Air University Review, March-April 1969
Near the perimeter fence of a United States Air Force base in England stands a church that dates back to the Middle Ages. Although it has been virtually unused since its congregation was cut down by the Black Death in the fourteenth century, the villagers still hold Rogation Day services there every May. These many hundreds of years the British people in the area have managed to keep alive an old tradition. They are truly a people who know the uses of continuity.
While the British understand its importance, the Air Force information officer is very often oblivious to the lack of continuity in his professional life. This element upon which growth and progress are based is denied to the one who must work with social organizations that have known a long and uninterrupted development.
This is never more apparent than at the beginning of a new assignment, for incoming information officer does not enjoy a sufficient period of overlap with his predecessor. This, compounded usually with a lack of written records, may mean that he must restart the whole process of developing an information program for his new unit. While the community beyond the base perimeter enjoys a long historical development, sometimes reaching back hundreds of years, the information officer is the newest baby on the block. When it comes time for him to be reassigned, he will be three years old and at the height of his powers.
This dilemma is not restricted to United States Air Force personnel alone. Some years ago industry became aware of the problem. In May 1961 the Opinion Research Corporation published a provocative study entitled, “Who Are the Real Community Leaders?”l At one point the discussion focuses on the failure of managers of large plants to establish any real sense of community involvement. The civic leaders who were surveyed cited the lack of continuity of management as one of the prime reasons for the breakdown of effective contact with adjacent communities. The high rate of turnover at the management level prevented top executives from bridging the gap between plant and community.
The Air Force is affected by the turnover problem as much as if not more than industry. The USAF situation is aggravated by the fact that the world is its beat and that more than 50 percent of its officers do not remain for a career. With over 200 major installations located around the world and faced with a constant recruiting challenge, the Air Force has to work as hard as any government or industry to maintain continuity.
Anthropologists and historians wax poetic about the virtues of continuity. Remember, they say, man’s ability to bring a culture to its highest flower was limited so long as man was restricted to only verbal communication. With the advent of writing and the consequent ability to preserve knowledge came the possibility of doubling and redoubling the life experience of the individual. This was an important advance, for mankind, like large companies, governments, and armed services, faces a high turnover each year. People die, but others pick up their tools, philosophies, and cultural patterns and carry on. Through his penchant for recording information, man strengthened his feeble hold on his world and became a broker in ideas. Since the day he discovered that he could illuminate tomorrow with a book, he was freed from the task of carrying burning coals from camp site to camp site. A book enables a philosopher to cut down a tyrant with a truth that was launched two millenniums ago. Continuity makes it possible to have Aristotle on the team.
Strange, then, that the very agency that directs the historical function seems to be the one least impressed with the recorded word. Nor does it end there. It seems almost as though the written word-except for the daily news release-is held in disrepute.
It is not enough that the public information practitioner be concerned with meeting only the exigencies of the moment. To bring an information program to maturity requires techniques that will insure the maintenance of continuity. Some of these techniques, which will be touched upon m this article, are the use of content analysis to heighten objectivity and provide perspective, the development of historical records to preserve important information, and the initiation of studies that will afford the information officer and his commander a glimpse into the future.
Some years ago, an information officer with an irrepressible sense of humor had a name plate made which read, “Captain John Blank, Dealer in Intangibles.” Perhaps the information officer does deal in intangibles, but it is more correct to think of him as one who must work with a host of small details. At work he resembles a baleen whale feeding on plankton. A mountain of unrelated items must be digested if any sense is to be made of them. But to bring meaning out of minutiae is difficult if the proper tools with which to analyze raw data are not at hand. Often a multitude of unsorted details dulls understanding and leads to the snapping of the mental thread linking events.
Examples of this kind of continuity loss can be found at many Air Force bases. An interesting series of problems stemming from this type of breakdown occurred at an Air Force base in England.
In 1964, the departing information officer had been gone a week when a replacement came from a nearby base to fill the vacant slot temporarily. After seven weeks on temporary duty status, permanent change of station orders were issued to him, and the transfer was completed in the eighth week.
The new man found little written information available about the local community. Talks with a number of the officers revealed no real knowledge of the community structure. Some of them had British friends, but on the whole there were very few hard facts available. The unit history was mute on the subject of “community relations.” Fortunately, the RAF Liaison Officer was familiar with the area and was very helpful. And so it went.
Each day, the information staff would spend upwards of two hours reading newspapers from the local towns and villages. In all, two daily papers and four weeklies were scanned for news items of importance to the base. The clippings were then circulated among key officers in the unit. During the first six months that the information officer had been monitoring the clipping files, he had noticed “a lot of bad press.” His curiosity aroused, he conducted a content analysis of the six local newspapers (all of which were owned by one company), stretching back over the whole of 1964.
