From Paper Maps to Military Geospatial Data Science
FORCES military geospatial data science projects THOR, OPMAPS, Barbarossa, and South China Sea turn maps into evidence for strategy.
Author: Sorin Adam Matei
Assistant Vice President for Partnerships in Strategic Defense Innnovation and Professor of Communication at Purdue University, Director of the FORCES initiative leads research teams that study the relationship between technological and social systems using big data, simulation, and mapping approaches. He published papers and articles in Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Information Society, National Interest, and Foreign Policy. He is the author or co-editor of several books. The most recent is Structural differentation in social media. He also co-edited Ethical Reasoning in Big Data,Transparency in social media and Roles, Trust, and Reputation in Social Media Knowledge Markets: Theory and Methods (Computational Social Sciences) , all three the product of the NSF funded KredibleNet project. Dr. Matei's teaching portfolio includes technology and strategy, online interaction, and digital media analytics classes. A former BBC World Service journalist, his contributions have been published in Esquire and several leading Romanian newspapers. In Romania, he is known for his books Boierii Mintii (The Mind Boyars), Idolii forului (Idols of the forum), and Idei de schimb (Spare ideas).
Why the Space Economy Needs “Spice
When Jeff Bezos announced that he would build a 50,000-satellite space data center, Musk immediately plussed with a million-satellite call. The space cowboy drama aside, the prize is real. Data-in-space may finally give the space economy its first real reason to exist,…
An academic ChatGPT needs a better schooling
Originally published in the Times Higher Education If you know how ChatGPT works, you won’t be surprised to learn that AI detection filters consider it highly likely that the chatbot had a large hand in writing the US Constitution and the Book of Genesis. Nor will you be surprised that ChatGPT…
Quantum computers are kaleidoscopes: unusual metaphors explain the unusual better
The article was originally published in The Conversation Quantum computing is like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates: You never know what you’re gonna get. Quantum phenomena – the behavior of matter and energy at the atomic and subatomic levels – are not definite, one…
Transforming Warfighting: The Case for AI and Software-Centric Strategies
Please cite Matei, S. A. (2022-2025). Transforming Warfighting: The Case for Software-Centric Strategies. Matei.org/I Think Blog. https://matei.org/ithink/2024/05/27/doing-more-with-less-a-data-model-driven-methodology-for-efficient-war-fighting-platforms-design/ Since time immemorial military technologies have been built “just in case,” focusing on technical superiority features. Firearms, artillery, ships, and later planes and missiles…
What is a strategic technology?
What are the necessary and sufficient factors that lead to the emergence and use of war-winning strategic technologies? The following definitions and assumptions may lead to the criteria and propositions capable of imagining new war-winning strategic technologies. We use them in the…
What should a strategist know? A competency-based education program for strategic thinkers and doers
In my role as an Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Research at Purdue University, I partnered with two colleagues with solid experience in military strategy research and education to propose a new methodology for training strategic thinkers and doers. David Benson,…
How out-of-control transaction costs spawn preferential attachment
Online human networks are highly centralized, with a few nodes raking in most connections. The conventional wisdom is that this is the product of so-called “preferential attachment.” In Barabasi and Albert’s [1] formulation, new nodes (connectors) added to any network will prefer…
Russia’s practical nuclear options make no sense (and vice-versa)
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly threatened Ukraine and its supporters with a nuclear attack that will settle the war he started on February 24, 2022. Some observers claim that the threat is a mere rhetorical trick, while others believe it is part…
Disinformation is a “Big Lie” that contradicts Common Sense Asking For Faith Alone
In the digital era, “discourse power” is real power. Disinformation has become a preferred method of confounding the adversary and winning supporters. How does this work at the level of great power competition and conflict? Why is this question relevant today? Here…
Can international trade instigate the next great conflict?
