Abstract Digital war is an elusive concept that invokes imaginaries of bloodless and fully virtual battles happening somewhere on a computer screen. Yet, the suffering and devastation brought about by armed conflicts around the world remains a harrowing constant. Digital technologies do not simply offer new capabilities in conducting military operations: extending the battlefronts into the realms of communication and perception, they reconstitute the social conditions shaping people’s relationship to wars. Blurring the boundaries between military and civilian actors, physical and mediated battlefronts, weapons and witnesses, digital media afford unprecedented opportunities for remote participation in wars. Sociologists are uniquely positioned to foreground the emerging participatory patterns in military conflicts, attending to the higher-order social transformations that challenge and transform present-day wars. This chapter begins by putting sociological traditions of studying wars in a dialogue with media studies literature, demonstrating how an understanding of digital media can inform social theory around contemporary conflicts. Next, I conceptualize digital war as a field of inquiry, mapping its emerging themes, objects of analysis, and interdisciplinary connections. The chapter concludes with an epistemological framework for making sense of emerging participatory patterns and their significance for the participants, as well as for the larger institutions on behalf of which wars are fought.
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