Mean Tweets: Crisis Stability, Escalation, and Social Media

This presentation will present initial findings from the research which suggest that social media is not as escalatory as often portrayed by the media and international think tanks. Escalation is a complex web, rather than a ladder, and social media messages are typically interpreted through pre-existing narratives and perspectives, rather than serving as game-changers. For...

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This presentation will present initial findings from the research which suggest that social media is not as escalatory as often portrayed by the media and international think tanks. Escalation is a complex web, rather than a ladder, and social media messages are typically interpreted through pre-existing narratives and perspectives, rather than serving as game-changers. For the most part, tweets are “cheap talk.” The research does, however, suggest certain conditions in which social media can have an escalatory effect by impacting the decision-making process. The presentation will include a brief overview of the project methodology, a summary of findings to-date, and recommendations for how nuclear policymakers can ensure Twitter remains in the category of “cheap talk” and the scenario in the 2020 Commission remains fictional.

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