Public Relations

The Russo-Georgian PR War of 2008

Since the post 9-11 popularization of rolling news, the television reporting of war has come under close scrutiny. Much has been written about how the media influences global audiences and, by consequence, compels governments to interventionist action of one sort or another. Events in Somalia and the former Yugoslavia, and border wars such as that fought between Ethiopia and Eritrea gained global attention and elevated them from sideline to headline, awarding those conflicts the political attention that would in earlier decades have gone to wars involving a superpower (Spencer, 2008). Such is the power of the media to engage the public gaze and pressure foreign governments into action that it is conceivable, if not already overtly applied strategy, that PR is a weapon to be utilized just like the ordinary materiel of warfare.

This report offers an account of the war fought between Russia and Georgia in the public relations field during the armed conflict that occurred between those countries (and South Ossetian forces on the side of Russia) in August of 2008.

Synopsis of the PR War

Although Georgia was, according to most reporters, by far the more vociferous, from the outset to the conclusion of the conflict, news agencies worldwide received continuous e-mail and text messages from both sides. To date, warring nations have never issued media messages at a comparable volume or frequency.

When the fighting reached peak intensity on August 8th and 9th of 2008, the Georgian administration was at its busiest, issuing one detailed e-mail approximately every 90 minutes for nearly 48 hours. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated after the conflict that he had made 1,100 phone calls during the week of fighting and had answered a similar number (ITAR-TASS, 2009).

Perhaps even more unusual is that unlike any significant regional conflict to date, both sides employed PR companies to manage their media strategies, and did so without attempt at concealment.

Primetiming

The outbreak of the conflict coincided with the US presidential election and the Olympics games. According to Georgia, Russia timed her initiation of the conflict to have it occur precisely when the eyes of the world were looking elsewhere. From the Russian perspective however, it was Georgia who chose her moment with cynical precision – to ensure the conflict began just when concurrent world events reached a magnitude that would justify a media blitz (Norton, 2008).

Whichever is the case, the outbreak capped a season of Russophobic sentiment in UK news stories, of which the Georgian administration was undoubtedly aware. This, along with the Anglophone media’s predilection for championing underdog causes, ensured Georgia’s early cry of victimization was well heard.

As time passed however, Russia’s claims concerning Georgia’s initiating and timing of the conflict became more credible. Georgia, it is sensible to now suppose, needed a media front as committed as her military campaign, considering the odds against the latter succeeding.

The PR War Machines

Since 2007, the Brussels-based PR company Aspect Consulting has been advising the Georgian government on its media relations and assisting the country in her bid to join NATO. The media-military link was forged long before the crisis of summer 2008, and it is interesting to note that from the outset, Georgia’s leadership considered the two as practically singular (ITAR-TASS, 2008).

Aspect was busy the moment the hostilities commenced. James Hunt is one of Aspect’s founding partners and was a crucial behind-the-scenes player in the media war. He claims Aspect worked 24 hours a day for an entire week, answering up to 300 phone calls per day from news agencies across the globe.

In May 2006, G Plus Europe became official PR advisor to the Russian government, giving guidance on media relations strategy, foreign policy showcasing, and in particular, handling of the media of G8 and EU countries. In interviews, G Plus has remained obstinately laconic regarding the information management and delivery strategy of their client, and in stark contrast to the verbosity displayed by Aspect, had nothing whatsoever to say at the end of the war. In short, the stance of silence and the comparatively uncooperative behaviour of both client and agency have strong echoes of Russia’s pre-Perestroika preoccupation with damage limitation through restriction of information, an archetypal tendency that plays neatly into the pro-freedom/anti oppression sentiment vocally endorsed – yet when expedient set aside – by the Georgian government.

Representatives of neither Aspect nor G Plus had ever visited South Ossetia. During the war, G Plus managed affairs entirely from Brussels, and Aspect was in Tbilisi throughout.

Retaliation and Reevaluation

For the first 36 hours of the conflict, it was obvious to news watchers that Russia sorely lacked an organized media presence. Russia’s leadership was unavailable even to give the obligatory condemnation: President Medvedev was vacationing and Putin was in China for the Olympic opening ceremony. All the while, Aspect was rapidly making gains of vital PR territory.

