Proactive Air Force Public Affairs: The Need, Entitlement and Effect

摘要

This document comments on Air Force public affairs and offers suggestions about the state of its 'proactivity' which is defined as an orientation that generally promotes seeking and planning activity, rather than reacting to it. Discussions about the nature of public opinion and media opinion and the effect of them on the public affairs process are included, as is a precis of formal bars to proactivity in the sense that civilian public relations practitioners might define it. Specific suggestions are given for making public affairs more proactive while staying within legal, organizational and ethical guidelines. Epilogue suggests that Air Force's image is determined as much or more by the way it performs (in day to day preparation for employment of force and in actual employment of force) than by its public affairs practitioners.