Professor of Communication, Associate Dean of Research, Brian Lamb School of Communication, College of Liberal Arts, Purdue University
FORCES Virtual D-Day, also known as Virtual Omaha, launched on June 6 in Washington, DC, bringing Omaha Beach to life as an immersive history education tool. The post Purdue Virtual D-Day in Washington, DC: Omaha Beach Reborn appeared first on Sorin Adam Matei .
FORCES military geospatial data science projects THOR, OPMAPS, Barbarossa, and South China Sea turn maps into evidence for strategy. The post From Paper Maps to Military Geospatial Data Science appeared first on Sorin Adam Matei .
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, replacing the more utopian space-entrepreneur dreams of extracting treasure from the heavens through [ ] The post Why the Space…
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 is biased towards the latest intellectual ideas, skewing liberal. AI agents are prediction engines using…
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 thing or another. They are opaque clouds of possibility or, more precisely, probabilities. [ ] The post Quantum computers are…
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,…
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 Technology, War, and Strategy course created for the Strategic Defense Technologies Profesional Online [ ] The post…
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, a former Professor of Strategy at the Air University School fo Advanced Strategic [ ] The post What should a strategist know? A…
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 to attach themselves to the existing ones preferentially, targeting the ones that already [ ] The post How out-of-control…
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 of the Russian military doctrine to escalate a conflict, even by nuclear means, to [ ] The post Russia s practical nuclear options make…
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 are a few answers that I organized into a short online course for [ ] The post Disinformation is a Big Lie that contradicts Common…
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 we show that The US belong to the Asian-Pacific trade cluster, while the [ ] The post Can international trade instigate the next…
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 others who controls the media and how? does the media lead to [ ] The post Media Framing, priming, and steering public attention appeared first on Sorin Adam Matei .
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 created through its South China Sea expansion, I propose a map for short [ ] The post China s South China Sea Strategy is All about…
The post The First and (Only) Law of Robotic Warfare appeared first on Sorin Adam Matei .
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 first trusted and then liked. Due to my previous project, http://kredible.net, I was [ ] The post EUNOMIA: TRUST BEFORE YOU LIKE SOCIAL…
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 physical affordances, for example, screens, can have many sociallyconstructed meanings and can be [ ] The post Strong…
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 and become like the fictional Skynet from Terminator? However, the real danger is [ ] The post Preventing military Artificial Intelligence…
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. Even if the experiment was for a limited period, let us, for the [ ] The post Should we regulate Facebook? Ask the moms. appeared…
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 necessary to rein in social media’s worst instincts or not. The event will [ ] The post DC Conference on Social Media and…
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 your pupil, so that I can be as wise and as blessed by [ ] The post How much should I know? appeared first on Sorin Adam Matei .
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 analytics research Data science and social media analytics Building a social media research [ ] The post…
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 early historical studies. Above all, the article talks about my interest in the [ ] The post Latent Crusaders: Narrative Strategies of Survival in Early Modern…
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 from? You watch TV. You listen to music. You receive a phone call. [ ] The post Why electricity,…
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 technology is a matter a choice. No technology succeeds because of its intrinsic [ ] The post Communication Technologies…
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 best and the worst thing about humans? The answer is the tongue. It [ ] The post The generative dilemma of the Internet appeared first on Sorin Adam…
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 structure. To make the point as vividly as possible, I compared the architecture [ ] The post What is the Internet edge-to-edge (end-to-end…
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 Internet is one of the most successful communication systems in history. In a [ ] The post What is the Internet? What does the Internet do? Why is it an…
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. In a previous post I asked if it might not be Le Pen [ ] The post The Social Media Analysis of French Presidential Elections: Telescope or Microscope? appeared first…
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 the election. This is surprising since they are the outsiders (especially Mélenchon, who returns [ ] The post Does Social Media Data Suggest that…
Purdue s Brian Lamb School of Communication is joining the Google News Lab University to better prepare students for 21st century careers related to digital media. “Purdue’s faculty will utilize the latest data journalism and storytelling innovations for teaching and research as part of the Purdue Data Storytelling Network,” said Sorin Adam Matei, professor in Purdue’s Brian [ ] The post Sorin…
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 40 universities, will provide resources and support to the top universities around the [ ] The post Purdue Digital…
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. This head start was there from the very beginning and has paid off [ ] The post Did social media elect Donald Trump? appeared first on Sorin Adam Matei .
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 he was smart not to use it). Yet, despite winning the debate, Hillary [ ] The post The Trump vs. Clinton race goes on: 2016 presidential race not yet settled after first debate…
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 in his language on social media dominated by “I” statements. Hillary Clinton, demurer, [ ] The post I, you, we: Donald Trump and Hillary…