Public Relations

as an „interpreter”

in the new democracies

Dear Colleagues,

I came from beyond the iron-curtain. Yes, you hear well. I said - beyond the iron-curtain. You say, the iron-curtain does not exist any more. It has been destroyed. Perhaps, but are you sure in it? I am not.

In reality, the mine barrage has been terminated, but did they abolish the blockade in the heads on both sides of the iron curtain?

This question can not be answered simply by yes.

May I illustrate my point with an example? I used to be a PR director in a Hungarian - French joint company. Once I participated in the Strategical Advisory Management meeting in France. I got into a dispute with my Italian colleague. The topic of our discussion was, that Hungary should not be accepted for EU membership.

My Italian origin French colleague stated: Hungary will be a member of the EU as long as it achieves the same niveau as France did, which could be only after 30-40 years from now on.

Till this time Hungary should remain beyond the iron curtain.

I sincerely hope, that this view is diminishing in today’s Europe.

Why do I think it? I think it because we, PR experts can help the people to change their mind and contribute to cease the iron-curtain mentality.

I guess, I may hope, that the ideas of Sam Black can help everybody to understand it. What does Sam Black say?

Sam Black stated: „The task of the PR is the mutual understanding - and what is the PR ? The PR is a bridge.„

I would like to continue the Sam Black’s statement. According to my opinion:

„The Public Relations practitioners are similar to an interpreter. And the interpreter is on the bridge” The task of PR practitioners is to be an interpreter for achieving mutual understanding.

The message sender should convey his message through PR practitioner to the receiver. But this is not enough.

The receiver should inform the sender about his reaction. This is the feedback. The PR practitioner should act as an interpreter. He or she should make understandable to the other part and vice versa.

To understand and to realise is a difficult task, mainly in the ex-socialist countries. In this case I mean the external and internal PR as well.

After seven years of the political and economical system changing, we can speak absolutely openwide about the communications, among the changing societies circumstances.

This is a very important part of the newly born democracies. Because the next statement is one of the most important in our profession:

Public Relations needs the democracy.

The democracy needs the Public Relations.

I would like to speak about the role of the communications not only in our country, but in the Central and Eastern European region as well.

Central and Eastern Europe has undergone radical political and economic changes, in the recent years, which was the theme for the Budapest IPRA Public Relations Seminar organised last year:

„The role of the communication in changing societies”.

The recent political changes in Central and Eastern Europe have brought a new vision of the democracy to the nations of the region.

The challenges of the changes are not only political, but economical and cultural as well. It is quite natural, that in consequence of these transformation of the society, the changes of the communication are necessary.

Therefore the communication has a new and more important role in the changing societies. Furthermore a new type of the dialogue between the Western and the Eastern part of the world is needed.

Last may the IPRA Hungarian Chapter and the HPRA organised in Budapest the International PR Week.

When the Organising Committee started to collect the themes I consulted some of our IPRA colleges, for instance from South Africa, from Australia, and Asia. The result of these consultancies was, that their problems are similar to ours.

The Public Relations needs Democracy,

the Democracy needs PR.

These societies are now developing their own democracy, and it has reflection on PR.

The former US President George Bush said 5 years ago in Washington, when the Hungarian Prime Minister visited USA:

„Hungary is not an emerging democracy any more. It is a democracy.”

To some of the Western part of the world means „the job is done”, communism has gone, freedom has arrived.

But the problems of Central and Eastern Europe did not vanish with the arrival of freedom and democracy. We are just approaching the end of the phase one, taking stock and realising where we are and what we inherited.

I know, we have many, many problems with our new freedom, and the development of democracy. But we have problems not only with ourselves, but I know the Western part of the world has many problems with us. Obviously we have problems with the Western part of the world, too.

We see a tendency in our days, that the world is changing and within that, there are a number of societies, which undergo a rapid change. Let us think of South America, South Africa, South-East Asia e.g. Hong-Kong, and naturally last, but not least the societies of Central-Eastern Europe.

The most evident changes can be seen in the societies of the ex-socialist countries, where first of all the ownership is undergoing a privatisation process, the capital is going to be concentrated, and the free market economy is starting to develop.

The same is true for the democracy. In these countries the content of the democracy should be newly defined.

I think that the problems are similar in Africa, in Far East, and in Central Europe, only the forms of the problems are different. E.g., we have ethnical problems with the Gypsies, it is the same problems as in US. with e.g. the Puerto Rico’s people.

A very big part of these problems are related to communications problems.

For instance, I would like to speak about some absolutely private feelings. As I mentioned few years ago I was the Public Relations Director of a French origin multinational company. The Hungarian employees had communications problems with the French colleagues.

Why? Because the Hungarian employees had the feeling of being colonised. When I gave a report to the company Communications Council, the French colleagues did not understand the problem. And it was not a language problem. It was an intercultural communications problem.

But it was the same situation with the members of the IPRA. I would like to present an example of the developing of the mind of the IPRA people.

In 1988 when the IPRA seminar was organised in Vienna the IPRA members visited Budapest, behind the iron curtain for only two days.

Two years later in Toronto, the 6 PR experts, the small Hungarian official delegation was the curiosity of the IPRA World Congress.

In 1993 in Paris when I was the first ex-socialist member of the jury of the Golden World Award, I felt myself, really an European.

Because Mr Alain Modouix the Chairman of the Jury, said to the UN officials when he introduced the members of the jury : „I am sorry, but this panel is a western oriented jury. Nobody came from the East.”

This was the point when I felt myself wonderful, and the first time as an equal, emancipated member of Europe.

