The political imaginary plays a crucial role in the process by which individuals come to conceive of themselves as militant Salafists. In turn, this is constructed in large part on two key conditions of possibility – movement and media. Both serve as vehicles of both dislocation and relocation, facilitating the very specific militant Salafist political imaginary. It is media that is considered now.

Few would argue that the role of the Internet – the vanguard of today's media – has been ignored in the study of political violence. However, studies addressing the relations between the two have tended to concentrate on the Internet's functional application as a tool to militants. This is useful, but such an emphasis comes at the expense of an exploration of its transformative possibilities. There have also been a number of works on the ever-greater role of the global media more generally, many of which are extremely sophisticated and insightful. Of more specific relevance to this study, several enquire into the relationship between political communication and images in an era in which hypermedia increasingly informs political life. This recognition that questions of politics are significantly impacted by electronic media is a welcome one. The increase in the reach, accessibility, immediacy and content of this latest technological intrusion into our lives has developed alternatives in terms of the constructions of identity and politics. An appreciation of this change is indispensable for properly understanding the phenomenon of militant Salafism.