nina’s PR blog

After reading through my previous harsh post about Poland I felt pretty guilty for being so critical towards to my country. I guess everyone should be proud of their nationality, roots and culture. So instead of considering all the negative aspects, this time I want to focus on a positive things. And development of Public Relations seems to be one of them.

I have came across interesting book-”Global Public Relations” by K. Sriramesh and D. Vercic. I was surprised that Polish PR concept has got such a long ethnic and historical tradition. Early forms of PR include attempts that had been made by Polish kings to gain publicity. The most famous of them were “Thursday Dinners” held by the last king of Poland, Stanislaw August Poniatowski between 1770 and 1784. “Thursday Dinners” were the meetings of intellectuals artists and scientists, their purpose was to promote art and science.

The history of modern Polish public relations is strongly associated with a transformation form the centrally planned economy to the free market economy and shift from socialist regime to democracy which took place in 1989. But the first Polish article on public relations, ”Public Relations in a Socialist Economy” by Zeliawski was published in 1973. It was a proof that informations about pr were getting into Poland from Western Europe and United States.

The beginnings of pr education in Poland are going back to early 1970’s when first course has been offered bu the former Main School of Business and Statistics. Nowadays pr programs are offered by nearly all major institution of higher education, both state and private ones.

As to Polish pr and its connection with media, it has to be said that public relations work is confused with sometimes confused with press agentry as well as associated with misused propaganda by the government. According to the opinion of the founder of Polish first pr agency: “Polish pr remains far removed from the world practices and often stands in complete contrasts to them. This, of course is due largely to the market circumstances as Polish media differ widely from those in the rest of the world-rather than serving te mission of informing the public. the media in Poland frequently yield to the paranoia of concealed advertising. Differences can also be found in the way public opinion reacts-the media in Poland are still expected to provide sensational rather than informative news, customers make heir purchases on the basis of price, not quality. Other differences concern the clients of pr agencies-clients in Poland often expect agencies to manipulate the media, corrupt and blackmail journalists rather than disseminating reliable and honest information.”(Czarnowski, cited in Sriramesh, K. “The Global Public Relations”, pp.262)

In spite of all differences mentioned above public relations become in recent years one of the most fashionable professions in Poland, measured in relation to the number of pr programs and demand for them at the state and private universities. Western pr theory and practice were accommodate to the unique reality of the country in transition. In a case of Poland we can talk about transitional public relations as a specific brand of international pr.

Also, it is got to be mentioned that Poland’s leading agencies are affiliated with respected Western multinational consultancies, such as: BCA, Edelman PR World Wide, ComPress, Sigma, and Fleishmann Hillard.

I guess that Polish pr is doing pretty well?

I must admit, that I’m an ignorant when it goes to current political and economic situation in my home country…I am not proud of it at all, however I still have hard feelings that I could not have a chance to practice as a lawyer in Poland. It is depressing to watch all those young people with degrees from best Polish universities working abroad as an ordinary manuals. I will never forget how humiliating it was for me and my friends (all of us with a Masters from University of Lublin) to work in a garment factory in Halifax… Well, but at least it taught me how to be humble.

I have been living in many palces in Europe, and travelling a lot since I was little, but I was always going back to Poland and I have never considered myself as an immigrant. I had a plan to become prosecutor, I made my specialisation in criminal law, but unfortunately it was impossible to win against Polish reality…

It is hard to tell who is the one to blame for all Polish economic problems, unemployment and growing sense of insecurity.

My favourite period in Polish 20^th century history is time of the 20 years between World War I and World War II, when after regaining our independence, we managed to consolidate the state administratively, socially and politically, we stopped the hyperinflation, and achieved a huge economic growth. But after Hitler’s invasion of Poland this ‘belle époque’ was over. We have been under Nazi Germany occupation for six years, and then under Soviet Union ocupation for over five decades.

In 1945 fate of Poland have been sealed by the Yalta Treaty. In Yalta Conference apart from Stalin were present Roosevelt and Churchill… So in my opinion they simply gave Stalin “carte blanche” to establish in Poland his vision of “real Socialism”.

But even now after we have our independence back, democracy and freedom, we still cannot take the best of it. Polish capitalism is characterised by invasion of cheap mass culture, gangsterism, maximalization of profit on the one side and huge unemployment on the other. As to the Polish government, well that is the reason why I always try to stay away from politic… I am finding all Polish  politician’s decisions simply a farce, but like Oscar Wilde said “Never speak disrespectfully about society, only people who cannot get into it do that”…

Apart from all of this negative aspects I truly want to believe that something will finally change for better in my home country, that I would finally stop being ignorant when it goes to Polish political and economic changes, and that it would be only changes for better. Poland joined the European Union in 2004. This integration is a huge chance for development, I just hope we will not waste it…

“Paradox is a source of  thinkers passion.”

                                                D.S. Kierkegaard

John Naisbitt in his book “Global Paradox” highlighted interesting and issues related to complex and controversial process of globalisation.

He wrote that in modern rapidly changing environment the world economy  the more powerful are its smallest players. So, we can notice the move form economies of scale to dis-economies of scale, from bigger is better to bigger is inefficient. There is a famous phrase in architecture: “Less is more”. It means that less you clutter the building with all sorts of embellishments the greater work of architecture it would be.

