The war between Russia and Georgia affected the puclic relations actions of both countries. According to a Finnish journalist, Salla Nazarenko (2009) Georgia was fully aware of the countries that could benefit Georgia in their lobbying of their side of the war. Nazarenko claims that e.g. German newspapers let all the "Georgian proganda" through without any hesitation. Another example is Estonia, which was a strong supprter of Georgia during the war in their media. She also states that the Finish media was more calm and realistic in their comments despite of the passion and fury that took place in Georgia and that the Finnish media did not defend the comments of "the theatrical president of Gerogia", Mikheil Saakashvili.
Nazarenko continues that the Georgian president Saakashvili was always willing to give interviews to the international press and television stations and that the Georgian people in power always gave interviews with perfect English. According to Nazarenko, the other counterpart of the war, Russia, did not present itself as well as Gerogia: the language skills of the sullen Russian politicians were not as good as the Georgians. On the other hand, the Russians had improved their media skills by having military experts and and politicians daily available for the international press, which had not been the case before in the Russian PR.
According to Nazarenko, some of the Russian PR was actually war propaganda. She says that the way the Russian television media conducted itself was ruthless and tacky war propaganda, but the newspapers gave more perspective to the matter at hand. On the other, she criticises how the international media never remembered the previous actions of the Republic of Georgia. She claims that under Saakashvili's rule South Ossetia was in a ready-to-exblow-state already in 2004 and the same thing in 2006 in Abkhazia where Georgia had a small military operation to restore some of the area to itself. Nobody remembers these events because the mighty Russia was not the other counterpart. Nazarenko says that Russia made the war interesting because of its history as a huge country that suppresses the small ones and this is the viewpoint Gerogia played for their own advantage in their PR. The vigorous Georgian PR machinery used the history of Russia - the Winter War, invation of Afganistan etc. - in their international PR and the western states bought it all and used it in their writing. "Russia is back" was one of the slogans.
An interesting point is the actual PR machinery of Georgia. They hired a public relations company based in Brussels, London and Paris, Aspect Consulting and Orion Strategies and two lobbying concerns, Squire Sanders Public Advocacy based in Washington. The next quote is from an article A Media Drive to Groom Georgia’s Image (28.08.2008) from a website www.intelligenceonline.com where one has to register in, so therefore I have copied the quote straight here so that everyone can read it.
"In Washington, Orion Strategies, founded by Randy Scheunemann, the current foreign affairs adviser to the Republican candidate for the presidency, John McCain, has earned nearly USD 800,000 in fees from Tbilisi since 2004, including USD 300,000 since January of last year. Scheunemann managed to arrange a telephone call between McCain and Saakashvili in April, after which McCain publicly came out in favour of Georgia’s sovereignty. The clear conflict of interest led Scheunemann to step down as boss of Orion the following month. Since 2004, the two lobbyists in the firm organized over 70 telephone calls between McCain or his advisers and foreign customers, most of them candidates for membership in NATO(IOL 565)."
On the other hand, the Russians also know how to brush up their image (A quote from the same page): "For its part, Russia has been using firms belonging to the communications giant Omnicom to burnish its image since 2006. These are Ketchum in London, the office of Gavin Anderson in Japan, GPlus in Brussels and the Washington Group in the United States. Moscow can also call on the fire power of its pro-government press in Russia and recently set up think-tanks in Paris, Brussels and Washington to get its messages across."
I have also attached a figure of the Georgian PR and lobbying network from the same article:
Click image for larger view.
According to what I have read about this topis, one cannot but to ponder how things were during the Soviet Union. The international press would not have the chance to explore the situation from both countries' view points, but it would have been forced to get the information from the Soviet Union goverment. In addition, the word "PR" would not even been mentioned, but "propaganda". On the other hand, as one reads the article by Nazarenko and looks at the companies hired to do the PR, has anything changed? Is the communication open or is it just something what the counterparts want the media to write and other people to think? I am quite sure that there are many that things that are not spoken about openely and that the both countries give out the information that benefits themselves in the war.
Even though my writing may seem that I am on "the Russians' side" in this discussion, it is not he case, I take no sides. I do not have all the facts and am not competent to criticise anyone's actions. The reason I chose to write about this matter is that I found it fascinating how media and the way one handles PR have a huge impact on such an important and terrible things as war. In the end, in my opinion, there are no winners in wars, only innocent wictims who are pawns of the ones who have the power and the wealth, and the power of affecting other people's opinions.
Sources:
A Media Drive to Groom Georgia’s Image 2008. Intelligence Online: Global Strategic Intelligence. Online (3 Nov 2009). http://www.intelligenceonline.com/detail/detail_articles/p_detail.asp?DOC_I_ID=47544219&CONTEXT=CAN&CONTEXTINFOS=CHAN_RUB_IOA_SOMMAIRE&SERVICE=GRA&CODEAFFILIE=A_INDIGO
Salla Nazarenko 2009. Journalistit ja Georgian sota: tietämättömyyttä, PR:ää ja matkustusrajoituksia. Journalismikritiikin Vuosikirja 2009. Online (3 Nov 2009) http://www.hssaatio.fi/Journalismikritiikin%20Vuosikirja.pdf
The figure is actually linked to another article where it was copied from the article that I am talking about in my blog. I put the link to the other article because it doesen't require registration... Complicated, hope you understand :)
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteReally nice move to analyze such a recent event! You took a lot of effort to explain that you are neutral - we believe you are a good scientist. :D
ReplyDeleteOf course, communication always delivers some meaning, as communication can be seen as dissemination and creation of meaning. Therefore there is no such thing as neutral or objective information - it's always constructed from some point of view. Another question is, is there any deliberate, aggressive manipulation of communication and meaning. Which raises the question, is there enough information available for us to create a picture about the whole situation, which would really correspond to what actually happened, or do we have only too distorted and colored stories to work with? From both sides?
Earlier on in Soviet times it was difficult to say, what was happening, because of the lack of information. Today it's hard to say because there's so much of it.
very interesting material:)
ReplyDeleteSome my, Lithuanian, points of view:)
ReplyDeleteDuring this war Lithuania was of the biggest George supporters. A lot of "support concerts", events, even strikes were going on in Lithuania during this period. Some people call it PR, some just patriotic feeling. But the thing is, that for most Lithuanians, and as I imagine for other former Soviet Union countries to, the slogan "Russia is back" is enough. In this region, George had and still has one of the biggest weapon - history. Iff George PR specialists were able at least to say one word about that, Russia PR had to work ten times harder to get the same result.
Egle