Soldiers share stories online; selfcensored stories

A great story in the Washington post today that underscores my thesis as written in publications about the way individual soldiers use social media to share their experiences online; selfconscious and conscious of their audience.

In the article ‘Whats it Like’,  soldiers are telling that they share only  very censored versions of their experiences to the homefront.

The capabilities of soldiers in a warzone to communicate (internet, social media et cetera) have not shrunken the psychological or emotional distance from home that rises from the frontline experience. Near misses, firefights, IED-explosions, all of those ‘frontline experiences’ are more easily shared amongst collegagues who have had similar experiences. the homefront will not understand how it  feels to be shot at, or someone trying to blow up your truck.

The soldier understands that, so he tells a different story at home than amongst collegues. He adopts different stories, based on the identity he has -a soldier in a warzone- and based on the audience recieving his story, who does not share that identity. What he shares is based on the set of norms and assumptions that exist within his subculture at that moment. This subculture is the US military in Iraq or Afghanistan. Within that subculture, things like operational security -opsec- and the idea that the homefront doest not fully understand whats it like form the basis of most stories. In short: Soldiers think about their position and their audience before they speak.

Social media may bridge the geographical distance between the front and the homefront, but not the emotional. The soldier realizes that. Opsec and the fear of upsetting the family are amongst the most important issues a soldier thinks about before telling something. So the chances of problems with public opinion or opsec, ‘friendly fire’, are very slim.

From this perspective, letting soldiers tell their stories from the frontline through new communicationtools like social media is not as big risk as it may seem at first glance. Strict regulations are therefore not necessary. Maybe the government can even apply these stories to build a positive framing about the way things are ‘over there’. The soldiers and the military leadership share the same need for a supportive homefront that will not get scared about whats going from the stories by  by individual soldiers and the military as a whole about their presence  in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Diary of FOX News reporter embedded in K

Ofcourse not only individuals and governments use sociale media. Traditional media are using it too. One example of this what i call hybrid reporting by professional journalist on a new and nontraditional media: Diary of FOX News reporter embedded in Kabul – Day 3: Embedded in Kabul. Q13 FOX News reporter Jeff Van Sant is embe… http://ow.ly/1ej2To

Should be interesting to compare the story he is sharing to the stories governments and individual soldiers are sharing.  Gives you a great peek into the choices different actors make while telling similar stories.

Social media saves lives!

A very interesting piece in the Kansas City Star -who doesnt read it in the Netherlands these days :)- about the way soldiers are using social media to help them cope with enemy attacks.

One of the examples is explained in the article, the case of the parachute grenade. Sounds like a Sherlock Holmes mystery..

Old russian tankgrenades type RKG-3 from the 1970’s,  dropped of buildings with small parachutes causes a lot of damage last year amongst US troops in Humvee and Stryker vehicles.  In an attempt to get some sort of defensive technique against these small but deadly swords of Damocles, one soldier put out a textmessage on 58 military forums. He reached about 220,000 people and within the hour he got his answer from some remote location in Afghanistan: netting. Using nets a certain way caused the grenades to bounce of the vehicle and explode on the ground, where the schrapnel can cause less damage.

A simple technique that has saved a lot of lives since.

So there you have it, social media saves lives.
It’s elementary, my dear Watson.

Nieuw Pentagonbeleid sociale media blijft onduidelijk

Het Pentagon is zoekende naar de juiste omgangsvorm met sociale media. Haar oude beleidstuk, DTM 09-026, verloopt op 1 maart 2011. Wat er voor in de plaats komt is DOD instruction (DOD=Department of Defence) instruction 8430.

Door ‘effeciency’ maatregelen (lees; bezuinigingen) is er nog geen vastomlijnd stuk dat deze instruction gaat vormen. Omdat het gebruik van sociale media de afgelopen tijd nogal wat discussie opriep is er veel interesse in dit nog onbekende stuk. Wat gaat het DoD doen met sociale mediagebruik door militairen?

Wel is er informatie over te vinden op:

http://www.slideshare.net/USArmySocialMedia/learn-about-dod-instruction-8430aa

of anders via

http://armylive.dodlive.mil/index.php/2011/02/the-way-ahead-for-dod-social-media-policy/

Het blijft dus afwachten wat het Pentagon gaat doen met sociale media als informatiemedium en in het bijzonder -mijn interesse- wat zij gaan doen met het gebruik van sociale media als communicatiekanaal door militairen in een oorlogsgebied.