ABSTRACT
Private military and security companies (PMSCs) have become a key factor in international security, increasingly performing tasks that were formerly executed by military forces of the state. This chapter examines how PMSCs seek to influence the public via social media and how they are perceived by other actors in these media. Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube can be considered arenas for public deliberation and the formation of public opinions. The chapter then focuses on the social media platform Twitter and the tweets from the company Academi Elite (formerly known as Blackwater or Xe Services), as well as the tweets about that company. It explains the steps necessary in collecting and preparing the data and subsequently conducting a sentiment analysis. The chapter concludes with an overview of our findings, with a special focus on the sets of statements we identified as being the most negative and the most positive.
