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

Public relations in the transition society – Estonia
by Tuomas Muhonen

The process of change in Soviet Estonia began during the Singing revolution in 1988 and 1989. Estonia became independent again on the 20th of august in 1991. The Soviet occupation had lasted for 48 years. The time of totalitarian Soviet communism affected very deeply to Estonia's society and culture. Therefore, also public relations in Estonia have changed fundamentally during 20 years after singing revolution.

According to Tampere (2003: 132; 2005: 21), there are five types of stages of change in a totalitarian society and organisations. At the first stage of change, a society or organisation is closed and secret. The public communication of an organisation is asymmetrical and usually propagandistic. These organisations view their environment as irrelevant and even disturbing. At the second stage, organisations face up the new ways and code of a society. At the middle stage, organisations come face to face with financial conflicts and new interest groups. At the fourth stage, organisations start a real change. They start to plan strategically and analyse interest groups. The final stage would be an open society and organisation, which is still coming. (Tampere 2003: 132; 2005: 20–21.)

A Communist propaganda made people passive and unresponsive. People had some kind of immunity to information. Organisations send messages to interest groups but they don't receive the messages and vice versa. (Tampere 2005: 25.) This kind of attitude can affect unconsciously even nowadays.


USED SOURCES:

Tampere, K (2003). Public Relations in a Transition Society 1989-2002: Using a Stakeholder Approach in Organisational Communication and Relations Analyses, Doctoral Theses, Jyväskylä University Press (Finland)

Tampere, K (2005). Väike teoreetiline sissejuhatus Eesti praktilisse suhtekorraldusse. In Praktiline suhtekorraldus: Eesti kogemus. Tartu Ûlikooli Kirjastus.

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

The Development of Public Relations in Estonia

by Tuomas Muhonen


Introduction
Estonia under totalitarian rule

In this article (with links) I will give a short introduction to the background of public relations in Estonia. According to Kaja Tampere (2003: 6) the main aim of the communist ideology was to keep people uninformed. Almost all were controlled in a totalitarian system. Especially media was controlled very strictly. The official ideology was that people were happy in the Soviet family (Tampere 2003: 6).

Next article in the Estonian newspaper Postimees will give a good perspective to public relations and journalism under Soviet rule in Estonia. The article tells about the fire of University of Tartu in 1965. The original article is in Estonian, but I have translated it in English (with a help of compiler). Here is the link to the original article: Oled kuulnud, et ülikool põles? and here is the translation of the article: Have you heard that the university burnt?

Public relations must be understood as a continuous process. Because of that the history of public relations affects to situation nowadays. As Kaja Tampere (2003: 10) has stated "The term public relations was unknown in the Soviet Union. But communication, communication management and propaganda existed."

USED SOURCES:

Tampere, K (2003) Public Relations in a Transition Society 1989-2002: Using a Stakeholder Approach in Organisational Communication and Relations Analyses, Doctoral Theses, Jyväskylä University Press (Finland)

__________________


I would like to continue with the theme of communist ideology. According to Maarja Lõhmus (2002: 145–164) there were 8 kinds of myths of communist ideology in the public texts. Those myths were:

1. The myth of the creator Lenin and the Party and Marx and Engels as their predecessors
2. The myth of victory of the Great Soviet Socialist Revolution (Russian Revolution) and of a new era
3. The myth of the Great Patriotic War and the invincibility of the Soviet Union with many enemies ‘out there’
4. The myth of historical progression of socialism, communist world revolution and communist future
5. The myth of the Soviet republics as a united family
6. The myth of labour and constant improvement of the Soviet economy
7. The myth of the working class as ‘the leading power’
8. The myth of free and happy Soviet people and the new type of human

USED SOURCES:

Lõhmus, Maarja (2002) Transformation of Public Text in Totalitarian System. A Socio-semiotic Study of Soviet Censorship Practices in Estonian Radio in the 1980s. Doctoral Theses, Turku University Press (Finland)

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.