is.
This is, as you say, potentially an incredible PR tool. But I think the military's official party line can often be quite different from the questions being asked at the front lines.
Regarding the difference in the uptake of blogging between the US and British military - my feeling is (again based completely on anecdotal evidence) that the British public and press are generally more critical and suspicious of their government than in the US. There is a lot of tension around civil liberties at the moment and the way in which the government is handling things like protecting public information and ID cards.
I think the impact that the Iraq dossier and nuclear weapons controversy in the build up to the Iraq war had a lasting impact on the credibility of the British government and it may be that pushing more soldiers to blog is considered a risky move a this time, especially as public opinion is very much behind withdrawing the troops.
]]>I think the first point to address is that any blogging will have to follow the guidelines of the military. This in itself I think calls into question the very reason people often start bogs – to express themselves freely. The Sensei Katana examples underlines this quite well.
Soldiers who want to blog in order to debate and challenge risk being singled out or might genuinely not want to affect morale or give the perception of being unsure about their cause to whoever the ‘other’ or ‘enemy’ is.
This is, as you say, potentially an incredible PR tool. But I think the military’s official party line can often be quite different from the questions being asked at the front lines.
Regarding the difference in the uptake of blogging between the US and British military – my feeling is (again based completely on anecdotal evidence) that the British public and press are generally more critical and suspicious of their government than in the US. There is a lot of tension around civil liberties at the moment and the way in which the government is handling things like protecting public information and ID cards.
I think the impact that the Iraq dossier and nuclear weapons controversy in the build up to the Iraq war had a lasting impact on the credibility of the British government and it may be that pushing more soldiers to blog is considered a risky move a this time, especially as public opinion is very much behind withdrawing the troops. ]]>
I have written a post with a few initial thoughts about the impact of blogging on military history here:
http://mediatingconflict.blogspot.com/2008/01/milblogging-how-it-might-change.html
]]>http://archive.timesonline.co.uk/tol/archive/tol_archive/article2833772.ece
I think Churchill would of always wanted the last word and a blog would of appealed. Perhaps later as a war cabinet minister or PM he would of seen blogs as an useful instrument for homefront morale/PR – when it suited the government.
Do you know if war museums are gathering material in milblogs, YouTube posts etc as they would with letters and diaries of service personnel from earlier wars? Should official war histories in the future make reference to milblogs or social media?
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