Corporate social responsibility – a challenge for Russian PR professionals

by Nina Kinnunen

VTsIOM is one of the biggest and most well-known Russian public opinion research centers. On their site one can find many interesting poll results about what Russians think of different themes, especially about politics and economics. The center has not conducted polls directly about PR practices or PR’s image (at least could not find any), but I was able to find this opinion poll conducted in 2007 about corporate social responsibility. (Even though there is an English version of the site, unfortunately this particular poll is not available in English, nor are some other contents).

According to the results 61 % of respondents said that Russian companies cannot be described as socially responsible actors. 39 % of respondents thought that the state is more socially responsible than companies (vice versa only 14 %). 29 % thought that neither the state nor the companies can be said to be socially responsible. The respondents were also asked to mention companies they thought to be socially responsible ones. The five most often mentioned companies were: Sberbank, Lukoil, Gazprom, Russian railways and Aeroflot. However, none of them gained a considerable percentage. (The poll was conducted in 150 different spots in 39 regions, amount of respondents 1600, margin of error 3,4 %.)

There seems to be a significant gap between Russians’ expectations and the perceived reality on corporate social responsibility. Majority of people were not happy with how governmental or business organizations took care of their societal responsibilities. And I do not think this situation has significantly changed within two years. This means a huge challenge for PR practitioners. Undoubtedly CSR has and still is badly despised in many Russian organizations. Working as the "corporate conscience" can be thus really hard. But even if the organization does put real effort on being a socially responsible actor and communicating about it, people in general are very distrustful and skeptical. So it is hard to work as a “consensus creator” between the organization and its stakeholders, even if the PR professionals have the organizational support they need in communicating about CSR.

Ok, this is it then, my last post for our blog. I already want to say thank you for the interesting comments I have received (but this does not of course mean that you could not still send them!). I hope I have been able to offer some interesting bits and pieces about how PR has developed in Russia within the last 20 years or so. I also want to thank all course participants for your interesting blog entries.

Writing this blog has been an interesting experience. I have learned about the development of PR in Russia and some other ex-Soviet countries, and also some things about blogging too. It is always rewarding to understand not only what is going on at the moment, but why the things are the way they are now, and what the paths have been that have led to the present situation - and that will also have an effect on the future. Trying to gather the “big picture” of some former Soviet Union countries’ PR field’s development has been quite a task. Tomorrow (24.11) in our presentation we will try to show you what kind of a picture our group has been able to gather. See you then!



USED SOURCES:

VTsIOM start site in English.
http://wciom.com/

VTsIOM. Rating of socially responsible companies. 14.5.2007.
http://wciom.ru/arkhiv/tematicheskii-arkhiv/item/single/8167.html?no_cache=1&cHash=777429e427

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.

Building the reputation of PR in Russia

by Nina Kinnunen

While surfing on IPRA’s website I found this article. According to it PR has clearly suffered from a negative image in Russia since it first emerged in the end of 80’s. Most of the population’s knowledge of PR was limited to political conflicts for a long time. And political PR widely used dirty techniques and mud-throwing. Thus the reputation of PR-specialists became associated with lies and bribery. In business PR "zakazukha”, (meaning bought-and-paid-for news articles) became a standard practice and main business of the newly-formed Russian PR agencies. Throughout the 90’s there was little understanding of the term PR and its role in the modern business environment.

But the article is also a proof that something has been done – and quite successfully even – to build up better practices and consequently a better reputation for Russian PR. The article is quite long, so I’ll try to summarize it for you here.

IPRA has the annual Golden World Awards (GWA) that recognizes the best in Public Relations work from around the world. It contains numerous award categories covering the whole range of public relations activities. In 2004 Russian SPN Granat Communications Agency was selected as the winner in the category “Recovery from Crisis”. In partnership with its client, the Russian Public Relations Agency, it had developed and implemented a program in 2003 in order to address the negative reputation of Russian PR and unprofessional practices within the industry. The 12 month program was based on three major international public relations events: PR days in Moscow, Baltic PR Weekend and PROBA Awards.

The Mission:

To rebuild the reputation of Public Relations in Russia, to identify the causes and incidents of unprofessional practices (Black PR), to bring the PR practices to the international level and build partnerships across all interested parties.

Objectives:

1.Drawing public attention to the PR profession
2.To determine the leaders, separating civilized PR practices from amateurish ones
3.Contributing to working out criteria for professional qualities in PR
4.Bringing together PR specialists and representatives of business, culture, politics and social sphere who are interested in creating favorable image in development of PR services area.

Accomplishments:

The arranged events reached both extensive geographical and media coverage. The efforts for strengthening the professional position of PR practitioners also paid off. Consequently, in September 2003 the profession of “Public Relations specialist” became officially recognized by the state and was entered in to the Russian Federation Professions Register.

There were also other more general changes listed on the site (not only related to this particular program, I think)

Changes in the structure of PR services in Russia:

1.For many, the first (and for a long time only) real sign of PR in Russia was the press release. So-called "carpet-bombing" of the media with press releases was almost the only activity of the PR specialist in the early nineties and beyond. Face-to-face media interaction was almost non-existent. Now other parts of the media relations tool set were utilized (press tours, press conferences, interviews, special events for media representatives): Russian executives and Russian journalists learned how to talk to each other!

