- 2 (18%) Augment the viewpoints published by main-stream media
- 1 (9%) Learn what its like to be a Soldier
- 4 (36%) Understand Soldiers' opinions about current events
- 4 (36%) Get the "real" story (I don't trust spokesmen or reporters)
Thanks to the 11 of you who took part in this (unscientific, but interesting) poll. That's a few more than we had for the first poll. As you can see, the most popular responses were to get a Soldier's take on what's happening and because you value their input more than official spokespersons or reporters. I find the results fascinating. When I crafted the poll, I anticipated that the first answer (augmenting mainstream news) would be the leading response. Guess that's justification for why this project needs to be done.
In order to make these results a bit more meaningful, it would be great to have even more participation - please forward this link around to anyone and ask them to be a part of this discussion. I've appreciated the comments from the wide variety of people so far (military, DoD civilians, military spouses, and citizens with an interest) - thanks! Keep the dialogue going.
Thats to bad that I was unable to be part of this poll.
ReplyDeleteI use milblogs mainly for research, but I have browsed just to see how other peoples lives are like in this situation.
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I think in the military it blogging is a love-hate relationship. I believe it is severly misunderstood and often maligned. Who is the Army blog expert? Group of experts? Proponent or champion? Is it PA or Operations? FM 3-0, Ch 7 talks about Info Ops, maybe it would think its more in the operations arena?
ReplyDeleteGood discussion, I look forward to tracking progress.
The question you raise, dan, about who is the "expert" for us is a good one! At this point, it's not clear we have a formal expert or group of experts - nor is it clear that we have tagged an organization with the responsibility of developing new media expertise. I've heard that the USMC stood up a New Media Center (but can't find anything definitive on the web). DoD has a New Media Directorate but it doesn't appear that the Army has one yet. With DoD already having a 2-yr start (created in 2006), now seems like a good time to start similar organizations in the services to focus efforts. I'll post more on this topic later ... stay tuned. In the meantime, thanks for the continuing comments.
ReplyDeleteHi from Germany. First, I like your blog, since it raises a couple of interesting questions. Being a spokesperson in NATO myself, I am looking into this new media thing myself. Second, it is quite interesting to see that you are looking for information on US new media activity. I remember that we had a couple of briefings during the last NATO PA conferences...one us from Soldier's media center (Col Simms if I remember correctly) will have to look up the ones from last year. Is your survey still on? Would like to crosspost over at my blog.
ReplyDeleteBatteriechef, glad to hear from you. Thanks for your interest in this blog - will be interested to get your input along the way. I have not started the survey of blogs yet ... will get to that in the near future. I plan on using polls here for the foreseeable future - a new question each week - and will post the results as we go. Feel free to crosspost at your own blog.
ReplyDeleteYup, done. Just posted it and asked visitors to particpate in your survey. Will also try to upload the presentations from the NATO PA conference re: US Army efforts in the new media arena. Sorry, link is here: http://pressesprecher.site50.net/wordpress/. Cheers Wolfgang
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