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Building on the notion that military blogs (milblogs) can support national strategic narratives, the aim of the article is to deepen our knowledge of exactly how blogging that depicts soldiers' personal experiences of 'everyday life' can serve to support a strategic narrative. This article explores empirically how Swedish milblogs published between January 2010 and April 2012 articulate the experience of being a soldier in the Afghanistan mission. The analysis shows that soldiering is treated as an everyday practice, de-dramatized and routinized where military assignments are meshed with civilian duties. The article concludes that the 'normalization' of war in milblogs can potentially serve to strengthen national strategic narratives, facilitate recruitment of soldiers and add to growing 'militarism' in society.

AbstractScholars have characterized the EU as a normative power whose greatest asset is to be able to shape conceptions of what is 'normal' in international affairs. Scholars have argued that a normative power has to meet certain discursive standards; representing others in a non‐antagonistic, humble way. We question whether the EU can live up to this ideal when defending itself against Russian strategic communication. The empirical enquiry establishes that while the EU High Commissioner communicates in line with the stipulated standards, the newly established East Stratcom Taskforce and its publication 'Disinformation Digest' diverges from this ideal. The establishment of the Taskforce has led to the EU losing reflexivity and normative power. The article concludes that while Diez' and Manners' standards are utopian in the contemporary communicative climate, they remain useful as guiding rules that can help normative powers 'watch their language' and avoid doing unnecessary harm.

The new media situation gives fuel to increased competition between narratives. In the sphere of security this poses challenges to government strategic narratives. Scholars, drawing on findings from the Anglo-Saxon sphere, suggest that the new media activism gives rise to counter-hegemonic narratives that thrive on and through social media sites. We argue that the emergence of counter-narratives in the sphere of security depends upon a few key dynamics that might vary with political context such as political culture, the size of the blogosphere, the debate in mainstream media and socialization processes within the military organization. Our case study of Swedish blogging about Sweden's military contribution to the International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan suggests that blogs are mainly used to sustain – and not to challenge – the governmental narrative. This invites us to question the significance of new media platforms as counter-hegemonic forces in communities beyond the Anglo-Saxon sphere.

The advent of social media can be seen both as a risk and an opportunity by armed forces. Previous research has primarily examined whether or not the use of social media endangers or strengthens armed forces' strategic narrative. We examine armed forces' perceptions of risks and opportunities on a broad basis, with a particular focus on areas of deployment. The article is based on a survey of perceptions of social media amongst the armed forces of EU member states, thus adding to previous research through its comparative perspective. Whereas previous research has mainly
focused on larger powers, such as the US and the UK, this article includes the views of the armed forces of 26 EU states, including several smaller nations. In analyzing the results we asked whether or not risk and opportunity perceptions were related to national ICT maturity and the existence of a social media strategy. The analysis shows that perceptions of opportunities outweigh perceptions of risks, with marketing and two-way communication as the two most prominent
opportunities offered by the use of social media. Also, armed forces in countries with a moderate to high ICT maturity emphasize social media as a good way for marketing purposes. (author's abstract)