The NYT reports today on the jihadi version of fansubbing. According to the paper, people like North Carolina 21-year-old Samir Khan cull all variety of al Qaeda-type material—anti-American screeds, terrorist adventure novels, bomb-making videos—translate them into English and repackage them with what the Times presents as a scary kind of new-media savvy. Long diverting rants are put into “flashy English,” as the Times puts it, and “grainy car-bombing tapes” turned into “hip-hop video.”
The paper seems in part to be reporting with wide eyes on the decades-old fansub phenomena, where a network of supporters of a media genre, most famously of Japanese anime, unofficially work together online across the globe to translate and promote and make available the latest work. Samir Khan, says the Times, is “part of a growing constellation of apparently independent media operators who are broadcasting the message of al Qaeda and other groups, a message that is increasingly devised, translated and aimed at a Western audience.” Khan’s blog, unlisted by the Times, is apparently one of the more heavily trafficked of the sites, drawing something like 500 regular users.