Media Informasi Kemaritiman Cakrawala Edisi 414 Tahun 2013 | Page 85

important role in the success of
operation. By the work of PA, the
public opinion can be shaped
which will, like we state in the
beginning, create public interest
and hopefully will increase
public support to military, in this
case military operation.
Military
in
developed
countries like US, UK and
Canada are including the PA
as part of decision making
process. If we look at the
figure 1, it’s the illustration
from the US Department of
Defense (DoD) scheme of
operation they call Strategic
Communication. We can see
that the PA is in the scheme
with the PSYOPS department,
Operations department and
the others. It means that the
US military beliefs that the PA
is the part they can’t separate
from the success of their military
operations. And it does proof

that in those countries, public
support to military are really
high. In Canada for example,
the Canadian Forces (CF)
enjoying their popularity as
the most trusted institution in
Canada since 2010. (http://www.
readersdigest.ca)
Gain benefit from their
military PA branch, the CF
continuously
developing
it.
They
established
Defence
Public Affairs Learning Centre
(DPALC) in 2006 in order to train
their military personnel about PA
and to generate qualified PA
personnel who will fill the military
PA branch. This important for
the CF because for them in this
era, where the media is really
fast, they need to have a stong
and professional PA Officer to
deal with the media, to keep
and maintain the good military
image.

Back in our country,
Indonesia, TNI military PA is
trying to find its form. There many
of lessons learned from the past
military experiences where we
have to deal with the PA matters.
Some of it we can deal with, and
some we can’t deal it as good
as the other. It’s normal for the
learning stage, there never
been easy like flipping our palm.
As long as we trying to develop
our PA expertise and trying to
be better to communicate our
military intent to public in the
good manner, there always
possibility to TNI military PA to
become a stronger PA like the
other military PA. The important
thing is, if we know that the PA is
so important, do we really care
about it? ©SLt. Wahyu Widadi

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