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PR Course

In order to clarify issues important for the development of practical public relations, Baltic Media Ltd organises courses with lectures and seminars.
Courses will be held regularly and shall deal with several significant and topical PR approaches, essential issues as well as other basic themes.

Courses that ask: What are Public Relations (PR)? Lecturer Sandra Veinberg, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Journalism - consultant, specialist for development and implementation of strategies and tactics for informing the media and public. She has worked as an Associate Professor in the University of Latvia, Universities of Moscow and Stockholm, and is engaged in studies in the fields of journalism and public relations. Currently Sandra Veinberg is employed by Baltic Media Ltd., Stockholm office, and also works as a guest professor and researcher with Liepaja University. She is a member of the Swedish Publishers’ Club, a regular reporter for several Latvian media in Sweden.  Author of the book “Public Relations. Theory and Practice”, published by Zvaigzne ABC, which is the first comprehensive book dealing with PR in the Latvian language.

PR — public relations are the various contacts that a company or organisation develops within its environment. Most specialists working in this field associate public relations with the work of media. Press, radio and television play an important role in PR, but it does not stop there.
 
Today’s PR involves different kinds of contact with the public. It includes different events, seminars, trips, campaigns, lectures, discussions, Internet strategies and other forms of PR activities, which could also be called genres of public relations. These genres develop alongside other specialised fields of public relations, dealing with crisis management, financial and political communication, personal and market PR.

The concept of PR is quite a new phenomenon in Latvia, because making relations with the public was not necessary during the USSR regime. Contacts with the public were implemented in the way of imperative orders, the authorities did not care, whether their point of view was convincing and whether the public accepted the proposed political turning-points or economic course, etc. The essence of the Soviet PR was reduced to the word ‘must!’ –  an order exhausting any doubts on the shocking effect of the requirement.  This practice is widely applied by the Russian political elite even currently, and it is also imitated in the countries of post-soviet area. Also in Latvia, at the moments when the representatives of authority suppose that their title automatically entitles them to dictating others are using the post-soviet lever ‘must!’ instead of PR.

Transition to a democratic society in Latvia, like in other former USSR countries, was implemented through adapting the life-style and way of thinking of democratic countries. During the transition period, formal manifestations were considered and talked about primarily, i.e., changes of legislation, renaming of the ‘militia’ into ‘police’, etc., without having time to have a closer look into the essence of the new democratic everyday life. Among such poorly covered areas so far, is the culture of relations, leaving much to be desired not only in terms of interpersonal communication, but also in the area of public relations. Here, just like earlier, many suppose that all it takes for practicing public relation is being aware of ‘cultural intrigues’, joining force groups, etc.  Many find cultivation of tradition of so called ‘Kremlin intrigues’ as an adequate occupation in PR. The ‘Kremlin logic’, being an original technology of intrigues and having nothing in common with making democratic public relations, though is not an example of public relations. 

There are also contrary manifestations in place. For example, politicians, directors, heads of firms, and even PR specialists, are often of an opinion that declaring, requesting, ‘roaring’ is sufficient for achieving one’s goal in the public relations communication. Often a misleading opinion - that PR is intriguing against, hounding at, and instigating against competitors or ‘unwelcome persons’, actually not carrying out PR activity but rising intrigues at the level of gossiping - can also be observed.

All these manifestations evidence on PR culture, which is still at the initial formation stage in Latvia, the same way as in the other East-European countries. It is undeveloped and is looking for its path, surviving a period of misconception and doubts that may end very soon.

Disregarding the problems, the number of employees in the PR area in industry is constantly growing, as well as at the level of organisations and public sector in the country, engaging in “ the management of communication between an organization and its public” (James E. Grunig, Todd Hunt).

Consequently, PR means “the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the publics on whom its success or failure depends” (Scott Cutlip, Allen Center, Glen Broom). 

Theoretically it means – establishing and providing mutually beneficial relations with the publics on whom success of the company or organisation depends.
The public or ‘target groups’ (concept used so far) may be very different, ranging from clients, suppliers, and the general public, to investors, interested parties, fan club, enviers, benefactors, current and future collaborators, etc.
 
In Sweden, other concepts are also used for denoting the work of public relations, including, e.g., so called ‘planned communication’, calling a PR specialist, e.g., an ‘informer’.
These synonyms are not coincidental, as they clarify many preconditions of making public relations, in particular - ability to inform clearly and communication planning skills.

These clarifications are essential, because not each piece of information is clear, and even rarer - efficient. The same way as there are no automatic relations, they wither away and do not develop if not cultivated and urged for progressive development.

Moreover, there are different approaches in the information task when addressing various publics and planning intended direct activities (in application of PR genres), as well working with own channels (colleagues, website), paid-for channels (media, advertising niche) and free channels (journalism niche, new media, gossip and other ways of spontaneous verbal communication).

This work is especially decisive upon selecting approaches for working with media. As it does not mean at all interfering with one’s message in the media area, instead aligning with the uniqueness of the particular media and use of it for enhancing your information, according to the approved code of ethics of the media work. To do so professionalism is required and it is not always accomplishable for initiative people entering the PR area from other specialisations.

Media are a unique channel, as they provide for a conversation with different publics. The boundaries of ‘what can be purchased’ and ‘editorial office’ must be observed here as well. In case an advertisement area in a text or during a broadcast merges with the editorial material, the audience does not perceive the offered as journalism, and the effect of all messages is dropping enormously. Many leading media in Latvia currently are suffering from this sickness or ‘media plague’, scarifying journalism in their way of striving for maximum profit from advertising. As a result, media do not carry out the mission of an efficient influencing vehicle, and turn into an advertisement poster, falling down from the position of a topical informer who is important for public, to the status of background media.
Such process of media degeneration, actually, is not necessary for anyone. Neither to the public who does not treat the journalism seriously anymore, nor to the advertiser whose invested money does not pay off anymore, and not to the media itself - being able to earn money for some period of time and now unavoidably losing the audimat and former positions in the state media hierarchy.

Degeneration of media contents is a serious issue. It is related to the advertisers and PR area, because this is the source for, e.g., ‘beer news’, ‘Riga news’, ‘opera news’, entering the media, disregarding the fact that using such journalism denomination as ‘news’ for a clearly expressed ‘paid-for’ PR material is not a common practice in the global journalism. Making such a step is an unethical action of advertisers, though it is rather widely spread practice in Latvia. Use of the ‘news’ formulation and form for an advertisement pattern is not the only violation of the code of ethics by Latvian PR and advertisers.

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