Leadership and media strategies in the military

Welcome back to the blog! I’ve been offline a few weeks will be navigating my time at the Defense Information School (DINFOS) in Fort Meade, MD and will continuing to pursue my master’s in strategic communication from Troy University.

Now that we’re back – it’s time to announce the series we’ll be diving into over the next few weeks. After examining immerging media the previous eight weeks, we’ll not look into leadership and media strategies in strategic communication!

But, before we dive in, I wanted to give a refresher on my background.

My name is Chris I am currently an active-duty member of the U.S. Coast Guard, stationed at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland while attending DINFOS. I can give you a fresh insight into what it takes to become a military communicator because I am attending the technical school required by all branches of the U.S. military to become one.

In this blog, we’ll cover a variety of topics in leadership and media strategies, including the diffusion of innovations, social medias influence, leadership and communication with internal, external, and government groups, developing strategic communication strategies, and more.

I will be posting to this blog once a week, roughly by Friday each week!

To help you better navigate to my blog in the future, here is the link to my homepage:

https://bluecollarcommunication.blogspot.com/

As for why I’m writing this blog – I am passionate about military communications, and I want to help future or current military communicators as best I can while still learning new things everyday myself. I remember when I was going through the recruitment phase of joining the military, there was always curiosity and wonder around the idea of public affairs work in the military because most military members don’t even know it’s a career field! So, I want to be able to shed light on just what we do while also giving you insight into what you’ll be learning – all while tying it back to the important theme of leadership and media strategies in strategic communication.

With that being said, lets dive into our first topic of the week: the diffusion of innovation.

After reading though the Diffusion of Innovation by Everett M. Rogers, I examined what exactly this is and why it’s important for strategic communication. Have you ever found yourself getting soaked into cultural norms and suddenly agreeing with them? Well, that’s a large facet of the diffusion of innovation. Essentially, this process showcases that the most effective way for diffusing a product or service is through cultural acceptance.

This leads us into the “asset-light” generation, which essentially feel that less is more. From what we’ve seen in society today, social media is the most plausible and simple way to effectively reach an audience and to make their lives easier by submitting it to a medium that is culturally accepted.

While military members may not be able to use TikTok because of it’s ties to China, you can still utilize sites like Facebook or Instagram to apply the diffusion of innovation.

Diffusion through cultural acceptance could look something like this on social media: the Coast Guard saving an innocent animal stranded after a natural disaster, or the Army being stewards of peace overseas, or the Navy using their ship to support rescue missions.

Whatever the case may be, we can use social media as military communicators to paint the military in a positive light – using diffusion through cultural acceptance.