The IDF Comes of (Web 2.0) Age

Even the Government of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have come aboard the Web 2.0 bandwagon. Learning from past mistakes and moving to correct decades of poor execution getting their message out, both organizations are proceeding rapidly to embrace the technology of the 21st Century.

By adding new weapons to their media arsenal, and largely bypassing the traditional press, they hope to achieve a leveling on the international media playing field.

First up, the IDF has launched a blog, where you can read unfiltered pretty current summaries of military actions in Operation Cast Lead – the Government is also utilizing Twitter and YouTube. Here’s more from Andrew Ian Dodge:

Israel Shakes Up the Information War

December 29, 2008, might go down in history as one of the days the mainstream media truly started to lose their grip. It was an historic day online for both social media and citizen journalists. You won’t hear about it from the mainstream media, of course, because they are probably rather peeved at the run around them directly to bloggers and social media commentators.

What was this earth-shattering occurrence you probably didn’t hear of, unless you are interested in the subject involved? Well, in fact it was two events that were part of a campaign to sidestep the mainstream media. The Israeli government and military, mindful that they are not getting a fair shake in the press virtually anywhere in the world, set up a couple of things to get to the bloggers and other online types.

First of all, Monday afternoon saw the Israeli consulate in New York hold a press conference on Twitter on their own “hashtag” stream for anyone to read and listen to…

At the same time the Israeli Defense Forces launched its own channel on YouTube to display their view of events on the ground…

It is clear that this will be the future for many organizations tired of being misrepresented in the press and of prejudiced members of the media always doing them down.