Young G (2010) The 'new home front' and the War on Terror: Ethical and political reframing of national and international politics. International Affairs, vol. 86, no. 4, pp. 925–937

This article reconceptualises the notion of the ‘home front’ to include the ‘everyday’ role of new media, including its role in the life of soldiers on the actual home front communicating through soldier blogs and emails home. Taking as its starting point the recent development and use of mobile media and user generated content in mainstream media (from victims and observers of 7/7 to the controversial ‘leaks’ from the front of torture at Abu Ghraib), this article examines the shifting boundaries between foreign and domestic policy, and looks at how in a new media age they have transformed the ‘home front’.

Contrasting the often state-controlled mass media era of the Second World War with the new media of the twenty-first century, Youngs looks at issues of state control, noting that information flows have become far more diverse and decentralised, with horizontal (bottom-up) communications expanding exponentially and often challenging and disrupting vertical (top-down) flows.

The article is underpinned by an invitation only seminar held at Chatham House that involved security practitioners, analysts, academics, NGO and think tank participants (7/7 Five Years on: Reflections on the future of counter-terrorism, 2010). The seminar resulted in a special issue published on the anniversary of 7/7 in which this article originally featured. Forming part of a collaborative ESRC, AHRC, Foreign and Commonwealth Office research programme entitled ‘Radicalisation and violence’, and the multi-disciplinary Re-Design Project (which was supported by the EPSRC, AHRC and ESRC), Youngs' work has aided with the development of a decision-support mechanism for designing effective and resilient places in order to counter the threat posed by mass casualty terrorism.