I can't remember where I read the article, but it summarized it as thus. Al Queda was a big threat, but you hardly ever heard of people being radicalized by them. ISIS on the other hand is clearly quite efficient at radicalizing people though. Part of the reason for this is their relatively large social media presence, and their videography is actually quite decent for what they do. If you compare ISIS and Al Queda in this respect, ISIS is definitely "easier to get into" I'd say.
Back when al-Qaeda was the focus of attention, you heard plenty about people, including Americans and other Westerners, being radicalized by them and/or via a system of radical madrassas (mostly in Pakistan) and radical networks (throughout the world) associated with them and their ideology.
It's true that the mechanisms were different, because social media wasn't a big thing at the time: John Walker Lindh was radicalized before the services that really made "social media" a global force existed.
> Part of the reason for this is their relatively large social media presence, and their videography is actually quite decent for what they do.
Not to take any merit from your argument but AQ was good in recruiting online at least for its franchise or affiliate in Yemen under the leadership of the US-born Anwar Awlaki. This is the man who made online propaganda and media blitz as a core element of Islamic terrorism and Jihadism strategy.
Also, please note that Al-Qaeda in Iraq was the progenitor of ISIS but they broke away due to ideological and strategical differences with Ayman Zwahiri the No. 1 AQ leader and they were very hardened under AQ sponsorship.
> Also, please note that Al-Qaeda in Iraq was the progenitor of ISIS
It wasn't so much a "progenitor of ISIS" as the name taken by the group that later called itself "the Islamic State in Iraq" (and later still, "the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria", and most recently simply "the Islamic State") during the period in which that group (which had been around quite some time previously) adopted the al-Qaeda brand.
I would want to compare the numbers with the two during similar timelines; their ramp up, once they became known internationally, once they became a big enough concern to directly target, and then on their decline. Plus I would wonder if there's something along the lines of the new one feeding off the older.
