Military public affairs, for more than 50 years, has
been primarily attributed to the coverage military operations
receive from the national media. Influenced at the highest levels
of the federal government - from the White House in coordination
with the State Department and the Department of Defense - the
national media were effectively mobilized to ensure the American
people were kept abreast of the information they had a right or
a need to know about major military contingencies. This information
exchange -- borne by the defense department’s public information
offices, which later became public affairs offices -- was successful
during the Normandy invasion of 1944, which resulted in positive
coverage, and this ensued for nearly 15 years as the country embarked
upon other major military endeavors. Yet, the countless accolades
and support service members and military operations once received
were replaced with criticism and negative publicity beginning
with the Vietnam War and more recently with operations in Bosnia,
Somalia and Haiti. Since, fostering healthier military/media relationships
has been a primary focus of military public affairs. This is evident
by a number of corporate sponsored think-tanks, like the Cantigny
Reports, that resume studies on this dichotomy following major
military contingencies. However, media relations, while seemingly
encompassing of the entire field, is only one of three major roles
handled by military public affairs professionals: external media,
community relations and internal information.
More focus needs to be given to the latter in relation
to research, exploration of effectiveness and efficacy of internal
mediums, incorporation of innovative technologies, and policy
settings and revisions. The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines
subscribe to internally produced doctrines that govern public
affairs maxims and programs, and these policies are established
at the defense department level. Yet, many military public affairs
offices, at the second and third tier of the organizational structure,
and installation commanders are remised in insuring internal information
programs and policies receive the same level of think-tank strategies
to reach its internal audiences. The realm of internal information
deals with the communication channel which bridges the installation
commander and the installation population. Categorically, installation
commanders and public affairs officers agree that internal information
covers issues pertaining to the people, mission and resources,
as defined in Department of Defense public affairs manuals. Also,
both understand the mission of the services internal information
program as a vehicle to keep service members and their families
informed -- through electronic and print media -- about policies,
programs, news and events that affect their lives. While the mediums
public affairs typically use include the installation newspaper
and other print vehicles like policy letters, flyers and bulletins,
and the installation television and radio programs, the effectiveness
of these mediums is not readily studied. This exploratory study
looks into how the senders (installation commanders and public
affairs officers) and receivers (active duty and reserve service
members, civilian employees and their families) within this internal
communication cycle define the salience of internal information
and the relationship between the underlying motives for medium
usage and medium preference in regards to certain demographic
variables.
In exploring definitions of internal information, this
study focuses on three perspectives as well as the variances and
convergence between them. The first perspective is that of the
installation commander. This includes the actual commanding officer
of the installation and his or her immediate command staff (i.e.,
key organizational leaders like the Staff Judge Advocate or Civil
Engineer, and the senior enlisted advisor). The second perspective
is that of the population which encompasses the installation community
(i.e., permanent and transient service members, civilian employees,
family members and retirees). The third perspective is that of
the installation's public affairs staff (i.e., installation public
affairs officer and internal information chief). Within each perspective,
the underlying question is "What is internal information?"
For most public affairs offices, the need for internal
information has been defined by the results of the installation
newspaper readership survey. This is because as a policy, the
installation newspaper has been the commander’s primary vehicle
to orchestrate effective two-way communication between his or
her policies and programs and the internal audience. Although
the installation newspaper has rated as the medium of choice for
internal audiences, it should not serve as the primary, and sometimes
the only, measurable tool to assess of the effectiveness of internal
information programs. Little research has been done in attempting
to define the installation commander's needs for delivering and
receiving information from the population, as well as the type
of information in question. Outside of newspaper readership surveys,
little, if any, attempts have been made to define these needs
within the installation population. Consequently, the relationship
between the commander’s need to provide information and the
information that the population needs begs to be explored.
Finally, the installation newspaper readership surveys
has been the status quo, since the newspaper’s inception
shortly prior to World War II, to determine how most people get
their news and information about the installation and their service’s
policies and programs from the installation newspaper. What cannot
be ascertained from these surveys is that given a choice, the
population would prefer a mean other than the installation newspaper
to get this information. Secondly, the installation newspaper
surveys do not fully determine the variance in types of information
salient to the installation population. By Department of Defense
authorization, military installations use Likert-type scales to
survey a population (with vague specification of sampling pool)
and as a result, the subjects are provided little opportunity
to specify the information they would like to receive through
internal mediums. Little research has been conducted on "how"
the installation population use the newspaper or the "underlying
motives" for using the medium, particularly once the population
is stratified by various demographic variables. Furthermore, research
has not focused on medium preference (incorporating various technological
avenues currently established within military and civilian mass
communication) and perceived media richness by installation populations,
also in relation to various demographic variables. Ultimately
these gaps in research and fundamental understanding of internal
information by commanders, public affairs professionals, and the
installation community have coupled to form an apparently ineffective
communication setting which is internal to a vast majority of
the U.S. military. A study needs to be conducted to determine
the effectiveness of the mediums used to provide internal information.