War reporting and Australian defence public relations, an exchange

This case study presents an evaluation of the relationship between the Australian Defence Force public relations department and Australian political and specialist defence media during the Iraq conflict in 2003.An adaptation of Grunig’s (2002) qualitative approach was used and found to be flexible to describing and conceptualising the relationship between the media and defence. One-to-one interviews were conducted with defence and media personnel to gather data, this method enabled difficult topics to be broached, articulated, and explored with frank discussion.The media were less satisfied than defence with the defence-media relationship during the Iraqi conflict, and there were mixed levels of trust felt by both parties. Each party was committed to what they described as an important relationship, and interviewees were unanimous in describing the relationship as ‘exchange’, rather than communal.The research process and insights helped to clearly identify gaps and problems in the relationship between the two parties, and helped the military public relations department to change strategy, structure and policy.