Australian and Philippine strategic military communication specialists shared their skills during a training activity in the Philippines last month.
A four-person Australian joint military training team spent five days in Palawan sharing their public affairs knowledge with about 30 members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Topics discussed included strategic communication, military camera team planning, photography and imagery management techniques, social media, media engagement preparation and information environment assessment.
Officer Commanding 1st Joint Public Affairs Unit Major Anna-Lise Brink, the Australian contingent commander, said at a time when communication advantage was a vital military asset, the training week was valuable for both sides.
"While we shared strategies that work well for the Australian Defence Force (ADF), we also learned how the Philippine Armed Forces do strategic communication," Major Brink said.
"They are using communication approaches not currently used by us in Australia, like dedicated radio shows, social media news bulletins, social media bloggers and influencers, and these techniques have been very effective in reaching their target audiences.
"We can most definitely take some of those methods back to Australia to see how we can implement them to our advantage."
'It's been very interesting and useful for us as a military, for any activities that we would like to convey a message and have the objective to reach the hearts and minds of our target audience.'
The Philippine personnel were diverse, from public affairs officers, to combat camera operators and civil military affairs specialists. They included members of the Philippine Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marine Corps and National Police Maritime Group and Army.
Philippine Air Force public affairs supervisor Technical Sergeant Greta Orendain said she was happy to learn from the ADF, and had gained knowledge she could apply to her work.
"It's been very interesting and useful for us as a military, for any activities that we would like to convey a message and have the objective to reach the hearts and minds of our target audience," Technical Sergeant Orendain said.
She said learning about the ADF's imagery management techniques was eye-opening.
"I was so amazed by your system and process of saving your imagery and captions. You have a really nice practice in terms of storing your product and raw materials," Technical Sergeant Orendain said.
The training was part of the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Program, which supports defence and security cooperation between Australia and the Philippines.
