Social Media and the Armed Forces

Herausgegeben:Moehlecke de Baseggio_, Eva; Schneider, Olivia; Szvircsev Tresch, Tibor

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Social media has fundamentally changed communication and interaction in today's society. Apart from being used by individuals, it is also omnipresent in public sector organisations such as the armed forces.

This book examines the opportunities and risks associated with social media in the context of the armed forces from an international, social scientific perspective. It discuses the impact of social media in the everyday life of military personnel and analyses the extent to which social media influences their performance, be it as a distraction or as a source of perceived appreciation. It particularly highlights the representation of masculinity and femininity in military social media channels, since the way gender is portrayed on social media has an effect on how future recruits and - at the other end of the military career spectrum - veterans feel they are approached.
The book also focuses on the new form of follow-up discussion, which enables the armed forcestointeract with the population. On social media, the armed forces are publicly presented, and this shapes the public's opinions on them. Further, the armed forces can use debates as a monitoring tool of society's attitudes towards them or towards events that have an effect on society. Conversely, social media can lend a voice to military personnel, allowing them to be publicly heard.

As discussions on social media can only be controlled to a limited extent, the context in which the armed forces are discussed alters their sphere of influence and potentially leads to a loss of control. An extreme example of this is the use of social media as a tool to strategically distribute misinformation in order to shape public opinion and threaten national security. Moreover, the use of social media to demoralise adversaries or to harm their credibility results in social media being considered a cyber weapon that affects politics and military activities.

Produktdetails

• Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications
• Verlag: Springer / Springer International Publishing / Springer, Berlin
• Artikelnr. des Verlages: 978-3-030-47510-9
• 1st ed. 2020
• Seitenzahl: 240
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 18mm x 163mm x 240mm
• Gewicht: 580g
• ISBN-13: 9783030475109
• Artikelnr.: 59075366

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction.- Part I Social Media in the Everyday Life of Military Personnel.- Ubiquity with a Dark Side: Civil-Military Gaps in Social Media Usage.- Social Media Use at a U.S. Military Academy: Perceived Implications for Performance and Behavior.- The Need for Visibility: the Influence of Social Media Communication on Swiss Armed Forces Officers.- Part II Gender-Specific Representation on Social Media.- Managing Femininity through Visual Embodiment: The Portrayal of Women on the Instagram Accounts of the Swedish and the Swiss Armed Forces.- (Dis-)Empowered Military Masculinities? Recruitment of Veterans by PMSCs Through YouTube.- Part III Social Media Discussions as Insights into Public Opinion.- The Importance of Discussions on Social Media for the Armed Forces.- Debating German Special Forces: a Scandal in the Military, a Documentary, and a Thread.- Sentiment of Armed Forces Social Media Accounts in the United Kingdom: An Initial Analysis of Twitter Content.- A Transparent Network- Soldiers' Digital Resistance and Economic Unrest.- Part IV Risks and Dangers of Social Media.- The Dark Side of Interconnectivity: Social Media as a Cyber-Weapon?.- Misinformation and Disinformation in Social Media as the Pulse of Finnish National Security.- Social Media Use in Contemporary Armed Forces as a Mixed Blessing.

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Introduction.- Part I Social Media in the Everyday Life of Military Personnel.- Ubiquity with a Dark Side: Civil-Military Gaps in Social Media Usage.- Social Media Use at a U.S. Military Academy: Perceived Implications for Performance and Behavior.- The Need for Visibility: the Influence of Social Media Communication on Swiss Armed Forces Officers.- Part II Gender-Specific Representation on Social Media.- Managing Femininity through Visual Embodiment: The Portrayal of Women on the Instagram Accounts of the Swedish and the Swiss Armed Forces.- (Dis-)Empowered Military Masculinities? Recruitment of Veterans by PMSCs Through YouTube.- Part III Social Media Discussions as Insights into Public Opinion.- The Importance of Discussions on Social Media for the Armed Forces.- Debating German Special Forces: a Scandal in the Military, a Documentary, and a Thread.- Sentiment of Armed Forces Social Media Accounts in the United Kingdom: An Initial Analysis of Twitter Content.- A Transparent Network– Soldiers’ Digital Resistance and Economic Unrest.- Part IV Risks and Dangers of Social Media.- The Dark Side of Interconnectivity: Social Media as a Cyber-Weapon?.- Misinformation and Disinformation in Social Media as the Pulse of Finnish National Security.- Social Media Use in Contemporary Armed Forces as a Mixed Blessing.

Rezensionen

"This book is timely for a multitude of reasons. ... scholars in sociology and political science who study the military will benefit from reading it ... . Students attending professional military education courses and those in pre-commissioning programmes would also benefit from reading the book, especially the cross-national comparisons. ... senior military and defence leaders, as well as educators in professional military education institutions, would also benefit from reading this volume ... ." (Heidi A. Urben, Res Militaris, Vol. 11 (2), 2021)