Conceptualization & Operationalization
In order to explore the military-designated definition
of internal information and the perceived definition by installation
commanders and their audience through research questions, several
theories will be utilized – Uncertainty Reduction Theory,
Uses and Gratifications Theory and Agenda Setting.
For the purpose of this capstone, the term installation
commander refers to installation, post and vessel commanders.
Audience and/or population refers to the installation's service
members, civilian employees, retirees who reside in proximity
of the installation and who utilize installation facilities, and
reservists who train on the installations. The Public Affairs
Officer refers to the chief of public affairs unit or the chief
of the internal information division of the public affairs office.
Hence the following research question is proposed:
RQ1 – Which areas of internal information are most important
and how do they vary between the three perspectives of: (a) installation
commander, (b) installation audience, and (c) public affairs office?
Uncertainty Reduction Theory
Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT) is defined by Infante,
Rancer, & Womack (1997) as an attempt to "describe the
interrelationships between seven important factors in any dyadic
exchange: verbal communication, nonverbal expressiveness, information-seeking
behavior, intimacy, reciprocity, similarity, and liking"
(p. 261). These axioms follow an "if... then..." path.
URT assumes a causal relationship, in that, if an action is taken,
uncertainty may be reduced on the part of the individual taking
the action, and if uncertainty is reduced, the relationship and
communication may become stronger. For example, a series of sexual
harassment cases have occurred over a month on a local military
installation. The commander, feeling uncertain about the installation
population’s knowledge of his or her position on the sexual
harassment policy, initiates a query through the public affairs
office to determine the population’s level of understanding
about the policy and the commander’s actions. Instituting
a query is meant to reduce the commander’s uncertainty. Conversely,
the population may be confused by the commander’s policy
and initiates questions over the Internet or installation hotline
to the commander about the policy and his or her position. This
is how the population reduces its uncertainty about the commander
and the policy.
This first phase of the scenario involving the commander
initiating a query is an example of active uncertainty reduction.
"An active strategy may include finding out about another
person by asking third parties for information" (Infante
et. al., 1997, p. 265). The commander used the public affairs
office (the third party) to find information. The latter phase
of the scenario shows interactive uncertainty reduction, in that,
the installation population, although not face-to-face, is eliciting
responses directly from the commander via the Internet and installation
hotline. Infante et al. describe the interactive strategy as "obtaining
information directly through asking questions (interrogation)
and offering personal information about yourself (self disclosure)"
(p. 265). The self-disclosure by the population occurs in the
questions and explanation of what they know through the Internet
and hotline.
Within this context, the following research questions are proposed:
RQ2- How does the uncertainty level of the installation audience
toward specific components of internal information affect their
degree of active information seeking?
RQ3- How does the uncertainty level of the installation commander
toward audience’s perception of specific components of internal
information affect his or her degree of active information seeking?
Uses and Gratifications Theory
For information to pass between the commander and installation
population, some sort of medium is almost always utilized. Initially,
there were only a few options for receiving or dispensing internal
information. As late as the 1980s, internal information audiences
report that they received most news and information about the
military from local television and radio programs, and sometimes
from the installation newspaper. Today, there are numerous mediums
facilitating the flow of information in the military – they
include, but are not limited to, newspapers, newsletters, radio,
television, Internet and command magazines.
Choices must be made when it is time to receive or send
information. According to Infante et al., Uses and Gratifications
Theory attributes the choices to individual’s desire to satisfy
certain needs. Civilian news polls, like a 1997 study conducted
by the Gannet, Inc., concluded that 75 percent of the American
public get their news and information from television, and that
15 percent get it from newspapers. Radio, magazines and newsletters,
and the Internet are the other mediums of choice, in consecutive
order, in this study. So, while many people believe the newspaper
is an outdated method of reporting information, some of who comprise
the military’s internal information audience will not rely
on anything else because they desire the details in a newspaper
article by habit or the reliability having a document they can
access at their leisure, they are skeptical of editing strategies
of the electronic medium, or they do not utilize computers. In
either case, the choice is based upon satisfying a need. Rosengreen,
Wenner, and Palmgreen (1985) explored the Uses and Gratifications
Theory and looked at gratifications in relation to technologies.
