Social Media: More Than Just a Communications Medium
Abstract
This paper draws attention to emerging national security challenges that the U.S. government and the U.S. military are likely to grapple with as a direct result of social media's increasingly disruptive influence. Accordingly, ideas contained herein will advance the position that social media is a multi-faceted entity that is more than just a communications medium or grouping of collaborative communications technologies as currently viewed by the U.S. government and the military community. Social media's unique nature also makes it, all at once, an amorphous assemblage of hugely populated virtual communities with state-like identity and influence; an editorially unencumbered, linked-en-mass informational entity with institutional identity and influence; and a disruptive and potentially weapon-like mechanism capable of inducing and enabling masses of individuals to initiate immediate or timed disruptive actions. The U.S. government risks seeing its various diplomatic, informational, military, and economic (DIME) strategies upended with increasing impunity if it fails to better recognize, redefine, and respond to social media's multi-faceted nature.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 14, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA562051
Entities
People
- T. R. Thomas Iii
Organizations
- United States Army War College