face2face Public Diplomacy Versus Propaganda:
Who Is Winning the War?
Pavel Andreev Founder of the Center for Global Strategies and Communications and a Member of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Moscow
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casual discussion of public diplomacy and propaganda usually means a notion of positive engagement and dialogue, on one side, and a connotation with brainwashing of a target audience with lies, on the other. This simplification is also very suiting from the politicians’ point of view, as they tend to call what they do an exercise in public diplomacy, while the counteractions are invariably qualified as propaganda. However, in all fairness, we have to remember, that in essence we are talking about two sides of one coin – use of people, culture and information to influence public opinion and, subsequently, policies of other states. The question today is not whether it is public diplomacy or propaganda winning, but who is winning from the current state of public diplomacy/propaganda. Recent revolutionary development of the media and communication environment – conduits of communications, technology of content production, consumption patterns of the publics – made it possible for the public diplomacy to blossom. One no longer needed to travel to New York and London to watch the Met Opera or a play by the Royal National Theatre – they were available live in local cinemas and online worldwide. With the means of social networks people-to-people exchanges beyond national borders became more active than ever. Books, pamphlets and news were reaching the audiences around the world instantly. The world became so
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connected – or hyperconnected, citing Tom Friedman – that at some point it appeared that the publics, cultures and civilizations had nowhere to run from each other. Thus a dialogue, positive engagement and value creation were expected to be the centerpiece of the global public and media landscape. Yet, this was never destined
2000s, has been applying to create well-functioning international broadcasting structures. It is also a recognition that domestic consolidation of the Russian society around its values and apprehension of the national interests produces more international appeal than disintegrated narrative of the post-Soviet Russia. And most
„The opportunities for a compromise wane and with them wave the options of public diplomacy style engagement.“ to happen. As the world has never become a place of peace, mutual trust and positive cooperation, so the means of trust and confidence-building have had to succumb to demonization and delegitimisation of the opponents. The stand-off between the West and Russia has been quite exemplary in that sense. The sense of confrontation had been growing well before the crisis in Ukraine, but it was since its President Viktor Yanukovich declined to sign a deal with the European Union in autumn 2013 and subsequent events in Kyiv and Crimea that the outright information warfare was unleashed between the West and Russia. It has been claimed by the US and European officials and some in the expert community that Russia has waged a successful propaganda campaign against the West. It is indeed a recognition of the effort which Russia, following the shortcomings of the information campaigns of the 1990s and
importantly it is a recognition that in the light of the above the West’s own propaganda has been seen by the publics as much less convincing, despite the grandstanding of the politicians and the mighty power of the mainstream media. Indeed, Russia has been merely trading a blow for blow. Since 2013 the share of negative articles on Russia in the leading media in the United States increased by three-fold, in Germany – by 2,5 times, in the UK – by two-fold. Little room has remained for neutral or middleground opinion. Selective reporting, lack of fact-checking and outright labeling of Russia and its leadership have become a norm (some objective news pieces which have been done by the foreign correspondents are noted with appreciation, but they are unfortunately too few and far between to change the overall picture). One does not need to be reminded of the front pages of Western media outlets ahead of any investigation directly