Can you briefly explain what strategic communication is and who it is good for?
It is the ability to clearly communicate your long-term priorities and interests. In this case, these are national interests and company interests, so the situation is very specific. In each case, it is about the ability to communicate these things effectively to the public.
Strategic communication is a chaotic system and is based on a coordinated response. However, from the point of view of defining national interests, the country should be defined in a separate set. First, let me say that the ability to define terms and assign abilities to n is very wrong.
What is a communication crisis in government?
It is not an active, but rather a reactive response. So if strategic communication is the ability to communicate, then crisis communication is its opposite, i.e. the ability to manage critical situations and moments in society.
What are the most common mistakes governments make in every strategic communication?
For example, it was several times when Michael Klma canceled his role as a government agent for his fight against disinformation. My point was also problematic that the entire fight against misinformation that included some quality element was undrinkable. The government rejected this outright, and what’s more, it lacked the political will to launch a prepared and planned strategic communications system. It has several components based on skills such as employee engagement, coordination or management.
Is there a department that manages strategic communications?
In this regard, for example, the Ministry of Defense or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are active, they are engaged in various campaigns, for example, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or the tragic weather of the energy crisis. It is the effort of the individual, not the organization. According to the government and departments, mistakes are rife as of now. Honoring aversion to strategic communication is common here, but also to the fight against misinformation.
Pavel HavlekAnalyst at the Association for International Affairs (AMO). It focuses on Eastern Europe, particularly Ukraine, Russia and the Eastern Partnership. He specializes in security, disinformation and strategic communication, as well as democratization and civil society support. He graduated from the Erasmus Mundus International Postgraduate Program in the Department of Russian, Central and East European Studies at the University of Glasgow with European Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. Since August 2020, he has been the Coordinator of Russian Research and Advocacy within the MapInfluenCE project, replacing Russia. Since January 2023, he has been collaborating with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in the Czech Republic as a Fellow for Central European Security Policy. Pavel Havlek, researcher at the Association for International Affairs (AMO). |
Why is hate so prevalent in certain forms of communication? Should they simply be asleep because the concept of strategic communication is relatively new to lazy governments?
Yes. Presently and in the past, there has been a misunderstanding of what strategic communication is. It is not related to a given politician, department minister or political party. It is an issue of importance to society as a whole and based on national interests.
Therefore, I would say that combining strategic communication with a strategy of combating disinformation, which is heavily ideologically tinged and divisive in Estonia, certainly did not help.
What are the consequences of such mistakes? I think you are closing the door on government and opening the door to misinformation.
These are actually major effects that stay with us for a long time. Dwindling doors are a serious problem in government and institutions. So we see that strategic communication and the lack of it opens the door to misinformation. When a vacuum is created to determine the darkness, for example, chains or energy crisis, it creates an opportunity for them to create alternative deposits of truth and implement a false scenario.
However, many questions are delayed and this is due to misinformation like Jindich Rajchl explaining the situation in their own way. All this is an active fallout for harmful manifestations such as the first polarization and possible radicalization in society.
What should your ideal communication strategy look like? They are preparing for an anti-government demonstration on Sunday?
I think the press conference should make it clear that even on clearly defined issues, the government will not simply stop and tolerate similar alternative deposits. So first we have laws for single cremation, which should clearly be applied in similar cases. Whatever people say, it is true beyond what should be allowed in Czech society.
While he takes the misinformation scene, he is very active on social media and interacts with his followers and potential followers through various channels. Can you be inspired by them? Of course, I don’t mean in the informational sense, but in the communication style?
The government works with the so-called talking heads. They are responsible for certain areas of public policy such as security or crisis situations. Such a system exists to a certain extent, but it is not widely used in practice. And it doesn’t have the impact it should. We are under arrest here. It is futile to look at people like this and try to do something about the problem. Free spaces in the information space are otherwise filled by handlers.
