UKRAINE, What’s Your Image?
It is not today that image and professional image making has become a notion that attracts attention of the general public. The former Soviet Union spared no effort or expense to create an image of the state, more often than not in quite negative and unfavorable contexts. Suffice it to recall the events in Hungary, military intervention in Czechoslovakia, or Afghanistan. Later, Mikhail Gorbachev actively dissociated himself from any negative things, such as the events in Vilnius and Baku, which in fact determined his behavior during the 1991 abortive coup, when he hid himself, in terms of information, in Foros. The winged phrase, said at that time and still current, is that he will never tell the whole truth.
The Soviet Union managed to turn the events that seemed negative into positive ones, which is the dream of any PR scheme. Recall how the wreck of the Cheliuskin icebreaker was then followed by nationwide jubilation and emergence of the first Heroes of the Soviet Union. In other words, a clear negative turned into an equally clear positive. This required serious and quite intensive work done by the agitation and propaganda apparatus. The only point is the instruments then used differ from those now employed.
Today image occupies such a prominent place due to the changed role of information in our world. This must be because in the more complex contemporary world no action can be taken without basic preparatory work to forestall any negative consequences. The normal pattern is: first information, then action. In other words, first come virtual actions and then those in the real time. The newscasts of today, unlike those in the past, first anticipate an event and only then describe it. This means the information theater seems to be constituted twice, both before and after the event. For example, when Bill Clinton was president, his staff used a technique consisting of nine steps to be taken before the president was to advance a certain initiative. Incidentally, two of these steps were aimed at gauging public opinion about the projected initiative.
We should also note the attitudes of, for example, the US military who call the future war one of knowledge, not just of information. Indeed, it is changes in knowledge that triggered all the major social transformations in the last century. The former Soviet Union crumbled on the political arena under the load of other knowledge that began to fall down on it in the epoch of an open society. This knowledge penetrated mass culture and not through the more censored official culture. While a young pioneers’ song called for climbing mountains, a song from a popular animated cartoon suggested that a wise person would refrain from so doing.
The 2000 Okinawa Charter of Information Society, adopted by the world’s leading countries, also emphasizes a new role information plays in building a modern society. The future of any country and individual is now closely associated with the development of information technologies, because this is precisely what can help a country boost its economic wealth.
What kind of image does Ukraine need? First, instead of having an adequate domestic image, this country has citizens greatly distanced from the authorities, which is not conducive to increasing stability. A normal attitude of citizens toward their government and the support of its policies by the population is indispensable for any presidential policy. Secondly, Ukraine needs an updated image for foreign consumption because this formulates both the attitude of other countries at the official level and the attitude at the level of the individuals who shape the flows of investment, tourism, etc. The economy is very sensitive to any kind of negative information.
We should emphasize here a fundamental law of PR: no changes of the information reality will be successful if they run counter to what is obviously true. In simpler terms, deception is possible, but only for a limited period of time. For it is possible to distract attention in a purely professional way only for a finite period. The day of reckoning will inevitably come. This PR law can be expressed in terms of a well- known dictum: your mouth won’t taste sweeter even if you keep repeating the word halvah. The Soviet Union managed to build a closed virtual world, for it existed in an era of monologue. Today, all countries are building a pluralistic society, with dialogue, not monologue, as its main component.
Ukraine, on the one hand, so far inadequately presents itself in the world, and, on the other hand, it is often presented in a purely negative context. Ukraine has had two peaks of informational presentation abroad, a negative peak linked to the cassette scandal and a positive peak associated with the Papal visit. Both events left an almost endless trail of publications, which undoubtedly told on the formation of attitudes toward this country.
Unbiased calculations show that the amount of the negative and positive information (frequency of mention in both contexts) is practically the same. Yet, frequency does not reflect the content. What is covered positively are sports and culture, while negative coverage relates to the far more sensitive decision-making spheres of politics and the economy. Ukraine takes information blows without knowing how to duck. Quite often, the visits of our top officials to foreign countries are accompanied by quite vigorous information campaigns aimed at creating a negative image of Ukraine, which weakens our state’s positions in negotiations.
Ukraine’s image in the world is today also actively shaped by Internet publications. Apart from being more accessible, they are less controllable and thus able to give a fuller and more varied picture of events. A new site, Ukraina.ru, has come to fill the niche of Ukraine’s informational presentation in the Russian cyberspace, which we ourselves have unfortunately failed to do. The list of what we have not done does not end here. We have failed to publish a Russian-language newspaper/magazine for Russia, an English-language newspaper for foreigners based in Ukraine and abroad (we have made The Day and Den’ available on the Internet in three languages, while Verkhovna Rada publishes the magazine, Ukraine, in those same languages — Ed.), and to open an English-language site that provides information about Ukraine to various entities, including our embassies.
The world has seen numerous serious attempts by countries to overcome a crisis in the information theater. For example, this was done by South Africa and Greece. While so doing, South Africa actively used the stereotypes of the listeners, viewers, and readers at whom it directed its media reports. For example, it was emphasized for the American audience that South Africa was the last bulwark combating communism in Africa and that America once also had racial segregation like that which South Africa is now actively fighting.
Looking at today’s governments, one can see serious work being done to this end, including the allocation of the necessary funds. Let us give the examples of Russia, Germany, and the US.
Russia has now earmarked $125 million for improving its image in the US. This was done officially by the Ministry of Information and the Press. Of interest here is also its emphasis on a clearly targeted choice of the most important audiences.
Germany is constantly conducting, by means of its government press service, a number of information campaigns to project the required subjects, for example, that expenditures for innovation activities will create new jobs. This year has seen five main topics discussed and directed primarily at domestic, and only indirectly at foreign, audiences. Noteworthy here is the clear choice of a limited set of topics to be discussed.
NASA spends money to improve its image and thus convince taxpayers that it is necessary to pay for, say, flights to Mars. What is important here is sensitivity of the government structures to public opinion.
These accents — a clearly selected audience, clear topics, and dependence on public opinion — should be taken into account by the authorities whenever they take any action. The information component plays a far more essential role in the Western world than it does here. A top priority in the West, this component is looked down upon in this country.
Why does Ukraine still fail to change its image in the world? First, this is not easy to do for purely objective reasons: the world has long been divided into the areas of positive and negative information. It is next to impossible or, to be more exact, very difficult to shatter this kind of stereotype. Second, not only does this country fail to finance this kind of work but it simply does not have even a bureaucratic cell to address this problem. Third, society has not yet formulated a social task of this kind. When this is done, money will be easy to find. For even in the US the respective section in the administration is called a communications, not PR service because the population treats this work as publicity characteristic of only commercial institutions.
Ukraine lives today in a far from simple information space being shaped not only by this country but also by a number of other states. Foreign tendencies come into active contact with our own capabilities. We are so far unprepared to take up these challenges and become involved in the process of reciprocal influence. The longer this uncertainty endures, the more difficult it will be to rectify the current situation. We also allocate inadequate funds for these processes, which brings about competition between higher and lower quality products with the only possible result this could imply. One of the ways to solve Ukraine’s image problem could be the involvement of Western investment facilities now functioning on our territory and having: a) an interest in solving this problem, b) financial resources, and c) a good knowledge of what exactly the Western consumer of information wants. This is one possible option. At any rate, one must seek the solution of this problem instead of continuing to procrastinate as we now do.
