From sofa to frontline: The digital mediation and domestication of warfare

Gregory Asmolov

doi:10.1177/1750635221989568

Abstract

Much attention has been dedicated to how digital platforms change the nature of modern conflict. However, less has been paid to how the changes in the nature of warfare affect everyday lives. This article examines how digital mediation allows a convergence of the domestic environment and the battlefield by offering new ways for participation in warfare. It contributes to the discussion of how new participatory affordances change the nature of conflicts and whether they empower users or offer institutional actors more control over users. To this end, this research explores the transformation of domestic spaces, mediated via memes, as digital artefacts of participatory culture (see Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, 2009, by Henry Jenkins). Building on the notion of domestication (see Domesticating the Revolution: Information and Communication Technologies and Everyday Life, 1993, by Roger Silverstone), the article conducts a discursive analysis of memes referring to the notion of ‘sofa warfare’ – an ironic description of internet users taking part in conflict without leaving their own sofas – in the context of the Russia–Ukraine conflict.

Highlights

War and mediated participationA renowned historian of war, Martin van Creveld (1991: 89), has described the paradox whereby war is ‘the most confused and confusing of all human activities’, which ‘at the same time is one of the most organized’
Approaching sofa warfare as a discursive structure requires a theoretical and methodological framework enabling us to follow the transformation of domestic space in light of the new forms of digital mediation that allow participation in conflicts
Exploring how the digital affordances of participation in warfare change the domestic space relies on the discursive analysis of memes as digital artefacts ‘transmitted by consumers–producers for discursive purposes’ (Wiggins and Bowers, 2014/2015: 1892)

Summary

Introduction

A renowned historian of war, Martin van Creveld (1991: 89), has described the paradox whereby war is ‘the most confused and confusing of all human activities’, which ‘at the same time is one of the most organized’. Approaching sofa warfare as a discursive structure requires a theoretical and methodological framework enabling us to follow the transformation of domestic space in light of the new forms of digital mediation that allow participation in conflicts. Research on digitally mediated participation in conflict is focused more on the technologies of engagement, and less on how the offline space of everyday life is modified by new participatory opportunities The latter requires a framework allowing us to follow how digital tools may change the private spaces of users. I would argue that the object of discursive construction includes identities and virtual communities, and an additional set of objects – the everyday life of users In this light, memes both reflect and shape the role of digital tools in participation in warfare. Exploring the process of domestication of warfare requires an analysis of memes as discourses that take a part in shaping private space

Methods

Conclusion