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 forces to interact 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.

#TheWeaponizationOfSocialMedia develops a framework to understand how social network media shapes global politics and contemporary conflicts by examining their role as a platform for conduction intelligence collection, targeting, cyber-operations, psychological warfare and command and control activities. Through these, the weaponization of social media shows both the possibilities and the limitations of social network media in contemporary conflicts and makes a contribution to theorizing and studying contemporary conflicts. Democracies operate as if Information is second to the other elements of national power. In fact it is the aspect from which all power is derived. We fail to understand this at our peril, while our adversaries ‘get it’. In democracies to autocracies, information is a valuable resource that is increasingly difficult to control. That is how it should be. However, the Weaponization of Social Media, as Thomas Nissen adeptly describes it, is simultaneously based on and enabling several dangerous trajectories. These include new marketplaces for loyalty, the ability to opt-in (and out) of identities, perceived transparency across battlefields and diplomacy, and media illiteracy and a commensurate decline in the standards of journalism.

Now that the Department of Defense has permitted the use of social media for both private and official purposes, the question becomes, can the military, the Army in particular, obtain the benefits sought from social media use without seriously compromising individual and operations security? Answering this question required an initial assessment of Army goals and objectives to determine why the Army risked the use of social media. The assessment revealed two reasons. First, the Army needed social media to communicate its inform and influence activities more effectively. Second, social media was the primary means by which soldiers maintained contact with their friends and family. Consequently, social media has become a significant element in maintaining soldier morale. If the Army did not need social media to distribute its inform message, it might have avoided the difficulties created by the personal use of social media. Thus, the security risk posed by the use of social media cannot be reduced to a simple enforcement of operations security rules. Nevertheless, soldiers who are not trained to avoid the disclosure of classified or sensitive information will, through their ingrained habits, present a significant security risk. To understand the situation and to derive the needed training required an initial examination of social media as a means of communications. That discussion along with a discussion of personal soldier use reveals that social media supports the Army inform and influence activity requirements, but introduces the risk of spillage through social media. In other words, soldiers have habits that create vulnerabilities that enemies of the United States can easily exploit. An examination of casual social media use revealed common practices that stand contrary to sound operations security. Comparing social media habits with regulatory requirements produced a list of key elements of required training. The reality is that evolutionary information changes will continue without the military's consent. All military personnel require training on appropriate use of social media now. The Army can institute training that raises awareness of these dangers for all service members. Ideally, social media will become a manageable medium with which to communicate the right messages and maintain good order and discipline within the Armed Forces.

Public Relations practice, its approaches and methods have become widely and deeply entrenched in business, government and in many other complex organizations especially in the developed nations of the world. In same manner, its relevance and utility as tool of institutional promotion have equally come to be appreciated in the Armed Forces. The text therefore, within context of the evolution, growth and development of the broad discipline of Public Relations appropriately situates its practice in the military. It articulates and highlights in-depth, the many aspects to public relations practice in the armed Forces drawing examples extensively from especially the experiences of the United States and UK Armed Services. Divided into Four Parts, the book examines the role of the Military in society and traces the evolution of modern public Relations and its development in the military. Under 'Public Relations Principles, Approaches and Practice", it analyses the role and function of public relations in the interface of military and society, and further highlight the purpose of military public relations, its targets, strategies and tactics. It examines Public Relations practice in the Nigerian Military including public perception and management. Current and topical Issues in Public Relations and Communication such as 'Technology, the Military and Public Relations', 'Social Media, Public Relations and the Military', 'Security Threats, Crisis Management and the Role of Communications', and 'Challenges to Military Public Relations Practice' were analyzed. The book finally concludes with 'The Importance of Military Public Relations in a Democratic Society'. Given the perpetual need to constantly `keep the military in the public eye', the book strongly posits that it is appropriate that public relations be properly positioned as the strategic machinery through which the military could seek to identify with the people and invariably, national interest in order for them to render accounts of their performances and seek informed public support as obtains in developed democracies. This book will be a useful source of reference to especially military public relations officers and indeed all military officers across the world. It further should bring forth better insight to the understanding by the civilian populace, communications professionals, and research scholars specializing in military public relations or public affairs operating in diverse regions of the world.

Over the past decade the gravitational centre of contemporary conflict has shifted from the physical battlefield to the online battlespace, where the ingenuity of non-state actors has vexed governments and tested their militaries. Devising new architectures of participation, Al Qaeda and ISIS have weaponised social media and empowered their dispersed followers to organise, communicate and dominate the information domain. Kevin Foster shows how conventional militaries in the US, Britain, Israel and Australia have responded to this challenge by integrating social media into their systems and operations, and the organisational and cultural impediments they have confronted. Foster traces each military's social media journey, appraising the strategies, doctrine and policies developed to regulate its management and use. From the ADFA Skype sex scandal to the IDF's sophisticated integration of the real and virtual spaces of war, Anti-Social Media examines the good, the bad and the indifferent in the armed forces' halting advance towards social media competence.

