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.

Animated Soviet Propaganda

Many of us have seen the old posters used for propaganda, but there was a whole range of media being utilized in the spread of Soviet propaganda. One of these was cinema, and animated features were also a popular medium.

Animation had several advantages. Firstly, it is an audio and visual tool. Strong and vibrant colours and dramatic music could be used to portray an emotion, while leaving an image or melody in the memory of the audience that will make the message more likely to stay. This also provides a large range of styles, genres, and even references known to the audience to be made (e.g. a man with a tall hat with the American flag is clearly Uncle Sam, and not just a random fellow).

Secondly, it gives the artist freedom. When filming with real people, there are limits to what can be done - back in the black and white error there was a lot of things that could not be done in a movie. In animation, there is no limit. Plot, setting and character design indeed vary from more realistic styles (e.g. Ave Maria, an anti-Vietnam clip) to the pure caricatures (The Millionaire, the story of how a bulldog becomes rich and powerful). This enabled Soviet artists to portray they're idea of America, without ever having been there - it needn't be truthful since it's not meant to look real anyways. This made it a powerful propaganda tool.

A third advantage is that animations have the appearance of being innocent and child-like, being something for children. Thus, they could be watched by the young who are more easily influenced, and the ideas planted in them through the images could take root and grow into beliefs and "understanding" as they themselves grew.

From my understanding, the reason propaganda is so effective is that it plays to your emotions, rather than logic. I for one was touched by the images in Ave Maria, but I know that the Soviets were not mere bystanders in the war, and hardly saints.

I have thrown in a few links to some propaganda animations (plus two links above!), and while watching, you can ask yourself How does this make me feel? Try looking at the whole package first - the music, the colors, the mood, character - as this will probably shed light on how it is that propaganda works.

Similar tactics can be seen today, e.g. in music videos and advertisements - are they propaganda as well?

Animated Soviet Propaganda Part 1 - American Imperialists 27:20 

Part 1 of this documentary. Includes Mister Twister, A Strangers Voice, The Millionaire, Ave Maria, The Shooting Range and commentary.

Segments from the same documentary

Cinema Circus 3:37

The Bright Future, Communism 10:01

Capitalist Sharks 4:32

Others

A Lesson Not Learned 5:16

What Hitler Wants 8:13

Mashenkin Concert 9:11

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.

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.