Women and Emotion: The Themes and Narratives of the ‘Diary of a Muhajirah’ Tumblr Page

Abstract

2014 saw the rise of the Islamic State as a prominent threat to global security. More worrying is that the recent phenomenon saw an influx of foreign female recruits, including Malaysian women that were lured into the terrorist organisation through the organisation’s online psychological influence campaign. The psychological influence campaign aims at influencing the vulnerable emotions of their target female audience as emotion is the main motivation for a woman’s participation in terrorism. The objectives of this research are to identify the psychological influence techniques used in the ‘Diary of a Muhajirah’, the Tumblr account of Bird of Jannah; and to determine the emerging themes and narratives of the psychological influence used for recruiting female potentials through the postings. This research was a qualitative thematic analysis of the Tumblr page from July 10, 2015 to September 26, 2015. Based on the findings, the researcher found that the psychological influence techniques; and the themes and narratives delivered by the propagandist caused an emotional upheaval which later motivates the target female audience to be recruited by the organisation.