This book represents the first international investigation of military recruitment advertising, public relations and propaganda. Comprised of eleven case studies that explore mobilisation work in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe, it covers more than a hundred years of recent history, with chapters on the First and Second World Wars, the Cold War, and the present day. The book explores such promotion in countries both large and small, and in times of both war and peace, with readers gaining an insight into the different strategies and tactics used to motivate men, women and occasionally even children to serve and fight in many parts of the world. Readers will also learn about the crucial but little-known role of commercial advertising, public relations and media professionals in the production and distribution of recruitment promotion. This book, the first of its kind to be published, will explore that role, and in the process address two questions that are central to studies of media and conflict: how do militaries encourage civilians to join up, and are they successful in doing so? It is a multi-disciplinary project intended for a diverse academic audience, including postgraduate students exploring aspects of war, propaganda and public opinion, and researchers working across the domains of history, communications studies, conflict studies, psychology, and philosophy.

Over 1,700 total pages ... Contains the following publications: Visual Propaganda and Extremism in the Online Environment COUNTERMOBILIZATION: UNCONVENTIONAL SOCIAL WARFARE Social Media: More Than Just a Communications Medium HOW SOCIAL MEDIA AFFECTS THE DYNAMICS OF PROTEST Finding Weakness in Jihadist Propaganda NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING OF ONLINE PROPAGANDA AS A MEANS OF PASSIVELY MONITORING AN ADVERSARIAL IDEOLOGY AIRWAVES AND MICROBLOGS: A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF AL-SHABAAB’S PROPAGANDA EFFECTIVENESS THE ISLAMIC STATE’S TACTICS IN SYRIA: ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN SHIFTING A PEACEFUL ARAB SPRING INTO TERRORISM TWEETING NAPOLEON AND FRIENDING CLAUSEWITZ: SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE #MILITARYSTRATEGIST TROLLING NEW MEDIA: VIOLENT EXTREMIST GROUPS RECRUITING THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA The Combatant Commander’s Guide to Countering ISIS’s Social Media Campaign #Terror - Social Media and Extremism THE WEAPONIZATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA THE COMMAND OF THE TREND: SOCIAL MEDIA AS A WEAPON IN THE INFORMATION AGE PEACEFUL PROTEST, POLITICAL REGIMES, AND THE SOCIAL MEDIA CHALLENGE THE WEAPONIZED CROWD: VIOLENT DISSIDENT IRISH REPUBLICANS EXPLOITATION OF SOCIAL IDENTITY WITHIN ONLINE COMMUNITIES Seizing the Digital High Ground: Military Operations and Politics in the Social Media Era PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL INFLUENCE CHARACTERISTIC AFFECTS ON EASE OF USE AND PEER INFLUENCE OF NEW MEDIA USERS OVER TIME FREE INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA: A DUAL-EDGED SWORD

Over 1,800 total pages ... Included publications: Social Media and the Policy-Making Process a Traditional Novel Interaction Social Media Principles Applied to Critical Infrastructure Information Sharing Trolling New Media: Violent Extremist Groups Recruiting Through Social Media An Initial Look at the Utility of Social Media as a Foreign Policy Tool Indicators of Suicide Found on Social Networks: Phase 1 Validating the FOCUS Model Through an Analysis of Identity Fragmentation in Nigerian Social Media Providing Focus via a Social Media Exploitation Strategy Assessing the Use of Social Media in a Revolutionary Environment Social Media Integration into State-Operated Fusion Centers and Local Law Enforcement: Potential Uses and Challenges Using Social Media Tools to Enhance Tacit Knowledge Sharing Within the USMC Social Media: Strategic Asset or Operational Vulnerability? Tweeting Napoleon and Friending Clausewitz: Social Media and the Military Strategist The U.S. Military and Social Media Balancing Social Media with Operations Security (OPSEC) in the 21st Century Division Level Social Media Understanding Violence Through Social Media The Investigation of Social Media Data Thresholds for Opinion Formation The Impact of Social Media on the Nature of Conflict, and a Commander's Strategy for Social Media Provenance Data in Social Media Conflict Prediction Through Geo-Spatial Interpolation of Radicalization in Syrian Social Media Social Media Effects on Operational Art Assessing the Potential of Societal Verification by Means of New Media Army Social Media: Harnessing the Power of Networked Communications Analysis of Department of Defense Social Media Policy and Its Impact on Operational Security Social Media: Valuable Tools in Today's Operational Environment Conflict Prediction Through Geo-Spatial Interpolation of Radicalization in Syrian Social Media