This article considers how the role of social and digital media in combat reflects the multiple forms of stakeholder agency that conditions of mediatisation have created in modern warfare. The ‘chaos’ apparently threatened by the intrusion of digital media into military operations can be explained in reference to social desires that have been ever present in media history. This article explains how we can understand the current state of military/public media relations in reference to the history of audience research, paying special attention to feminist research.