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Jester, Natalie 
ORCID: 0000-0002-7995-3028
(2023)
Accessible, transparent, progressive: conceptualising the militarisation of digital space through the social media presence of arms manufacturers.
Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 51 (2).
pp. 463-488.
doi:10.1177/03058298221137930
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Abstract
Arms sales cause serious harm and the public is – on some level – aware of this, yet their sale continues apace. Militarisation is the engendering of support for war, broadly understood, and this includes the manufacture/sale of weapons. This article examines the Twitter feeds of three large US arms manufacturers: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman (as part of a larger project where approximately 900 tweets were examined). It argues that productive tensions of exposure (knowing) and revelation (societal acknowledgement) engender militarisation within arms manufacturers’ Twitter feeds. It finds that arms manufacturers represent themselves as accessible/transparent through regular updates and high volumes of information. They also distract from the violence of their products by presenting themselves as drivers of human progress, which occurs in social, environmental and technological dimensions. Taken as a whole, the representations of accessibility and distracting content on social media function to facilitate the arms trade in this case.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Article Type: | Article |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HM Sociology J Political Science > JZ International relations T Technology > T Technology (General) |
| Divisions: | Schools and Research Institutes > School of Business, Computing and Social Sciences |
| Research Priority Areas: | Society and Learning |
| Depositing User: | Natalie Jester |
| Date Deposited: | 28 Oct 2022 12:43 |
| Last Modified: | 13 Dec 2023 10:30 |
| URI: | https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/11708 |
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