The Socio-technical Structure of Online Military Forums

On the 2^nd of June we will be presenting some of our findings from the DUN Project at the upcoming Military and Media Symposium at Leeds.

The Military and Media symposium has been organised as part of a British Academy funded project on ‘Representations of contemporary soldiering in digital and visual cultures’.

Our paper is entitled ‘Beyond Pseudonymity: The Socio-technical Structure of Online Military Forums‘ and draws on data collected from online military forums including as Arrse, Navy Net, Rear Party and P-Prune.

The paper explores online military forums as techno-social systems in terms of their power relations, comparing these power relations with the discourses present on the sites.

In particular, we explore how pseudonymity acts as a critical interface between the (supposed) military community who contribute to forum content, and non-military observers who read, access, mine and appropriate the content for political and economic gain.

We are hoping to publish the findings from this paper in a forthcoming journal article and will keep you posted on the details.

In the meantime, for further information and how to attend the Military Media Symposium please click here.