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Air Force makes change to embrace Web 2.0

The Air Force’s new front in shaping its public reputation and fighting enemy propaganda is YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere. The move is an about-face from the service’s long reluctance to engage Web 2.0.

The Air Force Public Affairs Agency stood up its emerging technology office in October in part to counter online enemies increasingly savvy in information warfare.

Getting the Air Force message out through such new media is “instant and transparent. It provides our voice to a conversation that’s not currently there,” said Capt. David Faggard, Chief of Emerging Technology.

Part of the official push so far to engage airmen, potential recruits and service supporters online:

* Hap Arnold, the Air Force’s long-passed first chief, can be “friended” on Facebook.

* The Air Force blog links to free downloads from “Max Impact,” the rock group within the Air Force band, including its song “Lock and Loaded,” in which airmen sing about “dancing in the shadows” while “calling in an A-10 strike.”

* Followers of the service’s Twitter microblog can be updated on new videos on the Air Force’s YouTube feed, including one titled: “Want 2 jump out of a perfectly good Osprey?”

Faggard’s office has posted all of the above over the last several months in response to a mandated Pentagon online push. As part of the 2004 Quadrennial Defense Review, the Defense Department’s planning and doctrine guide, the department directed all services to expand their presence online and encourage their members to reach out directly to the public in 2006, Holt said. To that end, the Air Force’s emerging technology office is developing an online policy to give airmen guidelines on blogging; it should be released in the next few months.

The Defense Department also pushed greater use of digital resources to help counter propaganda spread by terrorists through the Internet, said Jack Holt, chief of new media operations of the new Defense Media Activity.

Terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida have used the Web to post videos of attacks on U.S. forces and send messages calling for the spread of violence.

The Air Force now has loaded its YouTube channel chock full of video clips of unmanned aerial vehicle strikes and A-10 assaults on insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The blogging guidelines are aimed at encouraging airmen to share experiences that reflect well on the service and to train them in how to respond to critical postings.

Faggard’s goal is to teach blogging and online information at the Air Force Academy, Officer Training School and basic training. Already on tap is a road show to educate public affairs officers about how to work with blogs online.

Step-by-step in cyberspace

The draft guidelines include a colored flow chart on how airmen should respond to blog posts. It identifies four types of negative blog posts and gives airmen a framework for how to handle them.

The chart advises airmen not to respond to a negative post that denigrates others. If the information in the critical blog post is bad, airmen should correct it and provide links to additional sources. Airmen are encouraged to identify themselves as service members and “respond in a tone that reflects highly on the rich history of the Air Force,” the chart says.

However, the effort raises some concerns that the Air Force is encouraging its own brand of propaganda.

“The basic question is, ‘Are they encouraging people to speak for themselves?’” said David Weinberger of the Berkman Center of Internet and Society at Harvard University.

Faggard says yes, but the Air Force has been criticized by regular Internet users for being slow to embrace online communications potential.

military blogger Susan Katz Keating said that putting faces on service members by allowing them to blog can work to the advantage of the military.

“It will humanize the services more,” she said. “This just reaches out to society at large as more personal.”

In that vein, Pacific Air Force began developing PacAF Pixels (http://www.pacafpixels.com/), which features blog postings by airmen as well as nonmilitary bloggers.

Nate Hale, a former airmen and mil-blogger with the blog In from the Cold (http://formerspook.blogspot.com), said the Air Force was on the right track but the question will be how far will the Air Force go to embrace the Web.

“Is the service willing to tackle controversial subjects in its new web venues?” Hale wrote in an e-mail. “That may be the ultimate test for this experiment.”

Said Col. Ward Heinke of Air Force Network Operations Center at Barksdale Air Force Base, La.: “That is a constantly changing dynamic; we are always striving to support the users of networks. It’s always an ongoing conversation.”

DISCUSS: The policy change