2.Growing understanding of diverse audiences – companies and organizations, government and interest groups, customers and investors – which all required a different approach and a different form of dialogue.

3.The role of efficient internal communications became increasingly appreciated.

4.Economy leaders started to care about their public images, sponsorship and charity work for promoting the companies as responsible corporate citizens.

5.Establishing of the environmental PR: Learning from the international best practices, Russian oil, gas, pulp-and-paper and steel companies are investing in environmental programs and communicating these changes to the industry and the general public

6.Establishing of financial PR, investor and analyst relations.

7.Growing trust of PR agencies as professional in solving PR tasks

Even though the implementation of the program was clearly successful, there has been and still is a lot improvements to do, of course. Russian PR agencies have also won IPRA awards after the year 2004. I saw that one Russian PR Agency was also awarded this year, the PR Department of Slavinsky Art Gallery for launching the new gallery. You can see all the award categories here and check, whether your home country or any of your blogs’ countries were awarded this year.



USED SOURCES:
(Same links also in the text)

IPRA. 2004 Frontline Award: Building the reputation of Public Relations in Russia.
http://www.ipra.org/detail.asp?articleid=141

IPRA. Awaiting the Golden Age – Launch of Slavinsky Art Gallery.
http://www.ipra.org/detail.asp?articleid=1264

IPRA. Current Golden World Awards. http://www.ipra.org/currentawards.asp

Some remarks on the Russian Public Relations Association (RPRA)

by Nina Kinnunen

I have been surfing on the web pages of Russian Public Relations Association (RPRA, or RASO in Russian). (Unfortunately, the pages are in Russian only.) The association was founded in July 1991, so pretty soon after the collapse of Soviet Union. RPRA is the first Russian professional and non-commercial organization that unites Russian and foreign specialists of public relations. It has established co-operation with international PR organizations, such as CERP (European Public Relations Confederation) and IPRA (International Public Relations Association).

On the association’s website one can find e.g. news on Russian PR field, lists of Russian PR agencies and the Russian Codes of ethics in PR. The Code of ethics was formulated in 2001 and it resembles a lot the models set by international organizations. There is also a forum for discussion. I scanned through the forum topics when one thread made me stop and I started reading it. The headline was “PR – a profession or a calling?” This thread had started in 2007 and last posts were from this year. There was one thing that caught my attention: almost all writers expressed dissatisfaction towards how PR is being taught at universities or said that formal education is not needed at all, or is not that important in order to become a successful PR practitioner. At first I was a little surprised of the dismissive attitude towards formal education but maybe it is not that odd after all. There may still be quite many Russian practitioners who started in the field in the beginning of 90’s, learned all they know in practice and perhaps, succeeded. It may still have an impact on how people see the field and the way it can be entered. Otherwise I think that Russians in general appreciate higher education a lot. (Guess I should also remember that this “sample” of PR students and practitioners with this kind of an attitude is very limited.)

Then something else I also noticed. Apparently, the association has even its own hymn (!) which can be read and downloaded here. They say that it is supposed to be sung in RASO meetings and gatherings in order to create a feeling of togetherness. I found the lyrics interesting so I decided to share them with you. I have bolded the parts I find especially interesting. My Russian is not that good and this is a quick translation, but the words go something like this:

All know, that the star in the horizon
does not come up without the efforts of outsiders.
And we together always remember that,
and work and work, of course!

No matter what are the brands, cities, artists
politicians, events, heroes:
correctly, easily, brightly and purely
we build the history of this country and the world.

chorus:

Community of pragmatics and sceptics,
practitioners and theorists,
talented and progressive,
together we are powerful!

And you’re right friend, we can do even miracles,
build a legend, make a fairytale into a true story,
make much ado about nothing, transform a donkey into a camel
and put negative into the dust of the street

But the one who says … and cynically
that the end always justifies the means
is not ours (not one of us) at all, we follow god manners
and in that way strive for perfection


I did not quite understand the idea of the first strophe, but the other ones were more understandable. There seems to be one theme I keep running into all over and over again, also in this hymn: the ethics. It is apparent that while this hymn is an effort to build up professional pride, it also reminds of the importance of following ethical practices - even though they could “do miracles” also with unethical ones. Still I find it quite odd - even though honest - how openly this hymn refers to the “black practices” in the field. What do you think?


USED SOURCES:

http://www.raso.ru/

The Development of Public Relations in Russia: part II

by Nina Kinnunen

In the beginning of 90’s they did not have educated PR professionals in Russia. There were other communication professionals of course, but no specific PR practitioners, since PR as a professional field and a university discipline had not yet been established. The first ones who started working in the field of Russian PR were former journalists. This is why Alexander Goregin and Alexandre Nikolaev (1996) call the years 1989-1992 “the journalism stage” in the development of Russian PR. Former journalists had to serve their employer’s interests of course, but they also brought along some principles and ideals from their previous occupation. They had respect towards the public and its need to be informed. These professionals wanted to create a tradition of open communication. During the early years of Russian PR these new professionals also seemed to have high hopes of changing the communication culture rapidly. But as we already know, the change has not been that quick or easy.

