Introduction
Communication in contemporary business activity is fundamentally a competitive activity, a rhetorical gamble in which writers and speakers attempt to gain benefit over other forces that challenge their audience’s attention. Of course, there is nothing new about the idea of competition, especially in contemporary studies of business and particularly in discussions of strategy, industry analysis, and marketing. However, this conception has yet to be used much in studies outside of these more customary areas of business. Competition can offer a familiar way of understanding activities that are not in the mainstream of business studies but are nonetheless essential to its flourishing practice. One of these activities is business communication.
Main body
North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its documentation have been chosen as the main subject of the present report. The three factors of communication held by this organization will be regarded. These are the website, the propaganda brochures, and newsletters or diplomatic lettering. As for the actuality of this work, it is obvious, as NATO’s further extension for the account of Eastern European countries stays the actual issue of the everyday newsreels.
The history of this organization is rather interesting. NATO became a result of the Brussels Treaty, signed by the five western European countries: Belgium, Great Britain, Luxemburg, Netherlands, and France. By signing this treaty in 1949, countries created a united system of collective defense and collective security. Then the USA and Canada joined the pact, and the main purpose of the organization became the confrontation with the Eastern Socialistic Block and Warsaw Pact Organization. It became one of the most important actors of the Cold War.
Now, after the end of the Cold war, and the dissemination of the Soviet Union and the whole Socialistic Block, NATO has transformed from military to military-political organization.
The website of this organization is made with rather a friendly interface and contains all the necessary information for the interested reader. The structure of the web page is rather comfortable for any World Wide Web surfer, as all the necessary links have been collected on the starting page of the organization. The web page is updated regularly, and the new publications are made in both working languages of the organization: English and French. Moreover, publications in the languages of all state members can also be found there. The potential content analysis will show that the visual appearance of the page is friendly, and not catchy, so eyes will not stiffen while the user looks through the page. As for the information available, it has been said above, that all the articles are in English and French languages. The publications placed at the site consider the history of the organization, the purposes of its creation, both during the Cold War and after it. Here the reader will be able to find the charter and the texts of the concluded treaties, including the Foundation Brussels Treaty. Everybody who is fond of the processes of NATO extension will find the maps, on which all the acting and potential members pointed out. Geographical games, checking the knowledge of European and North American flags and capitals will be interesting as for the children, who are fond of geography, so for the adults, who want to have a 5-minutes break.
All the available brochures can be found on the website in PDF format, but such printed materials are usually made for propaganda, and these brochures are distributed during the students’ conferences and NATO academies, which are held every two years.
The contents of these brochures differ greatly. The information which is available on the pages of such materials may concern recent events, where NATO states-members or the heads of these states participated, such as the recent Riga conference, where the issues of Afghanistan were regarded, and one of the most important issues of the agenda is the process of further extension. The brochure on the matter of the Riga summit provides an idea, that the North Atlantic alliance became a hostage of its own extension, as the heading state (the USA) is not rather successful in persuading all the members to choose the priority headings of the activity. The information about the military contingent, its location, and the operations held by it is also available, and no one is restricted to get to know about the innovations made in tactical and strategic equipment of the NATO army.
Brochures also include information about the programs implemented, or which are at the stage of elaboration. These programs concern the processes of collective security and collective defense elaboration, the status of the negotiations touching upon these issues. Various briefings are presented in the brochures, explaining and providing official points of view on the most burning issues. The only disadvantage of the brochures is that their number on the conferences is restricted, and not everyone who is willing has an opportunity to gain the information he is interested in, as the discussions and the reports made during the conferences do not usually touch upon the theoretical problems regarded in the brochures.
In the concluding part of the report, it is necessary to say, that the organization with five-decade history is not in the necessity of advertisement. All the necessary propaganda, claimed to populate the organization, or to change its image is placed on the web page or published in special brochures, dedicated especially to this issue.
Conclusion
Internal lettering is one of the most important factors of any international organization. As it is complexly structured, internal lettering is not only the measure of information exchange, but it is the mean of coordinating the work by the whole organization. Internal lettering is of the formal character, and is not always available for the reader, as it is of no interest for the inhabitant. It may be of scientific interest only for the researcher, and it is not in the wide access. But everything that can be found tells about the character of this lettering, its aims, and purposes. Any department has its own secretariat, which is responsible for inter-departmental lettering. These letters are composed according to the specified form of internal lettering, elaborated especially for intergovernmental organizations, such as NATO is.
References
- NATO organization civilian & military structures. 2007. North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Web.
- The North Atlantic Treaty. Washington D. C. 1949.
- An overview of the decisions taken at the NATO Summit in Riga, Latvia, 2006. NATO brochure, 2007.
- A comprehensive introduction describing how NATO works and covering policy development in the principal areas of Alliance activity. NATO brochure, 2004
- Military matters: The beginnings of NATO’s military structure: birth of the Alliance to the fall of the Berlin Wall, NATO brochure, 2006
- Tackling challenges of defence reform, NATO brochure, 2004.