Recommendations for Policy Reforms

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• a country of origin’s interests and policy conflict with the ones of Russia (i.e. the USA, the EU);

• a country of origin’s interests partly or mostly concur with the ones of Russia (i.e.

China);

• a country of origin does not maintain an active dialogue with Russia and is aimed at active relations with other states (i.e. Taiwan).

Bearing in mind that such conditions on the international arena are translated to the domestic media, in the first case the reaction of general public would be transparently negative, while in the second and third cases the sentiments could in most cases correlate from neutral to positive.

For sure, contemporary audience are the smart information recipients, and they do not consider the sole media source to watch or listen to the news or rely only on governmental communiques. Still, in the majority of situations this tendency is legitimate though.

The empirical evidence from the conducted opinion poll acknowledged the fact that, apart from intensified discord with world state leaders and debates over foreign policy, Russia enjoys neutral attitudes among international general public.

Recognizing the real state of affairs, when the majority of the world population is non-cognizant about the Russian Federation and its people, or heard about Russia-related issues on the grapevine, many Russian citizens feel uneasy. However, in our perspective, such conditions are promising. Today, the diplomats are facing the situation, when the public opinion is flexible, and they are able to enhance it, if they hear out the voices from other countries. People from across the globe do not hesitate to communicate with Russian people and Russian authorities, and that is the predominant factor for the state image improvement.

5.3 Recommendations for Policy Reforms

The last but not the least question set for defense approached the amendments able to correct the existing attitudes towards the Russian Federation and encapsulate theoretical and empirical sections of the study. It reads “what kind of measures could help Russia to make a breakthrough for a better understanding of her policy abroad and for an optimistic apprehension of her people, culture and lifestyle among foreign general public?”

Basing on the social feedback and findings of international academia, one could distinguish three types of recommendations:

• theoretical;

• practical measures for the public diplomacy;

• practical measures for political communication and informatization.

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Theoretical recommendations constitute one component – the proposal to coin a precise definition of the public diplomacy in Russian rendering and elaborate theoretical strategy for the policy implementation.

Creation of the documented strategy would allow the government to specify aims of the PD, rank them in preference manner or divide them into short-, medium-, and long-term groups.

The order and classification would make the government initiatives comprehensible and transparent for Russian nationals and foreign partners, who could consult with respective documents and understand the principles, which the Russian Federation would apply to the cooperation with foreign general public.

The principle of transparency is a commonly accepted regulation for many international organizations, i.e. the WTO, and supranational entities, like the EU. Precision of the objectives and means could facilitate the work of public diplomats, as they would know exactly the scope of their functions and which organ would supervise their tasks. As for international partners, under the auspices of the unified PD strategy, they would be familiar with the ‘rules of the game’ and the rate of misunderstanding could be reduced.

In addition, the unified strategy would finally distinguish between the public diplomacy and the traditional diplomacy in Russian practice that could elevate trust into initiatives from the country of the study.

Practical measures for the public diplomacy constitute four recommendations.

• To heighten attention to science and educational diplomacy

The years spent in a university are thought to be among the most colorful impressions of a lifetime for many people. In case of studying abroad, students attach to an environment and culture of a host country and share the values of their peoples with classmates. Senior scholars, in their turn, tend to be free from political and cultural prejudices and pursue academic aims. Thus, educational programs aimed at widening the academic exchange, including students and professors, would help to intensify unofficial ties of friendship and cooperation that could provide for Russia’s international image enhancement.

• To develop tourism and ‘gastrodiplomacy’

In a globalized World, the number of tourists arriving in a country annually is the mirror of the state’s involvement into international processes, the level of its borders openness, safety and economic, cultural and recreational infrastructure sophistication and convenience.

In this case, investment into tourism sector and gastronomic tourism could ‘open’ Russia for international guests, who could find something positive for them and express their feelings among their acquaintances.

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• To diversify international agenda

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation is continuously justifying its status of an important international actor. The adoption and development of the concept of the public diplomacy per se was dictated partially by Russia’s willingness to keep up with the developed countries and enter mutually beneficial exchange with them.

However, lately Russian status on the international arena has been questioned, and the active participation in non-political issues, such as environmental protection or Climate Conference could enrich the state with more partnership links with foreign counterparts. A greater contribution to the issues of sustainable development could also help Russia to obtain international credit.

• To launch domestic economic reforms

Analogously to the tourism sphere, conditions of domestic economy could either attract positive comments about a state success, or provoke disillusion with a country.

People’s logic is understandable: “if average citizens are fond of their economic and welfare state, do not experience food or other necessities shortage, able to pay for their education, leisure and travelling, it means that a government copes with its task, and a foreigner would not have a hard time there as well”. In other words, the attitudes of the Russians towards their country and its economic development play a crucial role in the state international image-building. The better the living and economic conditions of the Russians would be, the more positive would be the feedback from the global community.

Practical measures for political communication and informatization preoccupy three recommendations.

• To nurture national information culture

The majority of the representatives of the international community, especially originally capitalistic states, regard media diversity and diversity of opinions as of paramount importance.

They hardly understand that during the 70-years Soviet era Russian people got used to trust one centralized news agency and to believe in the governmental statements. Although the situation changes, and Russian media market is rich with numerous news outlets and diversified information sources, people still largely rely on official information.

Widening the coverage of oppositional sources and the nurturing of a habit to compare various viewpoints covered in news stories could help the Russian government to get rid of the

‘propagandists’ status and to convince the overseas general public that Russia is not a dictatorship.

• To diversify the content

Nowadays, the broadcasting content of Russian internationally-oriented media is engrossed with the news stories describing the conflict between Russia and the West and Russia’s contesting

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Western policies. Firstly, such state of affairs originated an opinion among foreign citizens that Russia distances herself from other members of global community, points out her exceptionalism and acts the Cold War-like. Secondly, the continuous translation of the related information irritates the target audience and results in the growing indifference to the position of the Russian Federation and its media.

Thematic versatility, including the coverage of less conflictive but still noteworthy topics could attract more viewers and readers and iron out the difficulties in apprehension by the overseas publics.

• To aim for linguistic multiplicability

At the moment of the study completion (the mid-year of 2017) Russian international media operate in 5-7 foreign languages in general. The expansion of linguistic services and translation of the broadcasting into more foreign languages could not only enlarge the target audience of the information sources’ users, but to develop a reputation of a user-friendly news outlets as well. In other words, cultural contiguity and eagerness to walk a mile in the viewers’ or readers’ shoes raises the chances for the thaw in attitudes towards Russia.