The Development of Public Relations in Russia

by Nina Kinnunen

INTRODUCTION

Since it is rather impossible to cover all the former Soviet Union countries as a whole, we will concentrate on certain ones of them. I have planned to focus on Russia in my posts. It is quite an obvious choice to start writing about, because it was the core of Soviet Union. Russia is probably the state that you find the hardest not to mention while talking about former Soviet Union countries. So, from now on I will discuss the development and changes in the role of PR in Russia. It would be especially insightful to get some comments or reflections from someone from Russia or other former USSR states – if there are any attending this course? But all fellow students, we are welcoming and waiting for your comments!

So, what have I already learned about the development of the Russian PR field? All the scientific or other accounts I have found so far, place the emergence of Russian PR to the end or to the last years of Soviet Union. Many writers start their accounts from the year 1989. Around that time the launch of McDonald's in Moscow took place and some consider it to be the first public relations campaign in the country and thus even the origin of Russian PR. (How accurate this is, one can question, but maybe it truly was first or one of the first commercial PR campaigns of that kind.) The conventional thought thus seems to be that the Russian PR industry is about 20 years old now. Its history is not very long, but it has already developed into a complex and significant industry. According to Andrew Sveshnikoff in 2005 the industry was growing at an annual rate of 30-40 per cent a year and was worth around US $100 million of fees paid to agencies, (but in addition to this a huge proportion of PR is carried out in-house). (Sveshnikoff 2005.)

The complexity of the PR field reflects the complexity of Russia itself: a country of 142 million people, 89 regions, 11 time zones, vast number of cultures, nationalities, and many religions. The same complexity applies to the Russian communications and media environment. In that huge country there are hundreds of national media outlets and dozens of local media in every city, and every year there are new publications and broadcast channels. (Sveshnikoff 2005.) The soviet past has also had significant influence on this complexity. The transition from propaganda to public relations has not been that simple and has led to the emergence of the so called “black” and “white” PR as a consequence. I would like to discuss these terms a bit more as “today’s specific topic”.


“BLACK” AND “WHITE” PR 
Transition from Propaganda to Public Relations

The Soviet Union had its own working tool of communication - propaganda - and although public relations has now gained ground as an accepted communications field, the influence of propaganda is still traceable (Sveshnikoff 2005). The transition process from propaganda to PR created the terms "black” PR and “white” PR. These two terms emerged in the early 1990s and soon became widely used among Russian professionals and scholars. “Black” PR is associated with unethical, manipulative techniques. Russians tend to connect it especially with political public relations, particularly with election campaigns and such methods as spreading misinformation of political rivals. (Tsetsura 2009, 605.) But of course, questionable practices have not been restricted only to political PR: the richest and biggest companies have bought themselves positive publicity. They have bought stories, editors and reporters, even entire media outlets. (Sveshnikoff 2005.) “White” PR, in contrast, presents the ethical view of PR (Tsetsura 2009, 605).

However, there are scholars who refuse to categorize PR practices into “white” and “black”. They argue that “black” PR should not be called public relations at all, but simply propaganda. (Tsetsura 2009, 605.) I find this view rather understandable and not just from the scholarly viewpoint of making precise, analytical divisions between different concepts. These arguments have also a lot to do with protecting and creating a positive image for the profession. It is understandable that such labels as “black” PR create distrust. If it becomes an accepted, popular view that it is characteristic or normal to PR professionals to practice their profession unethically, general attitudes towards PR won’t obviously be very positive. But the fact, as Katerina Tsetsura points out, is that the formulation of the image of Russian PR has already happened strongly in relations to “black PR versus white PR” -thinking (ibid.). Wonder what people in general think of public relations in Russia?

Many scholars point out that discussions of “black” and “white” PR exist mainly because the profession has been slow to adopt ethical standards. Russian professionals have joined associations such as the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) that expect them to follow codes of ethics. As well as the Russian Public Relations Association has its own code of ethics. Nevertheless, Russian PR professionals often consider such codes idealistic and not applicable in the Russian environment. Many of them argue that it is simply impossible to practice ethical or “white” public relations because nobody would pay for it. Some senior managers of Russian organizations are still heavily influenced by Soviet past, and do not value the importance of open communication. (Tsetsura 2009, 605-606.) It seems that PR professionals have felt/feel that there are environmental factors that force them to use “black” PR. Still, in 2005 Andrew Sveshnikoff was optimistic and predicted that even though “black PR agents” still worked in Russia, they would not have a future or their future would be very limited as the market and PR industry would mature (Sveshnikoff 2005). Wonder if there have been any chances in this by now? Maybe further research will tell.

Thank you for reading! (This was quite a long post, hopefully you survived through : ) )





USED SOURCES:

Sveshnikoff, Andrew (2005) PR in Russia: Gloom vs. Growth. Weber Shandwick, Outcomes, Edition 7, May 2005.
http://www.webershandwick.co.uk/outcomes/issue7/topstory.html

(According to that text Andrew Sveshnikoff was then the vice president of ADV, Russia’s leading communications group, and founder of PRP, one of Russia’s largest PR agencies.)

Tsetsura, Katerina (2009) Development of public relations in Russia: a geopolitical approach. In Sriramesh, Krishnamurthy &Verčič, Dejan. (ed.) The global public relations handbook: theory, research, and practice. New York: Routledge 2009, p. 600–617.