Departament of masscomunication
propaganda and manipulation
"Political Image-paradox in a Bulgarian way"
Assistant Project Leader: Dessislava Nikolova, MA in PR; Ph.D. student in Mass Communications, NBU
25, 26, 27 July 2001 - Sofia, Bulgaria
2.On the basis of the interactive investigations and qualitive analysis based on knowledge, wich had been carried through, to be defined the perspectives for improving modes of communication with the view of demonstrating and opening of the public sphere.
3.To be made an interactive analysis of the popular techniques of communication in media building up of an image and a reputation of separate persons and organizations.
4.To be generalized by the partisipants in the school, the Bulgarian and the western experience in the making up of political image. To provide the participants in the workshop with an opportunity to exchange experience and to acquire new knowledge of specific fields, such as communication and political image, and interactive communication , and the possibilities for their use in Bulgaria, as well as to present the participants with new aspects of political image in the Internet.
To identify peculiarities and alternative methods for resolution of communicative problems related to Bulgaria's changing reality.
The participants are expected to demonstrate how European experience in PR is used, modified and adapted in the countries of Eastern Europe.
To create favorable conditions for the formation of joint scientific and research teams aiming at joint research projects on PR with the participation of different Bulgarian institutions and universities. </b>
Duration: Workshop of PR will be held on 25, 26 and 27 of July, 2001. It will last 3 days.
Program of workshop (25 - 27, July 2001)
First day, 25 of July
Morning session
09, 00 - 10, 00 Registration of the participants
10, 00 - 11, 00 Official opening. Report of the invited guest about the ways for building an image in Public relations
11, 00 - 11, 30 Coffee break
11, 30 - 13, 00 Reader Rousi Marinov "Communicative problems in structuring of public environment - impossible dialog"
Discussions
13, 00 - 14, 00 Lunch break
Afternoon session
14, 00 - 16, 00 Tomislav Tcolov and Liubomir Alamanov - APRA, "Practical models of PR in building an image of the Bulgarian politics"
Scientific messages from students in NBU
Kristina Georgieva-" PR in the election"
Round table
Second day, 26 of July
Morning session
10, 00 - 11, 30 Reader Tatiana Burudjieva "Political communication and image" Professor Boris Chakalov "Public opinion and political image" - temporary analysis
11, 30 - 12, 00 Coffee break
12, 00 - 13, 00 Boriana Dimitrova, "Alpha Research", "Influence of public opinion upon political campaign"
Scientific messages and discussions
13, 00 - 14, 00 Lunch break
Afternoon session
14, 00 - 16, 00 Show on performance American film
Third day, 27 of July
Morning session
10, 00 - 11, 30 Neri Terzieva, Ani Dainova "Presenter's role in political campaign" Scientific messages from students in NBU
11, 30 - 12, 00 Coffee break
12, 00 - 13, 00 Mari
In the recent couple of centuries man has been often subject to manipulation. And gradually together with the development of new information technologies and the achievement of certain branches of science it has been acquiring jet more refined and sophisticated forms. One of contemporary means of influence is the use of power and potential of the electronic and interactive technologies. Somebody can change in advance the real "map" and enter an artificially created "mental scheme", depriving the individuals of the opportunity to verify it on a practical basis. Fostered by these technologies it is not a problem at the moment for the man to create some kind of hyper reality where the individual lives in an entirely virtual world, and at the same time is subject to a total manipulation. The necessity of simplified mental maps which are supposed to explain the social and natural phenomenon is namely one of the conditions that makes the individual be easily manipulated. The emergence of the global network of information above the so far traditional space shaped along territorial, urbanistic, architectural and engineering lines imposes a third cybernetics space. That is to say instead of homogenizing the human fate the technological annulment of the space-time distances is polarizing it. It liberates certain people from territorial limits and transforms certain meanings, which have been produced within community into something beyond territorial range, when at the same time it deprives this territory to which others are committed of its meaning and the people of the possibility to protect their identity. Within the cybernetics space the bodies are of no importance though it is essential and of undisputed importance for the bodies' existence. The judgment passed by the highest spheres of cybernetics space has never been appealed to and there is nothing under the sun that can challenge their authority. Empowered to pass judgment in the cybernetics space the bodies of those vested in power need neither to be ruling bodies nor to possess huge amounts of material means, more over unlike Antaeus they do not need to be connected with the Earth's environment in order to ascertain, ascend or display their power. The judgment for good and evil, beautiful and ugly, correct and wrong, useful and useless, may only descend from zones where it is difficult to penetrate any but the most annoying with its curiosity eye. The verdicts apart from anything else raise no questions as one cannot put forward questions to a judge who has no permanent address and more over nobody is sure that they exist. Another contemporary researcher of the networks, Mark Poster, supposes that our bodies are involved in data networks, in information highways, and all storehouses of information where our bodies are situated and connected in "information fashion" can not any longer secure protection from outside observation or save integrity of the bastion around which one can build up lines of resistance. New terms were even coined out, related to the new technologies as "cyber- communism" which has emerged as a result of mass free of charge consumption of information by the electronic networks. Manipulation related to the contemporary technologies is inextricably bound up also with the basic components of the new type symbolic economy. Manuel Castells defines its main characteristics pretty well too. According to his research findings it is first of all informational, that is to say, that it is the opportunity of generating knowledge and managing information itself that determines on a competitive basis the capacity of the economic entities. The purposefully selected methods of management of information set up conditions for manipulation. The second characteristic feature of the new economy is its global aspect, which open prospects to put economic behavior under control with the help of certain financial mechanisms of huge amount of people. Its third characteristic feature is that it is of network type. The big corporation is now internally decentralized and consists of different networks. Communications in the cybernetic space are interactive, flexible and based on electronic hypertext. Now the simplest and simultaneously the most influential massage is the image and that image dominates the symbolic type of manipulation. Once the network is produced in a program version this code is transformed automatically as a compulsory one for all. Therefore probably a gigantic battle is taking place for who is going to determine the network rules and codes. The information-based networks will, as the practice shows, gradually eliminate any other type of organization with different social logic. The dominating language nowadays is already the language of the hypertext. The hypertext is becoming the basic vehicle of communication and it potential will be used without limitations by the future manipulators. Some of the essential components of communications and at the same time of manipulation are fragmented meanings and respective cultures, where the only shared knowledge is the knowledge shaped within the network. We are witnesses' jets of processes when the representatives of different cultures interact among themselves and are trying to find common grounds in order to solve problems. Sometimes these cultures are situated in the space so far away from one another that seemingly they are representing subjects which use communication of the type "a village of one civilization -to a village of another civilization" using the universal language and the standards of Internet. The logic of Digital Technologies leads us to a new course of behavior. The goals, ideas, themes are not strictly fixed and palpable. There are neither boundaries in the cybernet
