“We are not getting the good stories out”: revisiting Quebec media coverage and NATO’s strategic narrative for the International Assistance and Security Force (ISAF)

The purpose of NATO’s strategic communications is to inform and influence key audiences into supporting its decisions and operations. High levels of public opposition in contributing nations to NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan has led many to blame strategic communications for failing to explain the objectives and the importance of the mission. This paper seeks to evaluate where strategic communications succeeded and where they failed using Quebec as a case study, as it is the Canadian province that had the highest levels of opposition to the mission. The first part of this study uses NATO internal communications products to establish the core messages of the ISAF narrative in different phases of the mission. The second part surveys the main themes in the coverage of ISAF in Quebec’s main newspapers and TV shows. The major finding of this paper is that there was an effective dissemination of the NATO narrative in Quebec media, yet the narrative had little impact on opinion polls. The fact that the strategic communication campaign was successful in informing but not in influencing the Quebec audience carries important implications for the crafting of future NATO strategic narratives. This study concludes that efforts to improve military strategic communications in should focus developing communication products specific to minority cultures.