Abstract
This paper demonstrates the potential of an interscientific analysis linking reflexive security theorisation, literary theory, computer science and Big Data processing. Towards the aim, it attempts to establish the complex visual manifestation of an alternative socio-political order as imagined by the IS in its Twitter-centric campaigns.
The field of analytical intervention, which utilises supervised machine learning models, focuses on the official IS propaganda envisioning the Caliphate. Reflecting on particular eschatological and utopian characteristics of spatio-temporal configuration of the Caliphate's visual production, the research draws on Bakhtin's concept of chronotope enabling us to conceptualize various spatio-temporal orders of the reality.
Unlike previous attempts to analyse and interpret visual representations in IR and Security Studies, this research experimentally embraces Big Data analysis featuring supervised machine learning algorithms. It resorts to systematic image gathering from the official Caliphate's media departments, itself a part of the broader Twitter-centric IS social media campaigns.
As a result the analysis will present the chronotopic self-representation of the IS as manifested in its visual, real/virtual campaigns.