Do cultural backgrounds have an effect on PR?

By Päivi Jauhiainen

Soviet Union was a vast country in which the different states did not share the same cultural, religious or linguistic backgrounds. Still, everyone in the country was supposed to live by the same ideology which was spread around the country with the help of propaganda. Everyone was supposed to think the same way and was fed the same ideology by the goverment regardles of their backgrounds.

In my opinion, the old states of Soviet Union are facing a new challenge now. Earlier they were not seen as individual nations but as a part of "one big family" with same ideologies, the Soviet people. I think it is going to be interesting to see how these countries are going to project themselves to other countries as independent nations with their own beliefs and attitudes. For example, Estonia is a part of Europe and in my opinion, its communication has focused on the western countries. But I have no idea what is happening in Asian countries such as Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan and I am quite confident to say that neither do many of my course mates. For example, most of the people in these countries are Muslim and they are geographically located quite far from the "West", i.e. Europe or United States etc. If I compare these countries to my example Estonia, I think the two Asian countries have not had such massive PR efforts of their countries as Estonia has. One example of this is that as I googled Tajikistan and PR the results were e.g. There are currently no listings in PR Consultants category or www.pr.com said There are currently no press releases listed in this industry (with Tajikistan). What is positive is that the European Comission is trying to train the countires with PR to help them strenghten their financial position in the global market.

I mentioned above the cultural, religious and liguistic differences between the former Soviet states. Perhaps this has also something to do with the differences in the PR actions between the countries. Because Estonia is a European country, it wants to project itself to its neighbours as a "real" European country but the Asian countries do not have the need to do that and perhaps therefore have not used such PR efforts as their European counterparts. Also, because Estonia is a European country, perhaps it has been easier for it to learn and use western PR because of their European identity.

Antoher reason could be that because countries such as Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are part of Europe, their European neighbours have helped them more than they have the Asian states by educationg and giving them resources to more effective PR. If I think of e.g. Finland, I think we have been happy about the independence of Estonia as it is our loved neighbour and our goverment and media have tried to help them as much as we can, but I doubt whether we have given so much help to Tajikistan or other Asian former Soviet states.

Bearing all this in mind, I wonder whether the Asian states want to adapt the western PR system? If they have no cultural or religious link to the western countries, why would they want to do PR in the western way? Or do they even feel the need to communicate and project themselves to the western countries? In my opinion, it would sound logical if they wanted to commuicate with Islamic countries or other Asian countries with same traditions, beliefs and attitudes. I am not saying that this is how it should be, as I think everyone should be able to communicate with each other, but what I am trying to say is that perhaps our way of doing things is not the best way everywhere.

In addition, because the previous Soviet states were always thaught to think the same way, it must be difficult and challenging to start creating one's own message to the world and to find the right channel to do that. I can only hope they area able to find a proper channel to do that and to project themselves as they really are, not as they have been thaught to be.