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Military Research on Embedding

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One of the capstone projects completed by the students at the Department of Defense Joint Course in Communication compares news stories with embedded reporters with those stories with non-embedded reporters, pointing out that embedded reporting was more favorable toward the military, thus suggesting that the "results are beneficial to the military because public support is crucial to morale and a successful military operation." The statement makes explicit the implicit values and biases of this military-funded project, perhaps drawing our attention to the role of the project in serving the public affairs needs of the military. This sort of academic involvement in promoting military agenda raises critical questions regarding the ideology guiding such research and the politics of such research. Research like this conducted under the auspices of dominant social actors serves the power structure rather than questioning the ways in which it operates. The research project is implicitly co-opted into the military agenda by supplying a set of legitimate research questions and methodlogical tools for answering these questions.

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