article’s main country of focus. Overall, we found that fifty-four countries formed the central focus of at least one al-Masra article. Although the United States was the most covered country, the combined coverage provided to countries in the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa far outweighed al-Masra’s concentration on “the West.” Despite al-Masra’s stated commitment to covering global Muslim affairs, however, a number of countries with large Muslim populations, including Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Nigeria, received little attention. Interestingly, al-Masra’s focus on certain countries varied over time. While coverage of Libya, Somalia, and Syria decreased during 2017, al-Masra’s concentration on the United States increased over time, especially following Donald Trump’s electoral victory. This article contributes to research on terrorist media campaigns and framing strategies by examining an understudied Arabic-language jihadist publication and its propaganda related to dozens of countries.