Employing Immersion Theory as a Public Affairs Instructional Tool in Frontier Conflict Regions

Abstract

Frontier conflict regions push the boundaries of how to educate foreign civilian and military public affairs specialists. In most cases, United States military personnel and Department of Defense civilians are implanted in these regions as instructors. With no formal guidance or education on how to be educators themselves, these teacher-recruits must design, plan, and execute training strategy on their own. Public affairs mentoring in a war zone can be enhanced through the process of creative immersion. Classroom theory and instruction is not efficient when training members of a foreign military that have been tasked with traditional public affairs officer assignments yet lack any familiarity with computers, cameras, software, writing skills, or Internet access. Immersion is the process of putting public affairs tools in the hands of untrained and often uneducated people and developing process knowledge as opposed to theoretical knowledge. Immersion is an emerging educational tool that is particularly practical in a third-world country at war, also called a frontier conflict region. This case study proposes a new standard for delivering public affairs learning in emerging and frontier conflict regions as created by an American training team positioned near Gardez, Afghanistan, and their endeavor to establish a lasting public affairs program in the eastern region of Operation Enduring Freedom.