Categorizing the articles as either adverse or favorable publicity, he was able to develop the general pattern of USAF news to which the local British residents had been exposed. The analysis proved to be a shock. Fully 31 percent of everything published about the base fell into the adverse category (approximately 5 percent is average for a base enjoying good relations). Almost one in every three stories fell into one of five adverse publicity subcategories: aircraft accidents, automobile violations, public disturbances, aircraft noise, and miscellaneous misadventures. Over 60 percent of the adverse material was devoted to automobile violations. Oddly enough, the Americans had hardly any more accidents on the average than the British populace. Somehow the American motorist had caught the eye of the British press.
At this point, a decision had to be made: Was the adverse publicity the outgrowth of anti-American sentiments, or should an alternative answer be sought? It was decided to hold the anti-Americanism hypothesis in abeyance until the staff could examine its own efforts in telling the Air Force story to the British community.
Out of the clippings three major types of stories emerged: Anglo-American marriages, automobile accidents, and airman job proficiency. Of these only the last was written and released by the information office staff for both the local press and the military media. Marriages and accidents were picked up by the local British reporters.
An information office staff member raised the question whether it were possible that a news-hungry press turned to the marriage and automobile accident stories as a last resort. In the absence of a variety of positive news releases being generated by the information staff, were the local newspapers covering the churches and courts for usable material?
The answer that this was indeed the case was a difficult one to accept, for it pointed the finger of blame directly at the information office. That office should have recognized that it was not telling the story of the USAF in sufficient detail. The vacuum that was allowed to develop drove the local press to pick up whatever was available. What was available was poor.
The direct outcome was that the local newspapers unconsciously were being forced to project a picture of the American as a man of narrow interests: good with his weapons, a caution in an automobile, and apt to become one’s son-in-law. No less had been done for Genghis Khan and his horde seven hundred years earlier.
The local residents had a right to discover via their newspapers that the Americans in their midst were something more than two-dimensional mercenaries. During the next two years the overall output was increased, and a variety of stories was planned to eradicate the image that had grown up over time. In 1964, the year of the content analysis, 298 articles were published; in 1965, 369; in 1966, 461.
By continuing the content analysis, the information office could measure the effect that this change of policy was having on the local newspapers. During the three years that the content analysis was conducted, a 253 percent increase in favorable coverage was logged: 1964, 1733 column inches; in 1965, 2753 inches; in 1966, 4389 inches. At the same time the adverse news began a slow retreat: 1964, 761 inches (of which 453 were attributed to automobile violations); 1965, 619 inches (401 autos); 1966, 398 inches (246).
(Several British civilians offered reasons why the automobile accident stories were popular or at least were receiving an inordinate amount of press attention. The local populace had been sensitized to the appearance of the large American car on their narrow country lanes. It tended to be painted a bit brighter than the staid little British cars; its steering wheel was located on the wrong side of the vehicle; and it was driven by a man who had learned to drive on the wrong side of the road. To the British press, in the absence of any other news, it was a godsend.)
In the following two years (1965 and 1966), other items were to be fished out by the content-analysis seine. Some of these were minor headaches but are illustrative of the kinds of basic problems that must be dealt with when records do not exist.
At one end of the base’s active runway was a town whose history went back over a thousand years. Today, many of its residents find employment at the base. The town was only seven miles from the airdrome, and a large number of American families had settled there. Relations were good, and yet the local weekly newspaper carried very few news items about the base and its British and American work force.
Again, the information staff looked to its own system first. All the Air Force news releases were sent to the newspaper company’s consolidated newsroom, and its internal distribution system took care of getting them to the editors in the outlying communities. The editor of the weekly, who was very partial to Americans, when queried said that he never saw many of the Air Force releases. Somewhere that copy was being sidetracked. The information staff decided to switch to a direct mail system to reach the editor.
The content analysis for 1966 dramatically traces the improvement that the new system brought about. After two quiet years during which the paper carried approximately 200 column inches each year, the third year saw 1080 inches in print.
Direct mail! Think how primitive a development that is. The base in question had been in that country for 15 years, and in that time someone should have discovered that the newspaper’s central newsroom was used to handling “the big news” and had a tendency to ignore the needs of their own weekly editors. A permanent record of some kind would have precluded the new information officer’s having to start from scratch.
