ISIS beyond the spectacle: communication media, networked publics, terrorism
October 1, 2017: A "gunman" uses automatic weapons and opens fire on a crowd of concert goers in Las Vegas, Nevada, killing 58 persons and injuring 546 people. ISIS's claim of responsibility for the violence that killed and injured hundreds of people in Las Vegas was received skeptically and interpreted as "somewhat of a joke among the rank and file of the international terrorist elite" and a "sign of desperation" (Smith, 2017) If the first day of October ushered in a time that ISIS was dismissed as a joke, the last day of the month changed the narrative. October 31, 2017: Sayfullo Saipov, an Uzbek national with permanent residency in the U.S. uses a rented truck to crush pedestrians in a bike lane in Manhattan, New York. Upon the discovery of his religious identity and his ideological affiliation with ISIS he is immediately declared a terrorist. Although authorities could find no communication between him and the terrorist group, it became clear that "ISIS's propaganda was sufficient to animate Saipov to carry out the worst terrorist attack in New York since 9/11" (Wright, 2017) As Wright (2017) reported: