Rethinking “Digital Militarism”: Tinder as an Evolving Medium of Military Communication at Guantánamo

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Abstract

I make three distinct claims that encourage a rethinking of the space, bodies, and military communication at Guantánamo that is connected to the base-wide arrival of T-Mobile cell service in November 2016. I argue that the new digital infrastructure and diffusion of internet access transformed the U.S. Naval Station of Guantánamo into a new frontier zone, as it permitted actors from different worlds—including the civilian, the corporate, and the covert— to meet in a heterotopic environment. I then use the case study of military usage of Tinder at the U.S. Naval Station of Guantánamo as evidence of of the U.S. Naval Station’s status as a “new frontier zone.” Thirdly, I offer a rethinking of “digital militarism” (Kunstman & Stein, 2015, pp. 1) by proposing that in the new frontier zone at Guantánamo, militarized stakeholders engage with digital technologies in ways that reveal fracture, fragmentation, and fragility.

Author

• Muira McCammon, University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School of Communication