Use New Media to “Fill the Gap”

A gap exists in the information that is presented in mainstream media and what the American public desires. Soldier blogs are one way to help fill this gap. To do so, the Army should encourage Soldiers to blog about two broad topics: stories about the rebuilding effort and positive stories about events in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The media overestimates the public interest in coverage of terrorist activities and even more strikingly underestimates the public’s desire for stories about the reconstruction effort. Additionally, the public wants to hear more stories about individual Soldiers. Knowing this, Soldiers can fill a significant need – tell stories about their involvement in reconstruction. There are many engineer Soldiers who are rebuilding schools and hospitals. Medical Soldiers are providing needed care to many who have not had such care in quite some time. There are civil affairs Soldiers involved in helping to establish local governmental organizations and demonstrate the legitimacy of the Iraqi government. These Soldiers need to have their stories told – and main stream media isn’t doing it to the degree that the American public desires. Soldiers’ blogs can provide stories of interest to the American public.

Suggesting that Soldiers tell positive stories about events in Iraq and Afghanistan is not a recommendation that the Army hide problems and challenges nor is it a recommendation that Soldiers only be encouraged to blog positive stories. Stories that are not inherently positive must not be spun into something they are not, nor can negative stories be ignored or brushed under the carpet. The American public absolutely has a right to know the full costs of the wars. However, there is a significant disconnect between the balance that the media believes they provide and the American public perception. 68% of the media believes they provide balanced information while 70% of the public sees the coverage as predominately negative. Soldiers can provide their own coverage of the many positive events that are occurring on a daily basis while remaining real and fair about what it is really like to serve as a Soldier in these current wars.

Milblogs over MSM suggests one columnist

This columnist supports the need for milblogs to "fill the gap" based on the findings in Military-Media Relationship.

This is one of the primary reasons that the Army should make a more concerted effort to get Soldiers from a variety of MOSs in the blogosphere telling their stories!

Are milblogs biased?

One of the main complaints that I've often leveled at the main-stream media is that they are biased: negative stories, against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, liberal, etc. When we toured the CNN studios several weeks ago, we asked the executives about this perception of bias. They danced around the accusations of liberal- and conservative-bias. One did admit that they are biased toward conflict by discussing the elements of a good television news story. The best stories are the ones with dramatic footage of something out-of-the-ordinary happening. The best stories are about topics that are somewhat controversial or, at least, unusual. The best stories are the ones that engage people - they excite emotions in some way.

Similar elements could be listed about what makes the best milblog post, the post that gets the most interest and readership. These stories appear to be the ones with the most personal elements - a dramatic telling of a patrol from an infantryman's perspective, a memorial post to a fallen comrade, or the joy of returning home. Many of the most popular milblogs also include photos or videos that add to the emotional content of the post. But are these posts biased? Do most milbloggers write because they're against the wars and have found blogging as an outlet? Or are most milbloggers pro-military and pro-war and seek to use their blogs to balance what we percieve as the negatively-biased main-stream media with positive blog entries? That's the subject of the current poll (look to the top right of this webpage). Please weigh in with your opinion about any bias you percieve from milblogs you read. Thanks!

Fill the gap: milbloggers roles in communicating with the nation

By this point in my reading, research, and dialogue with the readers of this blog, I’m now completely convinced that we (the Army) must do more in the blogosphere. Really, we need to do more with new media in general, but for this post I’m restricting comment to blogs. Knowing that we must do more, there has been some valuable discussion about how we can encourage and educate Soldiers to effectively engage the blogosphere. Some useful tips to consider when blogging have been offered; justification for Soldiers’ blogs has been provided in light of the fundamentals of information espoused by the public affairs community; and discussion about the need for credibility has begun.

I turn my attention in this post to some things we should encourage Soldiers to blog about: what I’ll call “filling the gap.”

What gap I am talking about? The gap between what the media thinks the American public wants to hear and what the American public actually wants to hear. Contained in a book we read for class here about military-media relations were survey results that supported what I’d been thinking/guessing for a long time – main stream media is a bit out of sync with main street America. The book (The Military-Media Relationship 2005), a report by the McCormick Tribune Foundation, is based on surveys conducted of the public, military members, and members of the media as well as round table discussion involving representatives of both the military and media. The discussion and several graphs (which are referenced below) provide valuable insight into what blog topics may be the most interesting to the American public. If the Army is to encourage Soldiers to blog it is the following items/topics that should be specifically encouraged.

