A Study of Diffusion of Innovations for the R.O.C Army’s Recruitment: The Example of Volunteer Military Service

• Main Authors: Yi Chuan,Yao, 姚逸耑
• Other Authors: Chin-Chih,Chiang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/81576007317309898905

碩士 === 世新大學 === 傳播管理學研究所(含碩專班) === 101 === According to the schedule revealed by the Ministry of National Defense, completely volunteer military service is expected to go in effect in 2015. Starting then, compulsory military service, which has been practiced for decades, will become history. Recently, many media outlets (e.g. China Times, United Daily News, Apple Daily, Youth Daily News, etc.) have produced massive reports on this issue, signifying that not only are draftees facing a change to the military service system, but also the need of a sophisticated planning for the Ministry of National Defense to respond to questions such as military strength and the structure of military forces, after a comprehensive implementation of volunteer military service. This study aims to explore and discuss how to effectively propagate the recruitment messages of military volunteers through communications channels after the volunteer military service is fully implemented. Hence, this study applies different variables of Rogers’ “Diffusion of Innovations Theory” to investigate how the Ministry of National Defense can integrate military volunteer-recruiting messages with its publications, electronic media, propaganda, etc. and effectively deliver its message to the target recipients (male youth and current draftees with high (vocational) school diplomas) to recruit interested individuals to join the volunteer military service, as well as, fulfill the ultimate goal of maintaining national security based on capable military defense after the volunteer military service is put into practice. This study reveals that the largest difference between publication and electronic media is electronic media’s feature of repetitive usage without recurring cost, and most importantly, the capacity of reaching the potential audience of otaku. For the Recruitment Center of National Armed Forces, electronic media is a legitimate communication channel to facilitate the recruitment of military volunteers in consideration of its limited budget. For recruitment of military volunteers on Taiwan’s off-shore islands, the test takers generally prefer logistics units to combat units, and also tend to choose the main island over off-shore islands as a station for their service. Consequently, the shortage of personnel recruitment for the troops on Taiwan’s off-shore islands is significant. In addition, the author finds that the “reservists” and “contact persons of military dependents’ villages” are two vital opinion leaders capable of delivering military volunteer-recruiting messages to residents in Taiwan’s townships, neighborhoods, villages through their interpersonal networks and military backgrounds, creating a mobile and ubiquitous communication function of military recruitment.