{"id":26942,"date":"2016-06-02T14:30:44","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T04:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=26942"},"modified":"2016-06-02T12:42:40","modified_gmt":"2016-06-02T02:42:40","slug":"defence-confronts-media-age-part-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/defence-confronts-media-age-part-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Defence confronts the Media Age (part 5)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The media philosophy offered in this series is the belief that in the<\/span> Media Age<\/span><\/a> the more you give the more you make.<\/span><\/p>\n

The continuous flow of honest news\u2014good and bad\u2014from the Australian Defence Force in the field doesn\u2019t cut Canberra out of the action.<\/span><\/p>\n

Truth-with-speed<\/span><\/a> creates a solid basis of fact continuously flowing through all available digital channels. All the platforms become stages for government and Defence to do their part of the media job from Canberra.<\/span><\/p>\n

As always, the role of the Prime Minister, Defence Minister and ADF Chiefs is to set out the grand strategy\u2014what is these days called \u2018the narrative\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

More than announce and explain, the job for those at the top is to argue, guide and convince. The day-to-day action must be related to Australia\u2019s aims, the military purposes and the diplomatic endeavours.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s offered to the Australian voters is given simultaneously to<\/span> Digital Citizens<\/span><\/a> everywhere. This age demands it as a basic response but also rewards it as proper behaviour.<\/span><\/p>\n

The communications power that billions of Digital Citizens will wield is just one example of the fluidity and creative destruction surging through the Age.<\/span><\/p>\n

Responding to my previous discussion of the Digital Citizens and operational transparency, an old Canberra defencenik made this observation:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018If the Digital Citizen is a resident of where we are conducting operations, they will be considered part of the problem – and dealt with accordingly – rather than part of the solution. We are not going to engage with them because they could be ISIS\/Taliban\/etc. \u00a0If they are a professional journalist, then they are going to be fed a carefully structured view, so as to ensure that the ISIS\/Taliban don\u2019t get an operational advantage. So the only digital citizen that matters is our domestic digital citizen.\u2019 <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See this as a reasonable statement of how Defence and the ADF think: them, us and there’s the dividing line.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trouble is the Digital Citizens aren\u2019t just part of the operating environment\u2014they\u2019re also players in the media environment. That reality is why I dubbed them Digital Citizens, reaching beyond existing usages such as<\/span> \u2018digital natives\u2019<\/span><\/a> and<\/span> \u2018digital residents\u2019<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Defence\u2019s them-and-us line is well suited to the physical geography of the ADF operating among foreign \u2018natives\u2019 and \u2018residents.\u2019 Not so useful, though, in confronting the surging fluidities of the Media Age\u2014and Digital Citizens who have both rights and instant communication capacity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lots of ideas about authority, influence and control\u2014and definitely, command\u2014are going to be digitally altered.<\/span><\/p>\n

This series has offered the<\/span> prime directives<\/span><\/a> of truth-with-speed. Those directives demand the demarcation of media roles between the Minister, Defence officials and military chiefs in Canberra, and ADF officers\u2014at every level\u2014on operations.<\/span><\/p>\n

The strategic corporal is to be joined by the Lieutenant who can speak and the Captain who can confirm and the Major who can explain, and so on up the line.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are some thoughts\u2014and rules\u2014that flow from the prime directives:<\/span><\/p>\n