In the area of records keeping an interesting paradox is encountered. The maintenance of semiannual histories has been the lot of information officers for some time. One would tend to expect that association with this function over a period of time had developed in information officers a high regard for its worth and, more important, that it would have stimulated an intellectual acceptance of the whole idea of recording significant human activities. But an examination of almost all semiannual histories will reveal that nothing has been entered in the section reserved for the wing/base information office. The implication is that perhaps nothing significant has occurred. Nothing could be further from the truth, but the absence of permanent record creates serious handicaps for newly assigned military executives. A system that replaces its personnel sequentially every two to three years cannot afford to have blank pages in its unit histories. Between the rotation system and lack of historical records, the information officer virtually is condemned to remain a two- or three-year-old when dealing with a community that dates back beyond the time of his assignment.
This is not a fussy mind fretting over “the small stuff” that everyone hates to sweat. Such omissions and sloppy methods can and do hurt Air Force people. A case in point occurred at the same Air Force base in England.
In 1964, the agencies concerned with the welfare of American families living in British communities were registering a vague complaint from the wives of servicemen living in isolated villages. Approximately 1100 families lived in the larger towns, but some 700 families had to find “digs” in the smaller villages. These accommodations were as far as 30 miles from the base, with very poor bus service between the base and neighboring towns and villages. During the day, the husband usually drove to work in the family car, leaving his wife alone at home in a strange community. It took over a year to identify the problem: the women were experiencing culture shock.
Thanks to a very perceptive Community Relations Advisor (these are British women who are assigned to each base by the Ministry of Defence to assist Americans in getting the most out of their cross-cultural adventure), an Anglo-American welcome wagon program was organized. In the larger communities, American women who had made the adjustment to their new environment could be counted on to contact the newly arrived family and see to their comfort. In the villages, however, very often there were no other American families. There, a British women’s service organization, the Women’s Institute, was called upon to welcome the new arrivals. The system proved to be very effective.
Recently a reprint of an interesting paper turned up at a college lecture. It was entitled “Culture Shock” and had been circulated to all our bases in Europe in October 1960. The author described the symptoms, then said:
I think culture shock affects
wives more than husbands. The husband has his professional duties to occupy him
and his activities may not differ too much from what he has been accustomed to.
The wife, on the other hand, has to operate in an environment which differs
much more from the surroundings in which she grew up, consequently the strain
on her is greater.2
Five years after the publication of that paper, an entire unit stumbled toward a solution. While the base was struggling to determine the problem and its cure, over a thousand families had moved into and out of the villages surrounding the American enclave. The cost in misery and maladjustment could have been lessened had a system existed for storing and sharing important information.
The preservation of meaningful information and the periodic analysis of the day-today operation are important to the maintenance of continuity, but these steps are by no means the only ones that should be taken. Increasingly, public relations practitioners are becoming aware of the need for long-range planning. In the May 1968 issue of Public Relations Journal, John Hill, chairman of Hill and Knowlton, discusses this very point:
The daily pressures are such that the pragmatic approach to public relations, the urgency to achieve immediate results and solutions, inevitably dominates our activities. But more and more our work is also concerned with the longer view involving areas which would have seemed wholly academic a few years ago. It is my opinion that large firms like ours are increasingly going to need to be better grounded in such fields as the political, social and behavioral sciences if we are to be able to deal with the complex problems of today and tomorrow. There is a gap between these areas and the purely pragmatic aspect of public relations which needs to be bridged.
What form should this planning take? A study now in progress will serve as an example of the kind of long-range planning that commanders and their staffs will find vital in next five or ten years.
Perhaps a line taken from a wildlife conservationist’s handbook might serve to introduce the study in question. Birds, they say, are free to fly almost anywhere but find that roosting places are becoming scarces. Where man roosts, birds do not. The same might be said of aircraft. Air Force bases have traditionally been located in fairly remote areas, but as population figures continue to climb, communities everywhere are burgeoning. What may have been a small and remote base 20 or 30 years ago is today a $300 or $400 million installation with a spectacular suburban or urban growth going on all around its perimeter. As the urban matrix constricts, the flying mission may be threatened.
The urban encroachment study now being conducted by two wing information officers is being carried out in a state where 87 percent of the airspace is used primarily by military aircraft from three major USAF bases. At the present time there are no community relations problems, and the base still enjoys a certain isolation. Its nearest neighbor is a town of 1500, one mile to the south.
There are, however, several factors that may alter the picture. Fifteen miles to the east is a major community which in the past 17 years has grown from 100,000 to 525,000 people. By 1975 this city will shelter almost a million inhabitants. Newcomers will find that the land surrounding the base is one of the few areas left for home sites. In fact, the small towns bordering the base are well aware that they are facing a period of unprecedented growth. Each of them has commissioned special studies designed to serve as blueprints for community development.