I hope the iron Curtain thinking - mentality is finished !

Communicare necesse est

There is one thing in the world, which doesn’t exist.

Not to communicate, that is impossible!

Everybody communicates, all the time. We are communicating on the street, in our office, and our private life, as well.

An example for the problems:

The Police. How should the Police communicate in a democratic country. How one has to speak with the fellow-man, how with a witness and with a victim or with a guilty, or with a suspect.

These are not only communications problems, but PR problems as well.

The Public Relations is the function of the management. This is the way, how to manage the organisation of the board, and the directors. Therefore the PR is the part of the management work and process.

How could we organise the PR in the changing society?

The communication in the changing societies has an important, new role.

For instance in Hungary, earlier this job had not enough influence on the life of the society. Following the free elections, the first Hungarian government promised to develop the social market economy, but when it came to accelerating the market reforms, radically transforming the ownership relations and stabilising the equilibrium of the economy, the government did not apply a shock therapy but pursued a specific, drifting-centralising economic policy based on quick growth, whereby the idea was to give properties to the "national middle-classes" and to protect the civil servant staff.

All in all, between 1990 and 1994, Hungary failed to take advantage of the fact that its market was much more developed than that of other Eastern countries.

Although our relative advantage has significantly diminished, observers say that we still belong to the top-ranked countries (the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia).

The Hungarian market economic restructuring is a long transition. The more gradual capitalisation is owing to the reform process after 1968 and partly to the drifting, and not always consistent governmental economic policy of the recent years.

A positive aspect of this heritage is that the change of regime in 1989-90 did not hit the economic players unexpectedly: the secondary economy was in operation, the number of small and medium-size ventures expanded heavily and the market institutional system was more or less developed.

The negative side of this heritage is the high debts and the fact that the production structure was dependent on the former CMEA markets.

Approximately a decade ago, the world recognised a new world: glasnost. An other significant event happened: the Berlin wall was destroyed. This wall was the symbol of the cold war. I think that these two events determined the images of the world. The new democracy, in the Eastern part of Europe was born in this political environment. This is why I determined in the democratic society the Public Relations as follows:

The Public Relations is the art of the trust’s building.

Every organisation has to understand, that the PR is not a miracle, not a panacea, but in the democratic society the PR is the essential condition of the organisation’s function.

PR task is to realise the following principals:

1. Speak with your environment (the Public opinion), about

* what are you doing,

* what you did,

* what will you do.

2. Speak about your aims and targets.

3. Involve them into the decision making process,

through providing the information.

The main problems with the Public Relations in the new democracies:

In Hungary, and I think, not only in our country, we can hear wrong arguments about the PR.

Too much delusions - wrong explanations: e.g.

· The PR is the part of the marketing ( the marketing communication, e.g. events marketing)

· The PR is the part of journalism - publicity

· The PR is equal to the Advertising activities

· The PR tools are same as the Advertising

· The Advertising is costly - the PR is free of charge

· The advertorial = PR

· e.t.c.

For instance: The PR is the part of marketing, or the marketing is the part of PR. Another mistake is, when the management thinks, that the PR is equal to the media work. It is a typical mistake: To change the role of the Advertising and the PR. Advertisements are considered as a PR and so on. These statements use wrong arguments.

The truth is: The PR and the marketing are brothers, but not twins. Both are the function of the management, but they should be separated. Both has a management function. But they have other tasks and goals as well.

What are the main problems in the communication

in the ex- socialist countries?

1. Attitude

* „Old fashion” thinking. (45 years experience)

* The behaviour and the mentality of these society are „feudalistic”.

* The society is working in the capitalistic environment, with a

feudalistic mentality, when the society has socialistic consideration.

2. Strategy

No unambiguous communications strategy - divergent tasks, goals, aims, interests among different organisations and within one as well.

3. Money

There is not a concentrated communication budget.

(Very often the PR budget is the part of marketing costs.)

Many officials think that positive news articles and TV interviews are enough to develop trust and the good image.

These officials have to understand that good image is not only the outside picture but has to come from an honest inside, too.

There is unfortunately another problem, which worsen the situation in the ex-socialist countries.

Where the PR practitioners in Eastern Europe came from?

· propaganda (political)

· Journalism

· Advertising

· Marketing

There is not sufficient well educated PR staff, which is a consequence of the lack of PR education in these countries. In the past 40-50 years, PR was a necessity only for the practitioners working in the foreign trade. So these experts have learnt PR in their day to day active. Organised PR education started only 4-5 years back.

Where can we find the PR in the structure of an organisation?

For the Central-Eastern European region to find the real place for PR, two main things are needed:

1. To change the mentality and thinking.

To make understand CEO`s that things do not work without PR.

2. To establish and spread a high academic level PR education.

If these two things would realise, then PR can closely be integrated in the life of the organisation.

Every organisation has different circles. The most important circle is the management. The other circles are: the marketing, the production, the human resource, the financing, an so on.

And of course the organisations has an other circle as well. It is the PR. These circles have connection with each other. This way the PR has a connection to the Marketing and the Human resource as well.

The PR has two major parts. First, it is the external, and second, it is the internal communication, PR.

The external connection point of the PR with the marketing is on the point of the market influence. The internal connection point of the PR is the influence on the organisation inside life.

As a PR practitioner I wish the blockade and the iron-curtain would cease in everybody’s mind. We should become European PR practitioners and interpreters for Europe.

Let us be on the bridge to help our people establish mutual understanding, as our aim can not be other than to contribute to realise integrated Europe.

16.06.1997. Helsinki

Tamás Barát

PR Director

MEDIPEN

Hungary