Ministry of Defence funding research into online habits

PhD papers sponsored by military include studies of hacker culture, crowd behaviour and social networking sites

A branch of the Ministry of Defence is funding postgraduate research into the culture of computer hackers, crowd behaviour at music festivals and football matches, and the impact of Twitter, Facebook and online conspiracy theories in times of crisis.

The MoD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) pays six-figure sums to support individual PhD students to help understand the rapidly evolving world of cyberspace and the way in which social media have become an integral part of daily life.

While some of the PhD projects in the £10m programme have conventional military applications – such as researching technology to support underwater drones, and the development of clothing with fully embedded electronics – £97,487 of funding for research at King’s College London into “the rise of the digital insurgency” is typical of the new direction.

Background papers for the digital insurgency doctorate at King’s College say that the research will target the so-called “hacktivist” group Anonymous. The project will involve the researcher aiming to interact with members of Anonymous, addressing “known unknowns” relating to the group, and understand its grievances and goals, why people are attracted to it and its internal politics.

Rather than just focusing on hacktivism, however, the DTSL appears to be taking an increasing interest in broader issues of social media and online behaviour too. In February, it will host an invitation-only conference focused on “social influence in the information age”.

Other PhD projects funded include one at the University of Exeter, which receives £82,630 from the DSTL, entitled Collective Action in the Digital Age: Social identities and the influence of online and offline behaviour.

Picking out the role of Twitter, Facebook, Skype and mobile messaging, a contract for the project states: “The events of the Arab spring, the London student protests or the summer 2011 riots in English towns and cities show the importance of understanding synchronised collective actions driven by online interactions.”

The project aims to “deliver new and innovative ways to understand and influence online behaviour”. Mark Levine, a professor of social psychology who is supervising the Exeter PhD, told the Guardian: “I think [the MoD] are interested in online influence. That is why they have put money into this kind of stuff. They want to know what influences people, when and how.

“They are interested in influences which might promote what, from their point of view, might be antisocial stuff that they might want to stop, but they are also interested in the kinds of things they can do to promote situations where groups themselves prevent things they are worried about online.”

The MoD initiated a national PhD sponsorship scheme in 2011, with the intention that successful bidders for the support would also spend time at the DSTL, “subject to certain caveats”, according to the agency. Researchers in a wide range of disciplines have been provided with hundreds of thousands of pounds of funding across a range of applications.

How technology can be used to wield influence is also …read more