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The Army announced the other day that it would get a million or more followers on micro-messaging site Twitter, just like “Punk’d” host and social networking superstar Ashton Kutcher. But catching to Mr. Demi won’t be easy — since many Army bases block Twitter on its networks.

It’s the latest example of the military’s schizophrenic relationship with social media.

American Forces Press Service, the Defense Department's in-house wire service, is taking a page from the bloggers and offering up a new new series of internet reports from one of its own.

AFPS reporter Fred W. Baker III, who is currently on an extended assignment in Afghanistan, has a dedicated page on the Department of Defense website. It's a pretty slick multimedia setup that combines video, photo essays and dispatches.

Some of the US military’s top flag officers are becoming dedicated bloggers and attempting to change the military and extend their reach, one Facebook “friend” at a time.

They are using the Internet and social media to reach down within their own traditionally top-down organizations – and outside them, too – to do something the military isn’t known for: creating more transparency to empower young military leaders and the public.

Some senior officers say transforming the military means more than buying next-generation vehicles or developing new training. It’s giving more people more access to what they’re doing and thinking. That’s already happening as top officers create their own blog sites and Facebook pages in order to keep pace with the plugged-in, hyperconnected charges they lead.

Oates
decided to focus his efforts on this internal audience, as opposed to
some other military social media experiments, which try to persuade a
larger crowd. For now, he wants to unfiltered access to his troops.

And he wants them to talk right back. The chat gave junior officers and enlisted men a chance to talk
directly with their commanding general -- which is unusual, offline. The
chat's anonymity let them be frank, even about Oates' beloved (and
ill-fated) Texas football teams. 

The general shrugs the interactions off as no big deal. "Fundamentally what I'm doing is not new. What I'm doing is
communicating with my soldiers. What's new is the medium in which we're
communicating."

Over the coming week or so, I will be looking at a large number of milblogs for the following:

• reasons for blogs (update friends, tell good stories, correct the record, tell another side, etc)
• purpose of blog (journal, "war stories", opinion on current events, etc)
• any evident bias (pro-war, anti-war, any other possible "agenda", etc)
• any trends that I identify (changes over time, etc)

The Defense Department made headlines earlier this year when it blocked access to the sites from military computers. In May, YouTube officials said they were pushing the Pentagon to reconsider. But this month, Army officials said they have no plans to back down and may block even more sites.

"Quite frankly, we had some other issues with respect to YouTube," said Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, the Army's chief information officer. He cited an instance where a soldier's video showed up on a "terrorist website" and was altered to suggest that the solider opposed the Iraq war and wanted the U.S. to bring all its troops home.

"Once it's on the Internet it's always going to be there," Sorenson said. "In many cases some of these videos, unfortunately, were being maliciously affected."

That is, they seem to have been given a highly

negative sense of the blogosphere, and were discouraging soldiers from

posting anything that might affect anything. Which to me is sass-akwards.

Milbloggers, in my non-humble opinion, have done more for the war effort

and more to correct misleading reports than the entire Army Public Affairs

Branch has (note: this is not a slam on them, but praise for the MilBlog

community). The Army should be encouraging troops to give *more*

information on their first-hand impressions and how things are going, not

less. "Winning the War" begins at home - we're not going to be defeated

here, but may have to pull out because of people's impressions at home,

which in my opinion seem to be shaped by misleading reports of what the

overall picture here is. (Note again - I'm writing less from my own direct

experiences than from the impression I get second-hand, both talking to

people who have direct experiences and reading what I consider to be

reliable sources).

This attitude towards soldier-bloggers, which might be

limited to just the 4th Division, seems to be another example of the Army

shooting itself in the foot - making it's mission harder.