The War Feed: Digital War in Plain Sight

Abstract

Today’s Russian war against Ukraine is unique in its unfolding through a prism of personalized realities, made and remade for individuals, in what we call the “war feed.” This is a new disruptor of war fought in plain sight, revolutionizing both war and media, in and through a frenzy of participation in immediate yet continuous, personalized yet global, digital feeds. The war feed renders the war in and against Ukraine up close and personal. Never have so many images and videos of human suffering and death in war been so quickly available, streaming from the battlefield. A digital multitude posting, liking, sharing, and applauding each individual image or short form video, are all participants in a fractalized psychological war. In this article we propose that the war feed transforms the way war today is perceived, participated in, and fought over, but also how it will be remembered and forgotten. We focus on the messaging app Telegram as a rapidly evolving weapon of psychological warfare, which utterly disrupts the relationship between the showing, hiding, and the seeing of modern war. There seems little point in raging against ineffectual moderation and regulation of social media platforms, whilst the world burns on Telegram.