I guess another globalisation phenomenon occurs to the world of politics, and it is something that we can describe as “leadership vacuum”. Cold War was over many years ago, and now its finally the time to introduce alternative brands of leadership. Today foreign policy issues are far overweight by domestic issues. Kind of leadership that was appropriate few decades ago, before all these revolutionary changes in telecommunications is now out of date. Western world doesn’t have a precised, strong enemy anymore. The fear of Nazi Germany and than fear of Soviet Union were the factors that were keeping Western Alliances together. Today fighting with international terrorism is seen as an integrating factor, but it is a completely different kind of enemy, more problematic, hard to define, unpredictable.

We live in the time of huge changes and many obsolete things got to come to an end. Naisbitt predicts quick end of representative democracy. I personally think in this matter that we  should distinguish East form West. For Eastern Europeans representative democracy is something that has been brutally taken away from them for over 50 years, so it is still a sign of freedom. As to the West, well I think that we can notice real crisis in political leadership. But in general citizens are now in the position in which they don’t need to have people on the scene who have the knowledge to make judgments for them. 

Naisbitt claims that we are currently moving toward from representative democracy to something called “free market democracy” – a society who have both free market economy and representative democracy. It would be consumer driven democracy, that directly eliminates representatives and resolves issues. Free market democracy would be just free market of  options and ideas, with votes taken when appropriate.

According to Naisbitt: “Western world is in a political crisis because political leaders have ceased to be very important”. Political leaders haven’t notified that political parties are dead. Nobody joins political parties anymore…

The world today is all about the individual, not a state. We can tell that nowadays entrepreneurs like Bill Gates are fine examples of the leadership model. Politicians are oblige to change, as they don’t seem to understand the modern individual trend, they don’t understand globalisation either.

According to Naisbitt’s theory  ”In the post -  representative democracy, people represents themselves, and ultimately everyone becomes politicians”.

So, will political leaders become only the relics of the past?

I have spent Easter holidays in Switzerland, with intention to have fun, ski, and simply to relax. Unfortunately I came across the scary information in a Swiss paper about UBS bank, and it has spoiled my mood completely!

For the centuries Swiss banks had a reputation of the most solid ones. UBS came into being in 1998 after a merger of Swiss Bank Corporation (founded in 1872) and Union Bank Of Switzerland (founded in 1862). It is a Switzerland’s largest bank with 7 main offices around the world and branches in 5 countries.

UBS is now the another victim of US sub-prime crisis. Bank has been forced to write off another $ 19 billion from the value of its mortgage asserts, forcing Chairman Marcel Ospel (who has lost 90% of his salary) to step down. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/apr/01/europeanbanks.creditcrunch

I had an occasion to speak to a Swiss bank advisor about the current banking crisis. He described it as a recession and claimed that nowadays investing money in a real secure way seems to be impossible. In that case I will simply spent all my money for travelling, and at least it would stop me from being neurotic.

Public relations can be seen as an instrument of persuasion, but is it possible to distinguish it from propaganda? In my opinion it is nearly impossible. I can realise that propaganda not necessarily got to be a negative thing, but if we look at it from the perspective of totalitarian regimes of twentieth century it seems to be a really scary vision of mass manipulation.

The word “propaganda” got its etymology in Roman Catholic Church of seventeenth century when the Congregation of Propaganda was created.  Congregation of Propaganda was a committee of cardinals in charge of foreign missions to look for unbelievers and make converts. If we would try to analyse events in Catholic Church’s history such as: inquisition, protestant reformation and religious wars it has caused, it is obvious that the Catholic Church has used and is still using propaganda as a tool. There is lots of controversy about this matter, but I really don’t want to judge if it is a white or black propaganda. I would rather focus on other issues.

I have read through lots of definitions of propaganda, the best I found was one by Josef Goebbels. He claimed that “Propaganda is an instrument of politics, and the power of social control. The function of propaganda is not essentially to convert, rather its function is to attract followers and keep them in line. The task of propaganda, given suitable avenues, is to blanket every area of human activity so that the environment of the individual is changed to absorb the movement’s world views. “Indeed, Goebbels was a genius of  black propaganda, he managed to  persuade millions of German people to believe in Hitler’s  sick vision of new world. Russia under the Bolshevik revolution of October 1917 is another fine example of black PR. Lenin would never be able to overthrow tsar Nicholas the second if not millions of Russian’s proletariat supporting him, and help of German’s government who wanted Russia to withdraw from the World War One.  It is got to be mentioned that both Nazi’s and Communist’s regimes were supported by the machine of terror, but millions of people really believed in Nazis and Communist propaganda. What I am finding most shocking is that when I have lived in Russia in late 1980’s many people there still admired Stalin, and when I have recently had a discussion with a German student he was absolutely thrill about Hitler’s version of Germans’ “Lebensraum”. I would like to believe that nowadays people would never follow that kind of black propaganda again, and modern PR is using only elements of white propaganda and ethical persuasion, but still I am very sceptical in this matter…

Pictures taken from:
1. www.pbs.org/gallery/images/g_06_1.jpg
2. http://adequacy.org/stories/2002.4.20.181153.381.html