The Current and Future Use of Social Media Technologies (SMT) on Military Personnel and their Families

社交媒体技术（SMT）的使用是英国军方在维持作战安全和管理现役人员及其家人和朋友的士气方面面临的最重要问题之一。在过去的十年中，英国军队参与了一些海外战役（阿富汗和伊拉克）以及更多的常规行动（例如福克兰群岛和塞浦路斯），这对服务人员及其家属在应对部署轮换方面产生了影响。关于SMT的安全含义范围从偶然到计算。随着SMT的出现，来自战区的实时地理编码推文现在是军事指挥官每天面临的现实，就像服务家庭定期在Facebook上发帖一样。因此，虽然存在MOD协议和指南，包括认可和批准的社交媒体平台（例如http：//www.blogs.mod.uk/social-media-guidelines.html），但负责维护军事福利的高级军官（例如皇家海军陆战队的邓肯杜瓦上校和我们的项目顾问委员会成员）告诉我们，监测和可能的干预是一项重大的管理挑战。此外，RN Com（https：//www.royalnavy.mod.uk/）等官方认可的在线网站与Facebook等更公开的在线平台共存。对国防部的高级官员来说，不仅要预测当前的使用情况，还要预测技术和行为创新，这是一个相当焦虑的来源（Dewar上校，2012年11月）。该项目汇集了信息学，数学生物学，人文地理学，地缘政治学，社会学等领域的独特专业知识，以解决这一互动过程的数量和实际内容。社交媒体接触会增加士兵的压力，对士气和团体凝聚力产生负面影响。据称，保持联系可以对军事人员产生“稳定”作用，提高士气。该研究项目采用三阶段研究模型，研究和可视化社交媒体通信，其在线表现形式及其对与英国军方相关的在线和离线社区的影响。在全面审查MOD和RM关于SMT的政策后。随后将进行第二个更定量的研究阶段，在此期间，我们将对官方批准的网站和Facebook和Twitter等更公开的网站上的语言使用和信息流动进行定量分析（我们已获准进入官方军事论坛，并直接与成员联系和进入消息链）。语言使用研究将包括简单的研究，如不同单词的使用和频率，单词和短语的共同出现，以及其他语言特征的研究，如词尾。这一定量阶段将辅之以定性和人种学研究（第三阶段）。为了这项研究的目的，我们建议在汤顿（40突击队）和普利茅斯（42突击队）的皇家海军陆战队社区内工作。这项研究将采用三种不同的技术进行：半结构化访谈，焦点小组，和用户生成的“示意图”或映射。邓肯杜瓦上校和他的工作人员与福利支持在RN朴茨茅斯将促进介绍和访问这些社区。这项研究将首先通过部署半结构化的采访服务皇家海军陆战队及其家庭成员进行。研究方案的第四阶段将使量化积累的数据与第一阶段开发的量化模型积极互动，并积极开发与政策有关的研究结果。

The use of social media technologies (SMT) is one of the most important issues confronting the UK military in terms of maintaining operational security and managing morale amongst serving personnel and their families and friends. In the last decade, the UK military have been involved in a number of overseas campaigns (Afghanistan and Iraq) alongside more routine operations (e.g. Falklands and Cyprus) with implications for service personnel and their families in terms of coping with deployment rotation. The security implications regarding SMT range from the accidental to the calculating. With the advent of SMT, real-time geo-coded tweets from theatre are now a day to day reality facing military commanders as are regular Facebook postings by service families. So while MOD protocols and guidance exists including recognised and approved social media platforms (e.g. http://www.blogs.mod.uk/social-media-guidelines.html) senior military officers responsible for maintaining military welfare (e.g. Colonel Duncan Dewar of the Royal Marines and a member of our project advisory board) informed us that monitoring and possible intervention represents a major managerial challenge. Moreover, officially sanctioned online sites such as RN Com (https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/) co-exist with more public online platforms such as Facebook. Anticipating not only current usage but also like technological and behavioural innovation is a source of considerable anxiety for senior officers in the MOD (Colonel Dewar, per com, November 2012). This project draws together unique expertise in the fields of informatics, mathematical biology, human geography, geopolitics, sociology in order to address the quantity and actual content of this interactive process Previous research indicates that frequent electronic contact can have positive and negative consequences. Social media contact can increase the stress that soldiers are under having a negative impact on morale and group cohesion. Staying in touch can have purportedly 'stabilising' effects on military personnel, boosting morale. This research project adopts a three phase research model for researching and visualising social media communications, their online manifestations and their impact and influence on online and offline communities related to the UK military. After a thorough review of MOD and RM policies regarding SMT. This will be followed by a second more quantitative phase of research, during which we will undertake quantitative analysis of language usage and information flow on both officially sanctioned sites and more public sites such as Facebook and Twitter (we have been granted permission to access official military forums and to contact members directly and access the messaging chains). Language usage studies will include simple studies such as the usage and frequencies of different words, co-occurrences of words and phrases, and studies of other language features such as word endings. This quantitative stage will be complimented by qualitative and ethnographic research (stage three). For the purposes of this study we propose working within the Royal Marines communities based in Taunton (40 Commando) and Plymouth (42 Commando). This research will be undertaken using three distinct techniques; semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and user-generated 'diagrammings' or mappings. Colonel Duncan Dewar and his staff associated with Welfare Support at RN Portsmouth will facilitate introductions and access to these communities. This research will be initially undertaken through the deployment of semi-structured interviews with serving Royal Marines and their family members. The fourth phase of the research programme will allow for the active interaction of quantitatively-accrued data with the quantitative models developed in phase 1 and active development of policy-relevant findings.