Capability in the digital: institutional media management and its dis/contents

Introduction: The Networked Communication of Contentious Politics

“…However, by the time of the Arab Spring and in close connection with a wider critique of a participatory rhetoric associated with the booming social media of the day (Fuchs 2012 ), circumspection about the civic import of digital activism was rife. Thus, a purportedly participatory fi rst principle native to social media started to be debunked as the ideological encoding of an individualistic ethos that serves to monetise data transacted by individuals (Andrejevic 2014 ) as well as to discipline their conduct (Maltby et al 2015 ). Cautionary tales warned of the restricted latitude for unfi ltered communication (undistorted by inbuilt sorting algorithms) through commercial social media (van Dijck 2013 ;Poell 2014 ).…”

Beyond ‘pseudonymity’: The sociotechnical structure of online military forums

“…If you’re going to say something stupid like “no,” it’s pointless even attempting to explain it to you ’. This differentiation between military and civilian is not unique to online forums but reflective of an inculcation into military life that marks out military personnel as ‘different’ (Maltby et al, 2015; Barrett, 1996: 132). But, in the forums, it is also often accompanied by a lack of tolerance and hostility towards non-military users within the forum space as exemplified in the following post from Arrse: If you are a never served civilian, please respect that this is a forum for soldiers, ex soldiers etc to chew the sh1t, catch up, tell lies and have their own little corner of the internet.…”

“…We draw upon data collected weekly from a variety of military forums between January and November 2014 1 including Arrse (the Army Rumour Service); Navy Net (aka Rum Ration, the Unofficial Royal Navy forum); Rear Party (for Forces wives and family); P-Prune (the Professional Pilots Rumour Network); e-Goat (Royal Air Force Rumour Network); and ArmyWags, RAFWags and NavyWags (forums for ‘British Forces Wives and Girlfriends’). We were initially directed to the forums as a result of prior data collection that included web analytics of military issues in social media (see Maltby et al, 2015), although the forums emerged as key elements in later focus groups with wives, partners and veterans. Of all of these forums, the most popular (by posts and views) were Arrse, Navy Net and Rear Party.…”

Professional role enactment amid information warfare: War correspondents tweeting on the Ukraine conflict

“…Twitter is among the new battlefields of information warfare in which claims of truth emerge and are critiqued. It has become integrated into military operations and harnessed for public relations campaigns during wartime (Maltby et al, 2015;Kuntsman and Stein, 2015;Siapera et al, 2015). Yet as governments and militaries launch (dis)information offensives on Twitter, they are met with counter-propaganda by the insurgents or terrorist organisations they are fighting against (e.g.…”

“…Twitter is among the new battlefields of information warfare in which claims of truth emerge and are contested. It has become integrated into military operations and harnessed for public relations campaigns by governments during wartime (Kuntsman and Stein, 2015;Maltby et al, 2015;Siapera et al, 2015), but it is also being used by insurgents and terrorist organisations to launch (dis)information and propaganda offensives (e.g. Zeitzoff, 2014), as well as by humanitarian organisations, international observers, the news media and media advocacy groups to provide more 'truthful' accounts of the events (Khaldarova and Pantti, 2016;Omanga and Chepngetich-Omanga, 2013).…”