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护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。在过去十年中，英国军方参与了一些海外行动(阿富汗和伊拉克)，以及更常规的行动(如福克兰群岛和塞浦路斯)，在应对部署轮换方面对服役人员及其家属产生了影响。与SMT有关的安全影响从意外到计算都有。随着SMT的出现，来自战场的实时地理编码推文现在已经成为军事指挥官面临的日常现实，服役家庭定期在Facebook上发布推文也是如此。因此，尽管存在国防部协议和指南，包括公认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，官方批准的在线网站，如RN Com(https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/))，与脸书等更公开的在线平台共存。不仅预测当前的使用情况，而且还预测技术和行为创新，这是国防部高级官员相当焦虑的一个来源(Dewar上校，PER COM，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、社会学等领域的独特专门知识，以解决这一互动过程的数量和实际内容。先前的研究表明，频繁的电子接触可能会产生积极和消极的后果。社交媒体接触会增加士兵承受的压力，对士气和群体凝聚力产生负面影响。据称，保持联系可能会对军事人员产生“稳定”作用，从而提振士气。该研究项目采用三阶段研究模型，研究和可视化社交媒体交流、它们的在线表现以及它们对与英国军方相关的线上和线下社区的影响和影响。在彻底审查了有关SMT的MOD和RM政策之后。这之后将是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以及Facebook和Twitter等更多公共网站上的语言使用和信息流进行量化分析(我们已获准访问官方军事论坛，并直接联系成员和访问消息链)。语言用法研究将包括简单的研究，如不同单词的用法和频率，单词和短语的共现，以及其他语言特征的研究，如单词结尾。这一定量阶段将辅之以定性和人种学研究(第三阶段)。为了本研究的目的，我们建议在陶顿(40名特种兵)和普利茅斯(42名特种兵)的皇家海军陆战队社区内工作。这项研究将使用三种不同的技术：半结构化访谈、焦点小组和用户生成的‘图表’或映射。邓肯·杜瓦上校和他在朴茨茅斯RN提供福利支持的工作人员将为介绍和进入这些社区提供便利。这项研究最初将通过部署与现役皇家海军陆战队及其家属的半结构化访谈来进行。研究方案的第四阶段将使积累的数量数据与第一阶段开发的数量模型积极互动，并积极制定与政策有关的结论。

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.