Cultural aspect on PR in Russia

Suvi Hurri

Last week Päivi wrote about cultural differences and how they affect PR. A study about the emergence of public relations in the Russian Federation (Golitsinski,M. 2000) opens this subject more. This study was published almost ten years ago, but reading it gives a good picture why western style PR has had problems in Russia.

Sources Golitsinski’s referres in the study say, for example, that western style PR is too rational for Russia and doesn’t fit in the “mystical peculiarity of the Russian soul”. Another statement is that notion “honesty”, which is necessary in public relations dialogue, doesn’t mean the same thing for Russians and for example Americans. In America it means “return your debt on time,” but in Russia it is “something more spiritual”. (Golitsinski 2000, 12)

Cultural differences may appear in many ways. Recently I read from Kauppalehti that Finnish companies still can’t create networks in Russia. The reason is simple according to this article. Finns make contacts mainly by e-mail, while Russians value personal meetings. (Eerola, A. 2009).

Golitsinski puts a question: should Russian PR be different from western PR because the whole culture is so different? According to Golitsinski Russian company executives have difficulties to separate propaganda from PR and many journalists think PR professionals lie all they can. Should this be accepted and let propaganda and bribery be a part of Russian public relations?

If Russia could flourish independently from the surrounding world this might even work. But as long as Russia have commerce with western countries it cannot have totally different PR system than the surrounding countries. Gotlinski makes the same conclusion. He claimes that “there is a distinction between culture-spesific public relations and unethical (as it is recognized by the international community) public relations." I couln't agree more.

Source: Golitsinski, S. 2000. A study of the emergence of public relations in the Russian Federation. Research paper.