Kommunikation för strategisk effekt

Strategic communication is an important function for the Swedish Armed Forces to gain strategic effect and to achieve their goals. Well functional and proactive information is also addressed by the military as a means for protection against psychological warfare. This is pointed out as a serious threat against the Swedish defence will in times of peace and crises. In a democracy like Sweden it is however depending on medial power factors whether the communication will be effective or not. It is therefore useful to investigate how the Armed Forces strategic messages are presented when published in media. This essay will use media theories to investigate the outcome of the reporting of a specific case. The case is the decision that allows the Swedish Armed Forces to resume national service regarding refresher training of military units. This is an important tool for the Swedish Armed Forces, to be able to train in complete units, and also a chance to send strategic messages to its own population as well as neighbouring countries that the Swedish Armed Forces are increasing their ambitions. The investigation shows that the strategic messages were spread nationally both in press and on television. However, it could not be seen to have the impact enough to get people’s attention, in comparison to other news regarding the national defence. The reporting, in some cases, showed traces of what theories describe as undesirable “framing”, however the investigation cannot indicate any aggressive information campaign against the Armed Forces