According to Goregin and Nikolaev, soon many organizations wanted to return to the past methods with their media relations. They should have cooperated with mass media representatives in an open manner, but they were still heavily burdened with the communication culture from the past. The managers wanted to gain back some control over the messages the media representatives would send about their organizations. (Goregin & Nikolaev 1996.)

Government agencies reacted by bringing in people with administrative or Communist party backgrounds into their PR departments. These groups were chosen because they were more likely than former journalists to put their employers' interests over society's or public’s interests. They were more willing to withhold or distort information that caused trouble for their institutions. Consequently, a PR practitioner with a journalism background was often viewed as a professional troublemaker. (ibid.)

So, it seems that the first years full of hope and promises of quick change was followed by some kind of a backlash reaction. Two steps forward and one step backwards - that’s the way transition processes often evolve, not linearly.

During the first few years the PR practitioners concentrated on political public relations because the media’s and society's interest was concentrated on the radically changing political institutions. At first media had no real interest in business. State-run industries had not traditionally communicated about themselves, and new businesses were more preoccupied with simply surviving. This changed in 1991 after economic reforms brought media's interest into the economic sphere. As business demand for public communication grew, business people got interested in PR. At first their interest was limited mostly to the search for cheap publicity, though. Russian businesses wanted to use PR as a substitute for advertising, which was becoming more and more expensive. (ibid.)

This development described above has left a significant impact on how PR is understood and taught today in Russia. It was journalism and business scholars who began to define and discuss the conceptual frameworks, principles and methods of teaching PR in Russia. As a result two schools emerged: “journalism-type public relations” and “business-type public relations”. Business scholars have concentrated on the management and marketing functions of PR whereas journalism scholars have focused on the management-communication function. Nowadays the PR education in Russia has a strong orientation either to journalism or to business depending on the specific university. (Tsetsura 2009, 602.)

I noticed this in practice while trying to find some contact information from Russian universities’ web-pages. I could not find any separate “Department of communication” or “Organizational communication and PR” or similar subject there, but later noticed that PR was usually placed (at least in those cases) under journalism or economics/marketing.

USED SOURCES:

Goregin, G. Alexander & Nikolaev, Alexandre G. (1996) Evolution of Modern Russian Communication. Communication World. June-July 1996.

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.

White-washing Stalin – Grey or Black PR?

Suvi Hurri

Nina wrote earlier this week about Russia and commentators asked for current PR trends In Russia. I tried to answer this demand and drilled into newspapers. I found an illustrative example of black PR, one of the issues Nina wrote about.

In the end of October EUobserver.com published an article which claims that Russian state-owned news agency Ria Novosti is trying to white-wash the image of Joseph Stalin. EUobserver is a Belgian non-profit organization concentrated on EU issues. The article says that Ria Novosti has a new public relations campaign, and one of the goals is to improve the image of Russia abroad. This sounds innocent, but there may be dubious agendas.

According to EUobserver, Ria Novosti has a partner, a consultancy called RJI Companies. This agency has recruited other PR firms in this campaign. Here is one part of the conversation between RJI Companies and a major PR firm from Brussels:

PR firm: Do you want us to say that Stalin was not such a bad guy?

RJI: Well, I know it will be difficult.

PR firm: So, you want history to be rewritten?

RJI: Yes, in a way.

Ria Novosti says the claims EUobserver made are “utter rubbish” and denies launching any new projects on Russia's image. Co-operation with RJI Companies is focused on events abroad and the distribution of the Arabic-language edition of the Moscow News weekly, Ria Novosti objects.

If the claims are true, it verifies that the golden era of propaganda has a heavy legacy. If not, we have to ask who benefits of these accusations. If this case is only a bullet in the Russian media war, why would PR professionals from Brussels pull the trigger?

Some Russian journalists are assured that the restoration campaign of Stalin’s image exists and is being executed. Journalists’ opinion is based on for example recent school books with positive expressions of Stalin and statements politicians have made about him in the near past.

In my opinion this kind of image restoration campaign would be dangerous. Obvious attempts to change strong public opinion can create counter reaction and discussion which would only raise Stalin’s crimes on the table over and over again. In that case the campaign would work against itself. If something, campaign could harm Russia’s image because other countries lose their faith on Russia’s ethics.

For me it is also difficult to understand where this need to alter Stalin’s image originates? Valery Shiriaev, the deputy editor of Moscow-based paper Novaya Gazeta explains that it is important for the psychological health of the old Russian elite because otherwise they see themselves as cannibals.

Every country and every generation has their burdens. Russians should just carry theirs and eventually start to focus more on present and future.

EUobserver’s article: New pro-Russia campaign comes to EU capital

Ria Novosti’s answer: Ria-Novosti hits out against claims that it launced a PR campaign to improve Stalin's image

PR in the war between Georgia and Russia

by Päivi Jauhiainen

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 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.