The Media, Intelligence, and Information Proliferation: Managing and Leveraging the Chaos.
Abstract
The media, whether print or more recently television, have always had an impact, to varying degrees, on public opinion, political decision making, and ultimately, and at least arguably the commitment of military forces. It is absolutely imperative that strategic leaders stay attuned to media reporting and information proliferation, its potential impact on their organization or institution, and find ways to manage the chaos and leverage that coverage and flow of information. Leveraging the coverage only refers to improving and maintaining the leadership's situational awareness in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. In some cases this visionary awareness must be maintained in a region or country not well covered by the intelligence community's systems. It may also be in a region where we have limited diplomatic, or even nongovernmental organization (NGO) access. The strategic leader has an obligation to maintain this awareness in order to take prudent cautionary steps to ensure his/her military organization or institution is not caught flatfooted, as forces are committed. It is essential that leadership at all levels be willing to get beyond institutional, cultural, and historical bias to more fully leverage all available data, to include open source and media information.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 16, 1999
- Accession Number
- ADA361151
Entities
People
- Robert E. Steetin
Organizations
- United States Army War College