GLOBAL – DECEMBER 2011: On the run-up to the World Communications Forum in Davos, Switzerland on February 9 to 10, 2012, its Content Director Yanina Dubeykovskaya, General Manager of Seamediagroup Ltd, answers questions on publicity and public relations.
Dubeykovskaya is an author and corporate, media and political communications manager with expertise in psychology and social psychoanalysis. She has led the campaign for presidential elections in Russia. During the period of the Russian energy industry privatization she was the head of the PR & IR Departments of the largest energy company in Russia.
Q: Could we say that full transparency actually equals privacy in contemporary society?
A: If so, this would be interesting, indeed. However, full transparency is impossible – on top of that, it is unnecessary, and sometimes even scandalous. Privacy will continue to exist (luckily), just like silence does. Without pauses, a speech would lack its expressiveness, or its sense, even.
Q: Why, in your opinion, is privacy a rarity these days? Would that be the tendency in our liberated and open 21st century?
A: I think there are several reasons – the increased connectivity, the speed of information’s dissemination, the nonlinearity of communications, and the rapid growth of each single person’s influence onto the public space. Publicity is a great temptation – difficult to resist and impossible to keep locked for your own use only!
Q: How does the Privacy & Publicity issue affect modern PR?
A: Since we have all now been given the opportunity to go public, this issue has become crucial. Press secretaries and media relations have become somewhat outdated today. Talent, trend-orientation and the Internet would suffice.
The actual question is what to leave hidden, behind the comment band on Facebook or Twitter, and what would be necessary to publish immediately. This has become a daily routine for millions of people who aim at solving this issue, starting from the internal answer to: Where exactly should publicity come to an end and leave space for your own private life? In social networks this seldom happens as a result of deep reflection – it is more likely that users follow the old law of imitation… Friends mention their breakfast menu and I drop a note about mine; you see a heap of re-tweets of an old joke, and it instantly gets imprinted onto your memory.
The Privacy vs. Publicity debate will be among the key events of the World Communication Forum "Communication on TOP" held in Davos in February 2012.
Q: Are there any changes in the mechanisms of reputation building and management, too?
A: I guess today we are all waiting for that particular coinage which shall come to substitute "management and control". It is clear already that the diversity and multi-directions of modern communications can no longer be the object of management and control. I think we are now living in what seems to be a media-information continuum, a cloud of connotations and public positions, a network of newsmakers, and even jokes, and certainly everything which might be featured under the term "sexy".
It is no coincidence that Social Media efficiency measurement is in fact among the most important issues, as well as understanding the navigation of the information streams in a network. This is brand-new environment – not just mere information noise, but the organic space for public display of the best among us: yes, unfortunately, today there is a necessity to be at the same time beautiful, clever, talented, and sincere. It is no longer possible to convince someone that you are conducting an ethical business, if you deviate from the true essence of ethical business.
