“Media Advocate” initiative interviewed Public Relations specialist Astghik Avetisyan. We tried to find answers to some important issues with the help of short questions.
Trust. How did the government “catch” it and when it started to lose it?
Taking advantage of the mistakes made by the government and the opportunity to dialogue with the public, the opposition figure united the society. When your word is convincing, the public starts to trust you. It is a studied fact that the Armenian society likes to hear criticism, to hear sharp accents – that is what attracted the majority of the society to follow an opposition figure. When the snap parliamentary elections took place, the educated part of the society already understood that the provisions of the numerous speeches made during the campaign were not implemented, there was no process of moving from words to deeds. When the reported information and the actions taken contradict each other, distrust is formed.
Feedback: Lives are not frequent, press secretaries are “lost”: The consequences.
During the change of government, all the tools and technologies of public relations were used, feedback was provided, but the government that had already taken power made many communication mistakes, which led to a fact that most departments work without strategic communication, creating barriers for the media to receive information, opposition media appeared in the black lists. The Prime Minister and the vast majority of the officials turned Facebook live broadcasts a tool for disseminating official information, but because they were unprepared, unprocessed, inefficient speeches, people’s interest in them quickly faded. Even during one of the foreign visits, when the media outlet tried to ask one of the press secretaries about the purpose of the minister’s visit, the press secretary replied that they should wait for a while as the minister would post it on his Facebook page. This was a ridiculous situation, as most of the press secretaries do not have professional knowledge and skills, of course, it makes no sense to talk about this consulting institution. There are exceptional professionals who do their job properly, and this largely depends on the education of the head and the fact that he/she values the importance of public relations.
True and fake news. How to distinguish when the official information even turned out to be fake?
The society is in a desperate situation. The spread of fake information has reached great proportions, fake users on social networks have changed the logic of receiving information. People who are not media literate get caught up in the whirlpool of false information and inadvertently start spreading misinformation.
Media literacy. There is no specialist. How to educate?
Media literacy should become a main subject from the very first grade, meeting the age requirements. There are many specialists, there is simply no state policy, no coordination. The main goal for the bodies implementing educational policy should be to use the possibility of the latest technologies, for each period, to form an educational system in accordance with the needs of the society, which will provide a literate citizen, a media literate society.
Crisis: The first steps.
Crises arise when there is no communication, when the dangers threatening the family, the industry, the state, the country are not foreseen. Crises arise when we do not have a strategy, when we are not prepared even when confronted with the natural disasters, not to mention the war. Today there is a military, political, social, economic, educational crisis in Armenia, in this case the resignation of the government is envisaged only because the state was not prepared, did not predict the possible threat, when the society received false information during the 44-day war, when we had many victims when we have many missing soldiers and prisoners of war. After the resignation of the government, the interim government must prepare a schedule for early elections, the political structures must be in a programmatic competition. The society should be educated, attitude towards political institutions should be formed, this parade of individualism should be excluded. We have many problems to be solved by professionals in the field, those with high professional quality.
