Strategic Communication Design: An Approach for AFRICOM

Abstract

As of October 1, 2007, the United States Government (USG) officially stood up the African Command (AFRICOM) as a sub-unified command of EUCOM. By October 2008, AFRICOM is to be fully operational. AFRICOM symbolizes a change in the DoD as far as how to structure its organizations. AFRICOM has the responsibilities of U.S. traditional COCOMs, but has additional staff and resources to provide more civil-military capabilities in Africa. This is a change that should be viewed as a transformation within the DoD and its efforts to improve interagency relations. Because AFRICOM has been publicized as a command-plus, there has been suspicion concerning the motives behind the command. To promote AFRICOM, DoD began its strategic communication plan back in 2006. AFRICOM's commander and staff have campaigned in Africa and the U.S. to explain it's mission. This monograph introduces an approach called strategic communication design that focuses on a detailed analysis and comprehensive understanding of the information environment. The problem facing the USG is that strategic communication is poorly defined and has not been effective in communicating a synchronized message amongst DoD, the State Department and other government agencies. In order to be effective in communicating, the USG (specifically DoD and the State Department) needs to share a common understanding of what strategic communication is. In this monograph, strategic communication is broken down into five parts; the broadcaster, the message, the medium, the audience, and feedback. This study used strategic communication design to examine the ongoing effect to establish AFRICOM as a geographic combatant command to assess the feasibility and usefulness of the approach. The purpose is to outline a new approach to the strategic communication process using AFRICOM as a case study, and to provide recommendations to the AFRICOM staff for communicating its purpose and mission to audiences both internal and external to Africa.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 2008
Accession Number
ADA485653

Entities

People

  • Kathleen T. Turner

Organizations

  • United States Army Command and General Staff College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Doctrine
  • Foreign Relations
  • Geography
  • Governments
  • Information Operations
  • International Organizations
  • Military Science
  • Mobile Phones
  • National Security
  • Psychological Operations
  • Students
  • Unified Combatant Commands
  • United States
  • United States Africa Command
  • United States Central Command
  • United States European Command
  • Urban Areas

Readers

  • International Relations, focusing on Korea-Africa and North Korea-South Korea relations, and Nigeria-Latin American Relations.
  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.
  • Strategic Security Studies