Constructing Social Reality: A Discourse Analysis of TTP’s Text on Social Media

Abstract

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has used the Internet and online media forums to propagate their messages and to advance their agendas. TTP, Like Al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, has used online platforms to propagate its messages and secure public support for its organization. This study investigates how TTP as an organization constructs its social reality through online blogs and defines the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other.’ I have used Laclau & Mouffe’s (1985) Discourse Theory to analyze the TTP’s text posted on the blog site www.umarmedia.wordpress.com. The article analyzes blogs posted in October 2014, December 2014, and June 2015, a significant moment in time when Pakistan launched its military offensive “Zarb-e-Azb” in Pakistan’s Northwestern Pashtun regions. The analysis reveals the strategies used by the TTP in constructing its social reality and articulating the identities of the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other.’ The TTP’s discourse articulates the Pakistan Army as the ‘Near’ enemy, an extension of the Western ‘Far’ enemy, which has waged a full-scale war on the tribal Muslims. The TTP constructs the social reality of Muslims facing existential and cultural threats at the hands of the enemy. Moreover, the narrative of victimhood not only prompts the TTP’s cause for revenge but also justifies violence to survive against the enemy, which is both powerful and ruthless. Analyzing the TTP’s text with context is important for understanding the militant’s worldview and building counter-narratives. Moreover, it can be productive for predicting the trajectory of militant communication, which Pakistan and its allies can use to their strategic benefit.