Motives for viewing television, specifically cable, were the variety
provided by the increased number of channels and programming choices
and control "associated with the flexibility of programming"
(Rosengreen et al., 1985, p. 245). Severin and Tankard (1992)
explain little research had been conducted on the "ways cable
television and other new media offering expanded user choices
relate to the user’s pursuit of uses and gratifications"
(p.278). Teleconferencing is also becoming more desirable because
it allows people to conduct meetings and conferences without incurring
travel costs and loss of time away from their home installation.
Installation commanders must weigh their decisions when
deciding how to disseminate information. Urgency, message, response,
and availability are several factors that should be taken into
consideration. Many facilities currently have web sites on the
Internet, offering the commander a medium for reaching the installation
population that was not around several years ago. Some commanders
may get "caught up" in the "new technology"
of computers and the Internet and place their focus of disseminating
information through that medium. One glaring problem that must
be considered is availability. Does the whole or the majority
of the population have access to the Internet or computers? If
the answer is "no," many who rely on the commander’s
information might be overlooked. Also, some commanders will not
use the Internet or web pages because they do not see the possible
benefits of this "new technology" or do not trust it.
Installation commanders must consider several things:
· What mediums are at his or her disposal for disseminating
internal information?
· What are the inherent benefits of each medium?
· What are the inherent disadvantages of each medium?
· Who has access to the mediums?
· When should information be duplicated over each medium?
· Who uses each medium the most and why?
Understanding these questions will aid the commander when it is
time to get information to the people quickly and effectively.
The installation population, like the commander, must also consider
several angles:
· What mediums are available to receive information?
· What mediums are available to send information to the
installation commander?
· What access is available to each medium?
· What is the individual’s needs at the moment?
· What are the advantages of each medium?
· What are the disadvantages of each medium?
In a study of adult television viewers, Rubin (1983, as
cited in Infante et al., 1997, p. 375) explored viewer’s
motivations, behaviors, attitudes and patterns of interaction.
He identified two types of viewers, which Rubin (1984, as cited
in Infante et al. 1997) would later describe as ritualized and
instrumental. These terms, as defined in Infante et al. (1997),
can be generalized through uses and gratifications. Ritualized
use is generally associated with people who do something out of
habit. Instrumental use is associated to people who are more selective
and goal-oriented. The former, according to Rubin (1983 as cited
in Infante et al., 1997), represents a more important experience
and the latter is more involving. In other words, people may choose
to use the installation newspaper to get local information because
it always has specific information on a regular basis and it would
upset their routine to choose another medium. Hence, the choice
of the newspaper is important to their daily experience. However,
others may choose to get their local information from the nightly,
military news broadcast on one day and the Internet on another
because of their schedule or where certain information is located.
Agenda-setting Theory
Public Affairs Officers and their staffs are inundated
with information suitable and suggested to be disseminated to
the installation population. They receive information from but
not limited to the following mediums:
· Installation commanders, ships and other independent
units;
· area public affairs policy;
· country team public affairs policy;
· Department of the Navy, Department of the Army, Department
of the Air Force, and the Commandant of the Marine Corps public
affairs policy;
· official Department o Defense public affairs policy;
press packs prepared by military branches;
· various military wire services;
· national holidays;
· military holidays;
· religious holidays;
· advancement/promotion information (career information);
· Morale, Welfare and Recreation information;
· breaking stories;
· features stories possibilities
· external news sources (i.e. local and national newspapers,
and radio and television broadcasts.
Hence the following research questions are proposed:
RQ4- How does access to various mediums affect the audience’s
motives for using the medium?
RQ5- How does the audience’s uncertainty level toward specific
components of internal information affect their motives for using
established mass communication mediums?
RQ6- How do different demographic variables affect overall audience
preference and usage of mass communication mediums?
RQ7- How does audience medium preference and usage affect installation
commander’s choice of medium selection for delivering internal
information?
McCombs and Shaw (1979) theorized in light of infinite possibilities,
and media representatives adopt an "agenda" of information
to present or report to their audiences. Agenda-setting theory
postulates the media is effective at focusing public attention
on specific events, issues and persons and in determining the
importance people attach to public matters (Shaw, 1979). Lippman
observed the media provide information about "the world outside."