1. Stories about the rebuilding effort. Charts 1A and 1B (p 50, 51) clearly show that the media overestimates the public interest in coverage of terrorist activities and even more strikingly underestimates the public’s desire for stories about the reconstruction effort. Knowing this, Soldiers can fill a significant need – tell stories about their involvement in reconstruction. There are many engineer Soldiers out there today rebuilding schools and hospitals (and have been doing so for quite some time!) There are many medical Soldiers deployed right now who are helping to provide needed care to many who haven’t had such care in quite some time. There are many civil affairs Soldiers who have been involved in helping to establish local governmental organizations and are helping demonstrate the legitimacy of the Iraqi government. These Soldiers need to have their stories told – and main stream media isn’t doing it to the degree that the American public desire. So let’s blog about our experiences! (By-the-way, Chart 1B also shows that the public wants to hear more stories about individual Soldiers – and what better source than the Soldiers themselves through their blogs.)

2. Positive stories about events in Iraq and Afghanistan. To begin this discussion, it is clear that stories that are not inherently positive must not be spun into something they are not. Nor can negative stories be ignored or brushed under the carpet. The American public absolutely has a right to know the full costs of the endeavor we are currently engaged in. However, Chart 13 (p 70) shows that while 68% of the media believes they provide balanced information, 70% the public sees the coverage as predominately negative! So, what can Soldiers do about this? Provide their own coverage of the many positive events that are occurring on a daily basis while remaining real and fair about what it is really like to serve as a Soldier in these current wars. This blends nicely with item 1 above – stories about reconstruction efforts are inherently positive.

3. Demonstrate willingness to share our stories and be truthful when doing so. Nothing will be more self-defeating than to be perceived as dishonest whether when speaking to the media or writing our own blogs. The American public’s perception is that the military is willing (and does) provide inaccurate information to the media – Chart 12 (p 69) shows this. Charts 8A and 8B (p 62, 63) infer that the media believes the military to be restrictive in providing access and that officers are not encouraged to speak with reporters. Extrapolating from this a bit, I suggest that blogs provide an outlet to help change this perception. While a Soldier blogging is not the same as engaging face-to-face with reporters, it is still a way to show our interest in being open and honest when disclosing information about events we’ve been a part of.

If the traditional media is not going to provide the information and stories that the public wants, using new media is the best way I can think of to do so. There are a couple possible outcomes if we can be successful at doing this. First, traditional media sources will pick up on the stories being published on blogs (as many examples over the past few years prove they’ll do). Secondly, if there is a preponderance of these stories in the blogosphere and they’re getting read, shared, and linked to then perhaps traditional sources will see the appetite that exists and will begin to publish more such stories on their own initiative. The first outcome I’m hopeful would happen; the second I’m a bit more doubtful about (quiet the cynic in me!) but would be very pleased to see occur.

So, I’m curious about what you think of these ideas. Am I naïve? Would Soldiers latch on to such guidance? Or, do most Soldiers do this anyway through their blogs? Leave your comments here and enter the discussion.

CNN's opinion of blogs ...

Just returned from a tour of CNN studios in Atlanta. Pretty good tour - I recommend it if you find yourself in Atlanta someday. After the tour of the studios, where our group had the chance to meet Robin Meade (who broke from the teleprompter when she noticed a bunch of uniformed folks standing in the corner and acknowledged our presence on national TV), we were provided about an hour of time with two of their executives (one from PR and the other from technology).

In general, their comments were what you'd expect - in support of their company. They were very open to questions, however, and seemed to provide answers beyond the "party line". In one case, we asked about the role of new media and the rep stated that CNN has a presence on Second Life (anyone explored that before? I'd love to get some feedback from you about it.) and that their iReport is a great success of tapping into the people (also interested in your thoughts about this site). He really seemed to like the collaborative nature of iReport, which also appeals to many people across the country. However, he grouped most blogs together as "crap" - people just saying a bunch of unverifiable stuff. I was fascinated by that statement: apparently, if the information is posted to their "unfiltered" site it's okay, if it's posted elsewhere, not so much. Unfortunately, time prevented us from digging into this subject any deeper.

Also of note, one exec did agree that CNN and the main stream media is biased ... toward conflict. He aptly deflected a question about media bias (specifically asking about the perceptions (reality?) of Fox on the right and CNN and MSNBC on the left) by claiming that he agrees that Fox and MSNBC are biased - they have a specifically stated agenda to tend to one side and that's "a good business model" - but firmly believes that CNN is in the middle. I'll leave that up to you to decide... But he certainly agreed that conflict makes for good television; that, and compelling video of events.