13 January 2009

New poll: can Soldiers blogs have strategic effect?

What do you think? Can they? Do they currently?
Posted by Jake
Labels: , , ,

5 comments:

  1. membrainJanuary 15, 2009 at 3:21 PM

    I don't know if you've been reading Bouhammer or Old Blue of Bill and Bob's Excellent Afghan Adventure (they're listed on your followers list). If you have, you'll know that they could have a strategic effect.

    But is Big Army ready for such input?

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  2. JakeJanuary 15, 2009 at 9:31 PM

    Yeah, I follow both their blogs and they have some great posts!

    The challenge is figuring out how to determine if milblogs are having a strategic impact ... are they affecting behavior, public opinion, policy?

    Do you have any specific examples of stories posted by these guys, or others, that have something that suggests their effect? That could help us figure out just what effect some of the "big names" in milblogging are having, see what they did in those examples, and see if we can determine some TTPs for getting more strategic "bang" out of milblogs.

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  3. membrainJanuary 16, 2009 at 10:34 AM

    I would venture to say that both of these guys in conjuction with other bloggers had an affect on public opinion regarding the faux reporting of Nick Meo regarding events while embedded with an American PMT in Afghanistan.

    Just Google 'Nick Meo and Bloggers' to see the number of hits. Now quatifying this is going to be the question, but it certainly had an effect on public opinion.

    I don't know what TTP stands for so I can't help you there.

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  4. AnonymousJanuary 17, 2009 at 8:03 PM

    Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures

    The blogs that debunked Scott Thomas Beauchamp and The New Republic's attempted influence operation had strategic effect.

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  5. JakeJanuary 19, 2009 at 10:14 AM

    Good examples ... and both are examples of "defensive blogging" in a way. In both cases, it was outrage by milbloggers that led to more negative attention for these two individuals than likely would have otherwise occured. However, in both cases, the milbloggers did not need to correct or complete stories, they were simply outraged at the perception of Nick Meo's article as painting an ambush response somewhat one-sided and, in the case of Scott Beauchamp, just ticked that the dude was a liar.

    These are similar in concept to "Rather-gate" or the outrage about Senator Trent Lott's comments at Strom Thurmond's birthday party.

    But what about posts from milbloggers that provided new information or a story that otherwise wasn't getting covered? Anyone know of any compelling examples of this sort?

    And, oh yeah ... don't forget to participate in the poll! (Look to the right) Thanks!

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