The portrait of the portuguese media of the portuguese foreign fighters on ISIS

• Autor(a) principal: Fonseca, Maria Bernardo da
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/24325
• topic: Critical terrorism studies; Recrutamento -- Recruitment; Radicalization; Foreign fighters; Return; Media; Radicalização; Combatente estrangeiro; Potencial retorno

The phenomenon of terrorism encompasses the international system, not only in terms of terrorist attacks, but also in terms of foreign fighters who were increasingly common in the ranks of the so-called Islamic State, mainly from Europe. This phenomenon has been studied abroad, but specifically, in the Portuguese case, there is not much academic literature. Therefore, in this thesis, I focus on the Portuguese foreign fighters who joined the Islamic State, studying the role of the media in portraying their radicalization, recruitment, and their potential return. The research is informed by the theoretical and methodological principles of Critical Terrorism Studies and it comprised a thematic analysis of news articles from two Portuguese newspapers – Público and Diário de Notícias. The analysis reflects that the portrait of the media is important to build a certain social reality and to build knowledge, that is completed with the Critical Terrorism Studies and, that the media reflect the three major processes that a foreign fighter goes through, which is the recruitment, the radicalization, and their potential return. Also, it shows the important findings of this research, that the media helps constructing the knowledge regarding the Portuguese terrorism, and on this specific case, the Portuguese Foreign Fighters phenomenon.