A scan of informal, tactical and ad-hoc uses of communications media in war crisis: February-April 2003.

The Internet and digital mediamaking have vastly expanded capacity to express and share opinions and information, without going through mainstream media (“the box”). War crisis was a living laboratory for informal communications use and trends.

In fact, blogger Flea Rosca claimed, echoing many other commentators, “The current Iraqi war will be the first major war fought on the internet.” But as with all wars, there will be many surprises.

This scan is intended as a sampler of activities that deserve more attention from students and scholars. We hope it encourages you to explore more, as events unfold. The categories we selected overlap, and you might want to rename or add a category. Let us know. If you want to share research you’re doing on informal use of electronic media and the Iraq war, at socialmedia@american.edu, we’ll post a link to it on this site!

We’ve made some preliminary observations in the process of doing this scan:

1. · There is vigorous cross-feeding between informal communications media and gatekept media—whether it's bloggers quoting CNN, or the New York Times tracking bloggers.
   · At the same time, in much of ad-hoc and informal communication—particularly in the "electronic samizdat" form—suspicion of mainstream, gatekept media is common.
   · Informal media depend on the trust invested in the individual voice
   and the personal network. People often trust information they receive in their email inbox more easily than what comes over a network TV
   channel—whether they should or not.
   · There is an overlap in function between information provision and the building and reinforcing of community in many of the informal uses we saw.
   · Bogus information travels as quickly as accurate information along
   electronic networks.

The Center for Social Media coordinated this project, which was executed by School of Communication faculty and students in the Visual Media and Public Communication programs.

Project Director: Pat Aufderheide
Project Manager: Agnes Varnum
Project Researchers and Coordination: Lisa Chan, Aaron Johnson, Navin Kulshreshtha and Catherine Taylor
Staff Liaison: Joel Mills
Web Designers: Navin Kulshreshtha and Aaron Johnson