Russia changed her PR tactics unexpectedly, with information pouring suddenly from the very top. BBC correspondents were granted interviews with Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister. Such cooperation with foreign journalists is rare, and with the BBC unprecedented. The Russians made hurried efforts to prove they were being misrepresented. Their media absence during the first two days of the conflict had left a vacuum that the Georgian PR apparatus had opportunistically filled to brimming with its own take on the events.

As soon as the interviews commenced, Lavrov claimed Georgians were killing Russian wounded. This had impact. Very quickly, a crossfire of claim and counter claim ensued, and journalists were left with a growing spaghetti of conflicting allegations and cries of defamation to untangle. Within three days however, Western reporters were receiving the updates gushing out of Georgia with growing skepticism. The very efficiency and precision of Georgia’s reports elicited concerns regarding their authenticity – if the situation was so dire, how could the information be of such quality?

Lavrov stayed resolute and blunt in his declarations, while Georgia’s administration grew more animated. Lavrov’s simplicity tactic began to pay off. Within a week, Georgia’s claim that Russia had initiated a malicious invasion had elided into a more subtle account, which while still holding the Russians fully to blame, now asserted that Russia’s actions in the preceding weeks was “in effect a de facto declaration of war” (Hunt) by Russia on her former territory. Altogether a very different story. The Russian account however, remained resolutely unrevised.

Russia Splutters

Andrei Klimov, a pro-unity Russian parliamentarian, was very vocal during the conflict. Before Russia’s withdrawal, he stated publicly that Georgia had prepared a formidable PR battery in order to offset a reckless and conspicuously ill-conceived military strategy. Klimov argued that Georgia had, for the purpose of harnessing the support of the world’s richest nations, hired capable and wily PR people, who had long ago drawn up a communication strategy to respond expertly to any eventuality.

While Russia’s PR retaliation was characteristically slovenly, her sloth supports the claim that Georgia was the aggressor. When it finally came, Russia’s counteraction had the grand slam effect that was no doubt intended. With a single but explosive word, “genocide”, Lavrov redressed Russia’s PR deficit.

Hindsight seems to validate Klimov’s claims, but discredits Lavrov’s. Georgia’s management of her media countenance does indeed appear exceedingly sophisticated for a state wracked by an unforeseen torrent of violence. Both the news-friendly packaging of Georgia’s messages and the timeliness of their issuing suggest that some serious prior crafting and formulation took place. And if such preparation did occur, Georgia’s cry of victim becomes questionable. Klimov’s cynical observations offer plausible explanations: given the improbability of Georgia defeating Russia militarily, the causative pretext and resultant exchanges do have the scent of camera-trap ploys, and were perhaps intended not to wrest victory in martial terms but to thrust Georgia under the global spotlight and accelerate the cementing of her long-flaunted romance with the EU and USA.

As for Lavrov’s genocide call, there is a sharp irony in the choice of this particular retaliation. Russia knows better than most nations the power of such emotive vocabulary, having been on the pointy end of the “genocide” spear a number of times, most recently courtesy of her military action in Chechnya. If genocide did take place in South Ossetia, it has not been proven. Russia’s insistence on the veracity of the original reports remains, but the sources of those reports have to date not been explicitly identified. Even Russia’s own military investigation failed to verify the oft-quoted figure of 2000 Russian civilians killed, and Russia has yet to present reliable figures of her military fatalities (Human Rights Watch.org, 2009).

The Showman

In the Russian parliament, Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili is known as a “showman”.[1] In August and September of 2008, Saakashvili gave hundreds of interviews to the Western press. Cynics wondered how he had time to run his country, so busy was he putting broadcast quality sound bites into foreign microphones. Curiously, he gave very few interviews to local news agencies.

Hunt says Saakashvili’s spending so much time in front of cameras was no less than superb politics in practice, and denies Russia’s claim that Saakashvili was merely practicing his favourite tactic, namely media manipulation through saturation. Hunt describes Saakashvili as “telegenic” and “charismatic”, qualities that are ideal for image. Indeed, Saakashvili’s media and political adversary Lavrov, looked by comparison staid, monotonous, and perhaps most fortunately for Saakashvili, something of a pre-Glasnost, party line mouthpiece.

Saakashivili gave his speeches in obviously well-tutored English, and while this alone might not be sufficient to raise questions regarding his PR cunning, his providing protesters with placards baring English slogans such as “Russians Out” written in camera-friendly, high-contrast lettering does prompt speculation about the degree to which Georgia’s wartime PR performance was contrived, and whether the entire conflict was a costly sympathy generating exercise – as many in the Russian parliament maintain.[2]

Showman or not, Saakashvili, through his interview pieces brought the Georgian perspective to global audiences and, for the first half of the conflict at least, all but drowned out the comparatively pallid voice of the Russian state.