By obtaining copies of these studies, the information officers have been able to map the changes in population density and residential area boundaries that will have an effect on the base mission. Three major areas of concern have emerged: the small town of 1500, one mile to the south, will jump in population to 100,000 by 1985; a retirement community of 11,500 located five miles to the northeast will jump to 50,000 by the 1980s; and a small airport six miles from the end of the runway has been designated to serve as a satellite airport for the metropolis to the east (it will not only handle freight and passengers but will also have as tenant a large school for light aircraft pilots). (See map.)
The intent of the information staff in conducting a study of its own is not to try to hinder the growth of the communities around it. Their purpose is to lay a foundation for a community relations program that will begin to pay off during the next twenty years. In general, their study will help them in determining whether base/community councils should be formed, who should serve on them, and what problems will require special cooperation to avoid conflict. Perhaps those involved in the study will find that at some future date the needs of the community will overshadow those of their base, but at least they have taken a step which will enable them to chart a sensible course for their commander. If the work is accomplished with care and skill, future information officers and commanders also should benefit, to say nothing of the mission.
If it were feasible to start work on the best of all possible information worlds, one could strongly advocate several steps.
First, personnel policies should be modified to ensure that there will be sufficient overlap between the arrival of the new information officer and the departure of the old. This would keep a strong hand on the helm until the replacement had a chance to meet community leaders, news media representatives, and other key people. A two-month overlap would provide the new man with a fruitful period of apprenticeship.
An important second step would be to employ a greater variety of techniques such as content analysis. While these do not replace the subjective interpretations of the information officer, they do aid him in gaining an appreciation of problems not amenable to subjective analysis. Content analysis has one further feature: it is recorded information and as such is capable of being transmitted to a successor.
In several of our case histories, the incoming information officer had to begin from scratch. A third step that would eliminate a great deal of this kind of wheel spinning is a re-examination of the semiannual history as it is used by the information office. What is lacking in the historical program is a solid requirement for the inclusion of a carefully structured analysis of the local community. (Here is where content analysis of the local newspapers would find a home; here, too, would be the place for the introduction of special problems that had been encountered and their solutions. This would keep information specialists from having to rediscover culture shock and direct mail systems over and over again.) A carefully conceived study of the local community should be more than a collection of odds and ends. It should be a systematic approach, and a modified model might easily be borrowed from one of the social sciences.
“But look at the community relations reports we are writing now!” some would cry. True, but these could be altered to fit a more scientifically designed model. If properly done, a single report could be developed that would satisfy both requirements. Including the report in a unit’s semiannual history would ensure its preservation and continuity.
Finally, as Mr. Hill suggests, some of the information officer’s daily energy should be spent in attempting to learn more of what the future holds for his organization. The alternative is to catapult the unit into a situation over which its leaders have no influence or understanding.
The techniques mentioned here can evolve a fuller awareness of the importance of the past, present, and future to a community relations program. No longer is it possible to regard the interior life of the citadel as of paramount and overriding importance; efforts must be made to discover the pulse of the community beyond the perimeter fence. Each information officer in the course of his work attempts this very thing, but many fail to leave evidence of their good work behind for later appraisal and use. There can be no doubt that collectively information officers are producing pearls; the cry for continuity here is in the main a search for a means of stringing the pearls together. For, as with most pieces of fine jewelry, it is the excellence of design which imparts a value that exceeds the cost of the individual gems.
Luke Air Force Base, Arizona
Notes
1. Opinion Research Corporation, “Who Are the Real Community Leaders?” Princeton, New Jersey: The Public Opinion Index for Industry, May 1961.
2. Dr. Kalervo Oberg, “Culture Shock,” Health, Welfare and Housing Division, United States Operation Mission to Brazil.
Captain Angelo J. Cerchione (B.A., Michigan State University) is information Officer, 4510th Combat Crew Training Wing, Luke AFB, Arizona. In 1952 he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served aboard the aircraft carrier USS Midway, CVA-41, reverting to inactive reserve in 1956. He enlisted in the Air Force in 1958, attended Michigan State University in 1962 under Airmen Education Commissioning Program, and was commissioned in 1963. His first assignment as an information officer took him to England, with 81th Tactical Fighter Wing, RAF Station, Bentwaters, 1964-67. In 1966 his unit received the American Ambassador’s Award for Community Relations. He has attended the Air Force Course in Public Relations and Communications, Boston University.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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