Abstract

The Department of Defense expends significant resources to produce internal information products to communicate to service members. The present study specifically looked at the various mediums available to Air Force service members serving in the continental United States. Of fundamental interest to the researchers were the various uses and gratifications of internal media products, the credibility audience members assigned to the Air Force’s internal media products, and which products are used most by which groups. This study also asks whether education level is correlated to preference for communication sources. Surprisingly, most of the predictions in this study were not supported by the evidence. However, the last hypothesis proposed was supported by the data with regard to credibility assigned to immediate (person to person) information sources. The data regarding the research question concerning education level and preferred news medium also showed a direct relationship. Results of the study were discussed, including possible explanations of the unsupported hypotheses, as well as limitations of this study.