A potential favoring factor for the invasion of Ukraine and the threats made of China to occupy Taiwan could be that International trade clusters cut across political-military alliances. In a study I conducted with Nagisha Ishinabe and published in The National Interest…
Media Framing, priming, and steering public attention
This module is a sequence of the course From Mass Media to Social Media Theory The history of media research is the history of just a few questions, of which the most salient is “what does media do to us?” There are…
China’s South China Sea Strategy is All about Taiwan: A Spatial Strategic Analysis
What can we surmise about China’s intentions in the South China Sea? Although I have no crystal ball, in this National Interest article I offer some hard geographic, military, and economic facts. Analyzing what configurations of power projection and claim China has…
The First and (Only) Law of Robotic Warfare
EUNOMIA: TRUST BEFORE YOU LIKE SOCIAL MEDIA MESSAGES
WHAT IS, HOW and WHY you should join EUNOMIA? Two years ago, the European Union Horizon 2020 program awarded EUNOMIA, a consortium of 10 academic-public-private organizations, three million dollars to create a new type of social media platform on which content is…
Strong and Efficacious Use of Affordance Theory in Communication Inquiry
Summary: Affordance theory, proposed by Gibson and brought to technology research by Norman , proposes that the use of an object is intrinsically determined by its physical shape. However, when translated to digital objects, affordance theory loses explanatory power, as the same…
Preventing military Artificial Intelligence (AIs) agents from taking over from humans is simple: treat them as humans by teaching them the golden rule
The development of AIs capable of targeting, shooting, and eliminating enemies in seconds has reached the threshold of possibility. There is much promise for creating strong defensive weapons but there is just as much fear. What if these AIs could turn rogue…
Should we regulate Facebook? Ask the moms.
An experiment by Tromholt Morten from the University of Copenhagen published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking suggests that people who gave up Facebook for a week ended (for that time) happier, less lonely, and less depressed than those who did not.…
DC Conference on Social Media and Regulation
On Friday May 24, 2019 I organize in collaboration with the French Laboratory of Excellence in Creative Industries, the ICA preconference “Riding or Lashing the Waves: Regulating Media for Diversity in a Time of Uncertainty,” to discuss whether regulatory and policy changes are…
How much should I know?
Once, Socrates was approached at the local gymnasium by a young Athenian man, seeking the tutoring of the great mind of Attica, the wisest man since Solon. “O, Socrates son of Sophronikus, you who know so many things, please take me as…
Social Media Analysis Online Class for Liberal Arts Majors
In collaboration with the Online Masters’ Program in Strategic Communication, I launched the Social Media Analytics Class, which will be available worldwide. Introduction to social media analytics Overview of digital analytics Twitter as a data source for analysis Introduction to social media…
Latent Crusaders: Narrative Strategies of Survival in Early Modern Danubian Principalities, 1550-1750
NOTE: In some ways, I am a historian born again as a social scientist. A number of years ago in collaboration with Caius Dobrescu I published this article, which alongside my Romanian language book The Mind Boyars, is the fruit of my…
Why electricity, magnetism (and radio waves) are the same thing and how should this help us understand the fundamental tradeoffs of modern telecommunication technologies
This article is a companion material to the Course COM 25100 Information, Technology, Society which I teach at Purdue University as a University core class. The course teaches trade-off thinking as a fundamental method for understanding technological choice and innovation. Where does electricity come…
Communication Technologies & Trade-offs: A particular case of marginal utility
This article is a companion material to the courses I teach at Purdue University as a University core class. The course teaches trade-off thinking as a fundamental method for understanding technological choice and innovation. All technologies are shaped by competing choices Any…
The generative dilemma of the Internet
This is an introduction to a set of core concepts related to Internet communication for the Course COM 251 Information, Technology, Society which I teach at Purdue University. One of Aesop’s fables gives a clever answer to the question: “what is the…
What is the Internet edge-to-edge (end-to-end or e2e) design principle? What is it good for and what are its main trade-offs?
