None

The author of this article argues that visual representation plays a significant role in shaping public discourse and political decision-making around conflicts such as ISIS. The extensive circulation of videos depicting ISIS's beheadings has contributed to the construction of an exceptional emergency situation demanding escalated military action and intensified counterterrorism efforts. However, the author questions whether these representations are objective or unproblematic, highlighting how particular acts of violence are made visible while others are reduced to marginal sites.The author draws on theories of visual representation and the politics of spectatorship to argue that the visibility of war shapes the political terrain in which decisions about war and peace are produced and legitimized. The author suggests that while images may appear to offer indisputable evidence of ISIS's brutality, they are not necessarily objective or unproblematic representations of the conflict. Instead, they are shaped by structural forces and power dynamics that conceal as much as they reveal about the complexities of the conflict.The author highlights the need for a more nuanced understanding of the role of visual representation in shaping public discourse and political decision-making around conflicts such as ISIS. Rather than relying solely on visual representations, the author suggests that we must consider how these representations are shaped by broader structural forces and power dynamics, and how they impact the production of political decisions. By examining the ways in which the visibility of war shapes the political terrain, we can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the complexities of the conflict and the factors that shape our responses to it.