State Control of Media in Georgia

Saakashvili’s sensitivity to the might of mass communication is evidenced by earlier incidents: In the run up to the 2007 election, Imedi, the main rival of Rustavi and ideologically aligned with Saakashvili’s opposition, was raided while on air, banned from airing political broadcasts, and threatened with terminal closure should the station breach the order.

Rustavi is heavily criticized for its unquestioning support of the Saakashvili administration, and is regarded by internal critics as a servile state bleeter. Somewhat confounding this picture however is the fact that during the conflict, the government gave neither press privileges nor direct interviews or communiqués to Rustavi (or indeed to any Georgian broadcasters). Rustavi, like every other Georgian TV channel, was granted only pre-edited interview footage that had already been given to foreign networks. Since these interviews were in English, translation was necessary and this, on top of the complications inherent in processing secondhand footage, resulted in significant time lags. Any pro-Georgia sentiment from foreign figures of power was also translated and broadcast multiple times, by direct order. Negative sentiment or foreign criticism was allowed to be broadcast once only, and not at primetime, and even then after editing. This was also by direct order. When pressed on this issue by the BBC (Galpin, 2008), Utashvili gave this synoptic and informative response:

“[We were] giving audiences the whole picture, but highlighting those things that we believed to be more appropriate.”

One of the slogans voiced repeatedly by the Georgian government both during the conflict and at every opportunity earlier – particularly when commenting on issues of “Russian repression” before the Western media – was “commitment to free speech”. In reality, Georgia’s media has a history of close control under Saakashvili. During the conflict, local media was obliged to present stories according to a matrix of rigid and sporadically tightening directives, hastily telephoned in after any sensitive development. By sharp contrast, international news organizations were granted the freedom they expected. Yet in retrospect, it seems that the pre-charmed foreign journalists also saw only what they wanted or were allowed to see (Whewell, 2008).

Echoing typical propagandist tradition, Utashvili stated that government control over the media was needed “to boost morale and prevent the spread of alarm”. He also claimed that the Russians had set about their “usual tactic” of seeding lies to create panic across the country and thereby weaken the population’s unity and resistance. He batted away stories of Georgian wrongdoings as “Russian propaganda designed to spread panic”, even when such suggestions came from journalists reporting their own observations.

A major element of Georgia’s youthful, aspiring internationalist image is that of its being a progressive, gregarious country thirsty for democracy and its egalitarian accoutrements while casting off the political and cultural shackles of an oppressive neighbour. Freedom of speech and press is officially enshrined in Georgia’s fledgling constitution. This notwithstanding, the Georgian state seem to see no contradiction in putting this principle aside in preference to a Stalinesque approach to media management, reiterating in defence the propagandist’s classic claim – that wartime conditions excuse heavy handedness and fully justify the truth policy of the hour.

The Fate of Gori

Located on Russia’s southward path of penetration into Georgia, the town of Gori was a focal point of the media war. The inevitable suffering of its population made it magnetic news material. According to Georgia, Russia’s presence in Gori was an act of “invasion and conquest”, but to Russia it was simply an act of “maintaining security and order”. As soon as they arrived, Russian soldiers closed the road to reporters, and by halting the march of the cameras, became themselves players in the PR battle.

Hunt urged the BBC and CNN to update the tickers on their news broadcasts to state Russia had taken Gori. A full 24 hours before the town fell, Georgian reports insisted Gori had been devastated and its defenders routed. When it did fall, the destruction and human loss, although serious, was not to the extent described. During the critical period of uncertainty, news audiences were informed that a “humanitarian catastrophe” was underway and political outrage was already flying toward Russian ears.

Throughout, the actual events inside Gori were unknown. The only news came through panic stricken civilians and was unequivocal – “The Russians are coming. Time to leave. Now.” Details were non-existent. The entire first day of fighting around Gori saw a total news blackout. The town could neither receive nor transmit broadcasts since it was suffering an electrical outage.

At first, Georgia blamed “confused info”. Later, Hunt admitted that their timing was “wrong” and blamed this on “the fog of war”. Explanations were however at that stage irrelevant. Having hoisted Gori to the top of the breaking news, the PR machine had done its job.

