Well look at that- as fate would have it I left my unofficial blogging duties only two weeks ago to find a new home here on the District 13 Blog- fate I tell ya, fate. I would like to thank the D13 Public Affairs office for giving me a place continue my passion for blogging on my second love: the Coast Guard (family first). I think I can consider this an "official blog"... Some may recall I wrote on An Unofficial Coast Guard Blog, prior to me leaving, a post titled "Official USCG Blogger- That would be a cool title;" well here I am writing, at least part time, for an official Coast Guard blog- I got my title.

I had to think of a first post for a little while and I believe I came up with a good one: new media. Now if you aren't the type who frequents this or other blogs you may be puzzled as to why I would care to tackle this item first. Well, the question of what new media is and where it's going seems to be coming in from a few different directions. And more so, what is this "New Media?" We should all take this opportunity to educate ourselves on exactly what this "New Media" is and is not. Oh, and what exactly is a "blogger?"

New media. It's a term that, along with blog, has engulfed discussions within the circles of Flag Officers and Public Affairs offices around the country. Oh, but don't think we are the only service who is dealing with the "New Media" outbreak. Within the last year or so you may recall the headlines throughout mainstream media about the Army and Air Force taking steps to quell this blog "thing" (view here and here, respectively). This is a term that has been thrown around as if it were a bad word or an evil empire. Instead of diving into why it could be construed as good or bad (see previous links), we should understand what it is. Per everyone's favorite online free encyclopedia, Wikipedia, which has a page dedicated to New Media, we read "[what] counts as new media is often debated, and is dependent on the definitions used. However, there are a few that have been widely accepted" of which include blogs. The technical breakdown is that New Media is simply a digitized form of media outlet. So what's the big deal? We'll get to that, on to blogger.

Blogger. In it's technical sense is a service for publishing a blog which is copyrighted by Google, however, in the spirit of what we are discussing and in an effort to keep from boring you, a blogger is a person who keeps or writes on a web log (weB LOG). There are several different types of blogs that are published, but for the short of it, this blog, D13's, is considered Corporate blog that is "used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or PR purposes" (hit the nail on the head) (1).

So now what? Well the use of this new media has been something of a conversation piece both within the DOD and DHS. On the DOD side, and aside from the aforementioned Army/Air Force dealings, the U.S. Navy has also been weighing in- favorably. The blog "The Destroyerman: Life Aboard the USS Russell" is a U.S. Navy sanctioned (as in their cool with it) blog about, as the name mentions, life aboard the USS Russell. This may not seem like that big of a revelation until you notice that the blog is written on the "off the shelf" Blogger (the Google one) platform- awesome. They don't stop there though- the blog is written strictly from the deckplate level (though I'm sure there is some OPSEC and PA oversight). But not to be outdone by our DOD brethren, the DHS has a few tricks up it's sleeve as well. Leading the pack in innovation within the blogging game (government style) is the DHS's Leadership Journal which basically keeps the public abreast of general DHS topics from policy to budget. Next we have Transportation Security Administration's Evolution of Security . This site is great! Their goal: "...facilitate an ongoing dialog on innovations in security, technology and the checkpoint screening process." In a common sense kind of way- it's a behind the sense look at the TSA, dare I say it, transparency at it's finest. That leaves us with one more agency (though I'm sure there are more, it's my last to cover), the United States Coast Guard. In comparison to the other two junior (as in time in existence) departments/agencies, it seems they have passed us up in the world of blogging. Though it should be said that WE had a magazine, they didn't.

Where the Coast Guard is and where I think they should be are two different things, though change is in the air, and I'm getting excited. Case in point, you are reading what I am writing; I am not a public affairs guru, nor do I work in anywhere near their office. I, along with a few other Coasties, were asked if we would like to start writing from the "Deckplate" level. As of now the Coast Guard is making an effort to close this internal/external media gap by way of starting their own "official" blog/journals. The first is the Coast Guard Journal, a public affairs outlet. And the second is here, the D13 Blog! Both are very informative in the realm of the Coast Guard's public affairs world. I have also heard the scuttlebutt of a officer type in the Florida area that has a blog of sorts for his personnel on leadership issues.

The Coast Guard public affairs office (at least the manual writers) see the potential of blogging, so much in fact, it (blogging) is just shy of being encouraged. Per the Public Affairs Manual: