Sharded war: Seeing, not sharing

Merrin, W. and Hoskins, A. (2024) Sharded war: Seeing, not sharing. Digital War, (doi: 10.1057/s42984-023-00086-5) (Early Online Publication)

Abstract

The digital maelstrom of images, videos, messages, comments, uploaded via smartphones to Telegram and TikTok and globally remediated, place war today increasingly in plain sight. But visibility is no sign of recognition. Rather, social media shape sharded war, namely that which users experience through split, splintered, fractured, personalised, streamed and shattered feeds. Algorithmically, but also personally fed digital realities, make war as an always-on informational battle against everyone with a different opinion. In this way, using content-driven regulation, moderation and fact checking, to blunt the billions of shards of the horror of wars unfolding in Ukraine, Gaza and Israel, misses the target. Sharded war is ultimately unverified and uninspectable, in its paradoxical mix of personalised form and global scale, but also in exploiting the weakest link in the hierarchy of attention of regulators. Social media increasingly platform violence, threatening claims, narratives and realities, readily seen and experienced, but not shared.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Early Online Publication
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Hoskins, Professor Andrew
• Authors: Merrin, W., and Hoskins, A.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Sociology Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences
• Journal Name: Digital War
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• ISSN: 2662-1975
• ISSN (Online): 2662-1983
• Published Online: 03 January 2024
• Copyright Holders: Copyright: © The Author(s) 2023
• First Published: First published in Digital War 2024
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons licence