This is a tutorial on a set of core concepts related to Internet communication for the courses I teach at Purdue University. In a previous post about the basic architecture of the Internet, I discussed the Internet’s intrinsic decentralization and its layered…
What is the Internet? What does the Internet do? Why is it an “inter-net” and not just a simple “net? An introduction and tutorial
This is a tutorial on a set of core concepts related to Internet communication for my courses at Purdue University. For technical details, take a look at the PowerPoint presentation The Internet is not one net. It is more versatile than that. The…
The Social Media Analysis of French Presidential Elections: Telescope or Microscope?
The results of the French elections are in and the two front runners in the polls did indeed come up as predicted by traditional methods. Marine Le Pen and Emanuelle Macron will be the two contenders of the second round of elections.…
Does Social Media Data Suggest that Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon Will Compete in the Second Tour of the French Presidential Elections?
What does the social media crystal ball say about the biggest global event of the day, the French presidential campaign? On social media, Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon seemed to be the favorites, running neck in neck on Twitter the day before…
Purdue Digital Storytelling Network Launched, partners with Google News Lab University
Today I launch a new teaching and research initiative which will empower Purdue students aspiring to embrace careers in big data, social media analytics, or communication. The initiative starts with a partnership with Google News Lab University. The partnership, which includes other…
Did social media elect Donald Trump?
Donald Trump’s social media campaign is known for its virulence, but relatively less was said about its virality. Trump had a larger base of followers on Twitter. By the end of the campaign, he had 15 million followers to Hillary Clinton’s 11.1.…
The Trump vs. Clinton race goes on: 2016 presidential race not yet settled after first debate
Hillary Clinton did a very good job during the debates, as she was expected to, while Donald Trump had a hard time trying to decide if his open glove style is appropriate or not in the given circumstances (it was not and…
I, you, we: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton word fight on Facebook emphasize the importance of assuming personal responsibility
The rhetorical struggle between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is not only about issues, actions and change, but also about who will ultimately be responsible for everything said. Donald Trump affirms that the agent of change is himself and this is reflected…
Jump in Google searches for “Donald Trump” mirrors closing gap between candidates
Google Trends analysis shows that Donald Trump has been dominating and dominates Google Searches by a large margin. This is a good predictor for public interest and can lead to future changes in intentions to vote. In the last 90 days, the volume of searches…
Hillary Clinton’s breathing down Trump’s neck only makes his sails billow in Twitterspace
On the quiet Saturday morning of July 23rd, just after the Republic National Convention, Donald Trump was getting about 7500 Tweets per hour. Hillary somewhere around 5500. The interesting part was that while Hillary got quite a bit of traction from the usual…
Donald Trump’s Facebook campaign leads Hillary Clinton’s by a large margin, building on Twitter strength
Donald Trump rip-roars his way through social media, keeping Hillary Clinton’s Campaign in a tight spot. An average official Trump Facebook page [1] post published after August 1st 2015, when the primary campaigning began, attracts on average a staggering 72,058 likes. An…
Donald Trump Twitter campaign outperforms Hillary Clinton’s in all dimensions: output, engagement, performance
I dipped the R cup in the Twitter font of wisdom and here is what I found… For the period April 15-July 16 Trump’s campaign leads Hillary Clintons’ on Twitter by a factor of about 2. Trump’s campaign put out a couple…
The message of Trump is Trump. And Hillary Clinton’s, too!
Donald Trump has an obsession: Donald Trump. But so does Hillary Clinton. This might give the Donald an extra umpf in the final presidential race. This is one of the conclusions of my analysis of the 2176 tweets put out by the…
Is “the media” obsessed with Donald Trump? How much? Does it matter?
