Strategic communications aren't trusted--as a rule

THE WORLD: "Iraqis Aren't Buying It: Media campaign dismissed as U.S. propaganda," by Ernesto Londono, Washington Post, 15-21 June 2009.

A caustic description of Baghdad Now, an Arabic-language newspaper that highlights the usual skill sets the U.S. Government brings to strategic communications.

Other efforts are mentioned, none kindly.

One Iraqi sums up a set of commercials thusly: "These commercials are boring, poor and annoying. Everyone knows they're American--not Iraqi-made."

Comments

[Vincent Bataoel]

Could benefit from neurofocus.com

[Chuck S]

This article uses an external view of a single (probably legacy) campaign, and extrapolates it to the overall media and public opinion strategies in Iraq. This is a huge mistake. The Coalition media operations are far more sophisticated than most folks think the military is capable of.

While this newspaper might not be all that effective (likely it's someone's baby, left over from how "we used to do it"), it's important to understand that there are multiple threads to the ongoing media campaign. A number of different entities are involved, some not military, and there is at least some coordination to prevent 'message fratricide'.

More importantly to the discussion of effectiveness is the aggressive multi-source effort to measure the way Iraqis perceive the messages. Anecdotes like those cited in the article aren't that useful in assessing the effectiveness of a campaign. The media campaigns in Iraq right now are regularly and mercilessly evaluated, and ineffective messages are dropped. In general, the effects on public opinion from the overall campaign(s) here have been measurable and positive. It hasn't always been this way, but at the strategic and operational levels, it's working pretty well now.