Consumers use that information to form "pictures in our heads"
without first person contact, the media provides information to
the consumer letting them "see" what is going on around
them (Infante, et al., 1997).
In 1962, Cohen, a political scientist, observed "the
press may not be successful much of the time in telling people
what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its
readers what to think about" (as cited in Infante, et al.,
1997). Also suggested is there is no mere randomness in news reporting.
Media sets at least a minimal rank order of news in their reporting,
establishing priorities and importance of stories by virtue of
their placement within the media and the time spent on event or
issue (Shaw, 1997; Rogers & Dearing, 1988; Ramaprasad, 1983).
This is often with little regard to the actual place (salience)
the issue or event has in society (Rogers & Dearing, 1988;
Weaver, 1984; Palmgreen & Clarke, 1977). The three elements
of Agenda Setting Theory, as described by Rogers and Dearing (1988),
are media, public and policy. Each element sets their agendas,
or priorities of interest, which can be defined as issues or events
that are viewed at a point in time and ranked by importance. Agenda
setting refers to process used by mass media to communicate the
relative importance of issues and events to the public with the
goal of increasing public awareness which in turn changes policy
agendas.
The original study by McCombs and Shaw showed there was
a positive correlation between what voters said was important
and the actual media content during the 1968 presidential campaign.
In further research, they also found voters with a high need for
orientation were more likely to be influenced by media messages,
where issues were relevant and uncertainty was high (Infante,
et al. 1997).
Demers, Craff, Ho, and Pessin (1989) studied the concept
of obtrusiveness in Agenda-Setting Theory. Obtrusiveness is defined
as the amount of personal experience people have with issues.
If the public has little actual experiences (low obtrusiveness)
with an issue, the hypothesis suggested media agenda-setting effects
would be strong, thus, the public would rely more heavily on the
media for information. However, if the public had much
personal experience with the issue, media agenda setting would
have little or no effect on issue salience. Their study showed
the hypothesis was not supported by the data. They suggest a relative
change in media attention to an issue rather than absolute change
provides a better explanation of changes in issue salience. This
result suggests time may be a factor in determining success of
media agenda-setting.
Demers, Craff, Ho, and Pessin (1989) studied the concept
of obtrusiveness in Agenda-Setting Theory. Obtrusiveness was defined
as the amount of personal experience people have with issues.
If the public has little actual experiences (low obtrusiveness)
with an issue, the hypothesis suggested media agenda-setting effects
would be strong, and the public would rely more heavily on the
media for information. However, if the public had much personal
experience with the issue, media agenda setting would have little
or no effect on issue salience. Their study showed the hypothesis
was not supported by the data. They suggest that a relative change
in media attention to an issue rather than absolute change provides
a better explanation of changes in issue salience. This result
suggests that time may be a factor in determining success of media
agenda-setting.
Iyengar and Simon (1993) studied the news coverage of the
Gulf War and public opinion. They found, as they predicted, television
news coverage significantly affected Americans’ political
concerns and the criteria used to evaluate President Bush before
and after the Gulf crisis. However, they also noted Lippmann drew
a distinction between news and truth, and questions how closely
the news could be said to reflect the truth. They suggest the
present discrepancy between the two was increased by the present
government domination of the flow of information. In their examination
of network news reports on the Gulf Crisis, more than 50 percent
of the reports came directly from official spokespeople. Any themes
contrary to the government’s position were ignored. They
submit the official journalism ensured the public’s and the
president’s view of the Gulf crisis would be congruent (Iyengar
& Simon, 1993).
When an installation commander communicates with any portion of
the installation population, he or she must decide what is being
said, through what medium it --will be delivered and the purpose
of the message. Hence the following research questions are proposed:
RQ8- How does coverage of internal information issues by the
installation public affairs office within established mass communication
mediums affect salience of internal information issues within
the installation audience?
RQ9- How does the installation commander’s perception of
internal information issues affect public affairs coverage of
internal information issues within established mass communication
mediums?