PR Strategy and Military Strategy – A Blurred Line

When Georgia started losing ground on the military front, her PR efforts reached fever pitch. The government instructed the population to await a decision between two options – the “Chechen” option and the “demonstration” option. The government discarded the Chechen option, which entailed following the disastrous model of that earlier conflict and using armed civilians to resist Russia’s advance. It is probable, given the savvy displayed by Georgia’s leadership, that the “decision” was a tension builder intended to elevate the drama to new heights. The demonstration option was in fact the only option. It alone bore the potential to help Georgia win the peace by harnessing the sympathy of the world when all military options were well and truly compromised – a strategy known in the Kremlin as “the Kosovo tactic” (Kurspahic, 2003).[3] So when the demonstration was announced, the masses thronged for the cameras in Tbilisi’s Parliament Square, carrying placards bearing pleas in English, and looking suitably terrified at the prospect of marauding Russians.

Conclusions 1: PR and Peace

Klimov argued that Russia was ill-equipped to fight a PR war, while Georgia had been busily building PR brawn for months before the war began. He, with several Russian statesmen, claims that Saakashvili played a war game through the world’s media, and started the war as a ploy to put cameras on Georgia. Klimov also claims Georgia capitalized on the tide of Russophobia by playing successfully to the Western appetite for anti-Russia stories.

The prestigious, UK-based International Institute for Strategic Studies was originally sympathetic to Georgia’s claim of invasion, but after investigating the causes of the conflict, concluded that Georgia was the instigator:

The balance of evidence at present suggests that Georgia started this war by having amassed troops on the border with South Ossetia.

Hunt insisted his client was innocent; Russia and her supporters say Georgia won the PR war; Hunt said the conclusions of the IISS prove Russia was an unjust victor.

Conclusions 2: Lessons Learnt

Today’s wars feature weapons of a new sort – charismatic talking heads, crafted images, and media-tailored rhetoric, all targeted at steering global opinion. In the era of non-stop, multi-stream news, combatants grapple in a new but familiar arena, where, as in traditional warfare, ethics and morality are expendable, tragedies are exploited with relish, and any avenue of attack or defence is legitimate.

The Russo-Georgian war demonstrates that resentment at broadcasted accusations breeds as much animosity as any border breaching, and the media have to aspire to ever greater prudence when dealing with the PR strategies of warring nations, lest the media itself become an unwitting ally of one side and, thereby, a de facto enemy of the other (Carruthers, 2000).

With the increasing power of the media to attract protest and prompt political intervention (Darfur, Myanmar, Tibet), there is emerging a tendency for competing sides to seek PR dominance as a means of levelling military imbalances and righting perceived wrongs, and gain the early strikes that have so much influence over subsequent opinion and consequent events. That such strikes might be rooted in no more than conjecture or outright untruth is immaterial, since it is by their timing, not their veracity, that they serve their strategic purpose. Only an aware and skeptical media can endeavour to deliver news that does not shape the course of a conflict in favor of the side who utilizes its media weaponry more skillfully.


[1] Following is an anecdote that suggests Saakashvili’s “showman” label is not without justification. It provides evidence that Saasashvili’s PR skills are the product of careful and conscious practice.

For nearly five years Nino Orjonikidze was the news anchor on Rustavi-2, Georgia’s most popular and state-tied television station. She told of a press event that took place when EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana visited Georgia in early 2008:

Solana was received at Saakashvili’s official residence, which is a seaside mansion. The press were delayed for hours without explanation. A press conference/photo opportunity was finally granted, at dusk, with the politicians standing against a majestic summer sunset.

Analysis of this incident is revealing. The stalling and information denial tactics are classic statements of authority, subtle yet definite assertions of whimsical power; and the choice of staging indicates an acute awareness of the force of impression and comprehension of the craft of cinematic image creation.

[2] Hunt countered such accusations by saying that Saakashvili “still had plenty of time to do other things”. Was Aspect more involved in the orchestration and influencing of Georgia’s media countenance than it cared to publicize?

[3] Reading between the lines, it appears that Georgia’s leaders conceded that Chechnya was an incomparable political scenario, that conflict having taken place within Russian Federation borders and without the intrusive eyes of the world so close. The unforgettable destruction wrought upon Grozny was also likely a strong influence behind the abandonment of the Chechen option.

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