The American military presence during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan presented both opportunities and challenges to communication for key constituencies, including loved ones, family members, and spouses. This contemporary era of wars is distinguished by having service persons participate in reoccurring and longer deployments, thus adding strain within their familial or marital relationships, and increasing the already-complicated work-life balance for military personnel and their loved ones. This novel heightened demand in military professional duties makes effective relational maintenance and family norms difficult to establish. Nonetheless, this era of conflict juxtaposes with exceptional innovation of new media, providing opportunities for cutting-edge means and channels by which to enact interpersonal communication. These increasingly popular Internet-based platforms have staggering societal adoption rates, with a variety of technologically mediated, mobile, and communication technologies now available for social networking and information-sharing. Military deployment requires distinctive communication and maintenance efforts during times of separation, thus these recent channels are utilized by many military-affiliated individuals, personnel and civilians alike, to facilitate relational communication remotely. This study examines the uses and impact of new media within military marriages during the context of deployment to war using the framework of media richness theory. Interviews with ten military spouses yield three key themes regarding their use of new media during wartime deployment: (1) mobility, (2) monitoring and surveillance, and (3) utility.
Keywords: New media, mobile technology, relational maintenance, military spouses, deployment, technologically mediated communication
About the presenterMargaret C. Stewart
Margaret C. Stewart has a Ph.D. in Communications Media and Instructional Technology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP)(2013). Her dissertation examined the use of new media by military spouses to communicate during wartime deployment. Her ongoing research agenda focuses on how new and social media, mobile technology, emerging communication technologies, and convergence augment and influence relational and organizational communication. Additionally, she continues to examine the military constituency in organizational, pedagogical, and relational contexts. Her recent scholarship boasts presentations at the Department of Defense Worldwide Education Symposium (2012), the International Conference of Technology, Knowledge, and Society in Madrid, Spain (2014), and earned a top paper award in the Interpersonal Division at the Eastern Communication Association convention (2013). Prior to her career in higher education, she spent six years in various facets of the radio broadcasting and music industries in the Philadelphia market. She transitioned into academia in 2007 and currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Communication Media Arts at Neumann University in Aston, PA. There, she teaches courses primarily in the areas of Introduction to Communication, Mass Media, and New Media, and is actively involved in developing innovative courses for the institution. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication (Concentration: Mass Media)(2003) and a Master of Arts in Professional Communication (2007) from La Salle University in Philadelphia.