Media Strategy and Military Operations in the 21st Century by Michal Shavit

Author:Michal Shavit [Shavit, Michal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, General, Political Science, Security (National & International), Middle East, Israel & Palestine, Social Science, Media Studies
ISBN: 9781317268581
Google: MEhnDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-07-15T16:18:08+00:00

Media strategy – the IDF as a brand name

As we have seen, following the replacement of the CoS and the Spokesperson in the run up to the Gaza disengagement, IDF media policy shifted from its strategic outlook to a concentration on preserving and improving the IDF’s public image and public trust in the IDF.12 This was done through the implementation of marketing practices and the branding of the IDF and the establishment of a public relations apparatus to strengthen the desired image with marketing principles at the core: ‘KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid’ [is] the marketing principle. Simplicity, speed, rapid transmission of information since there is no vacuum, certainly in relation to around the clock activities and credibility issues.’13

According to this approach, which developed in reaction to the approach in the previous phase until 2005, the IDF was not required to engage in what was labelled as ‘perception management’ among its citizens or to handle morale issues. Rather, it needed to clarify and transmit information to the public using methods that could be measured and assessed.14 A key practice for this was the use of PR:

The majority of information that we pass on is spokespersonship. Our second work tool is public relations: a tool under whose auspices we pass on the ‘face’ of the army. . . . The army needs to speak, but in a measured fashion, managed and planned. Beyond this, the army has the right to do everything in order to bring its achievements to be expressed. . . . It is permissible for the army, as long as it does not lie, to market its achievements in the best way possible.15

The media openness policy implemented in the 2006 Lebanon War, as a continuation of IDF policy during the disengagement,16 was perceived by the spokesperson as an unavoidable corollary of the technological changes in the twenty-first century media environment. The IDF had to adapt itself to circumstances where information was transmitted constantly online, on the internet and via other electronic and digital channels. Additionally, the IDF was required to accept that the degree of influence it could apply continued to grow, owing to technological advances that enabled the transmission of text and pictures from the heart of the battlefield.17 The mediatization process also came to expression in the way the IDF adapted during this period to the technological changes in the media and the proliferation of media logics as a result of the multiplying platforms.18

Authorization for the media to enter every area where combat occurred was viewed by the Spokesperson’s Division as unavoidable due to the competition with other players for ‘screen time’.19 Commercial television and competition for audience ratings, the internet, and the growing use of mobile phones broadened the IDF’s coverage to journalists on different tracks beside military correspondents. These all constituted a new media environment that in the professional estimation of the Spokesperson’s Division made it impossible for the IDF to operate under a policy of media restriction. As Lieutenant General Halutz remarked

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