A few weeks ago I received a media query from a reporter writing for a major media conglomerate with a sizable liberal, educated, Obama supporting readership. I receive similar inquiries a few times each year, often relating to my research on academic interactions with military and intelligence agencies. This email query included a copy of an embargoed call for proposals for the Pentagon\u2019s Minerva Initiative (made public the next day), seeking to fund academic research on the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL).<\/p>\n
The reporter contacted me because I\u2019ve published several critiques of the Minerva program since April 2008 when Secretary of Defense Gates announced the program linking academic research with the needs of American military projects (see this 2008 CounterPunch piece<\/a>). My critiques have focused on several elements of the program, including negative impacts on the freedom of academic inquiry and more political critiques focusing on linking knowledge production and application with projects of military conquest.<\/p>\n The identity of the reporter and the news outlet aren\u2019t important. I\u2019m glad he was interested in writing about Minerva and its efforts to use anthropological and social science knowledge for military ends, and that he sought input from a critic of the program; and I don\u2019t care that a story on these new developments did not come from these inquiries. Lots of stories just don\u2019t pan out for all sorts of reasons, though I suspect my answers did not contribute much to the story he sought to write. \u00a0But I am interested in how certain questions get asked, how select media frames appear appropriate and when the answers to questions asked don\u2019t fit these narrow frames, they fall by the wayside in favor of stories or voices that accommodate expected answers. The reporter wrote me that the Minerva funded Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) \u201cseeks research into innovative ways to understand the \u2018cultural forces at play in belief and the rise of terror networks.\u2019 \u00a0Specifically \u2018the formation and spread of beliefs and ideas.\u2019 This would seem to be related to how ideas spread internationally on social networks. What are some of the tools you think researchers might employ to understand the \u2018spread of ideas and beliefs\u2019 and should the public be wary of them?\u201d<\/p>\n