The issue if and how much is Trump’s celebrity influenced by a so-called “media obsession” with his persona and ideas has been much discussed during the 2016 nomination campaign. Here are some opinions… The Media’s Not Being Honest About Its Trump Obsession…
French Communicator Joseph Daniel and PBS host Alex Heffner to Debate American Presidential Race from a Global Perspective
On the Super Tuesday (March 1, 2016) Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Bernard Sanders et al. will do the most important battle of the primary season. Two heavyweight communicators, one American (Alex Heffner) and the other French (Joseph Daniel), will discuss…
Promoting competency based education through trade-off thinking
We live in a world of things. Those who make the things define the way we live our lives. Their decisions impact not only our trivial needs, such as spending a night on Facebook checking the status of our friends. Technologies that…
The importance of trade-off thinking in studying communication technologies
Technologies such as the power grid, plumbing, or mass media rely on standards that are accepted as simply being there. Electric power is provided at 120V AC, pipe gauges are measured in fractional increments, typically expressed in inches, sitcoms are 30 min…
Trade off as a way of thinking: An interdisciplinary undergraduate course and learning experience in technology / STEM education at Purdue Polytechnic
In Spring 2015, together with my colleagues, Michael Smith, Abrar Hammoud, and Davin Huston I developed a multidisciplinary learning experience whose main goal is to help students acquire competencies related to problem formulation, design thinking, ethical and critical thinking, advanced persuasive speaking,…
Bataclan Concert Hall attacked in Paris France, many victims dead
Hostages, victims of shootout and explosions reported near the Bataclan concert venue, Stade de France in Paris, France… The French police assaulted the concert hall, where the attackers took over a hundred hostages. Terrorist acts resulted in over 60 dead… #FranceUnderAttack Tweets
Shooting, explosion next to Carillon bar, restaurant in Paris kills scores of individuals
Paris, France was hit by one of the most horrendous terrorist incidents of the post-2001 era. An ISIS inspired killing squad raked with machine gun fire and maimed and killed with suicide vest explosions several restaurants and a concert venue on November…
Terrorist shootout and attack in Paris, France killings result in at least 18 victims. Location, video, photo, map, kmz
View image | gettyimages.com Reuters reports that at least 18 people were killed in shootouts and explosions near a soccer stadium in Paris. This is a developing story. Please return for updated information.
What is a theory of mass communication?
What qualifies as a mass communication theory? Typically, the phrase is connected with the idea of “media effects.” Mass communication theories are typically imagined as ways to explain how mass communication affects us. How does mass communication influence our political or shopping choices, how…
Com 559 Syllabus – Current Trends in Mass Communication Research – From Mass Media to Social Media
Purdue University Fall 2017 Meeting time: Tuesday – Thursday, 12 – 1:20 PM, BRNG 2275 Office hours: BRNG 2140, 2:15 – 4 PM T-Th and by appointment Instructor: Sorin Adam Matei, smatei at purdue edu According to the site Alexa.com, which tracks…
Seven Layers of Social Media Analytics
A useful resource for those interested in mining data out of social media flows, the book introduces the novice researcher to basic techniques for: Scraping data from text Extracting and analyzing networks from social media flows Analyzing behaviors as evidenced by social…
Information as a core concept for explaining order and evolution
Cesar Hidalgo’s book, “Why information grows” is trying to untangle a very big issue by looking at a very simple problem (at least in appearance). How do small things (cities, economies, groups) get complex when most other things in nature tend to decay…
Sociometers: a new way to quantify social interactions
How about a Fitbit for social interaction? Instead of measuring steps and calories, such a device measures proximity of others and verbal interactions. The device communicates with similar units to determine social distance from other individuals and microphones to capture verbal interactions.…
Less is not more: Larger open source projects do better if well organized
View image | gettyimages.com Spontaneous production groups are thought to be less effective at larger scales. Lacking formal organization, larger groups spend too much time on communication. Vital resources are spent on keeping the group together, rather than on production. This becomes…
Toward deciphering the social media genome: big data and computational social science may explain social embriology
Nothing seems more random to the naked eye than the babble of online exchanges. Are the posting patterns on Wikipedia user pages or the answers offered to Q&A sites ruled by any discernible configurations? Do users engage in predictable posting/answering behaviors? More…