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Writer: Katja

" I've counted, three minutes, and I don't stink. "

Something a little lighter from my part too (i.e. someone's too busy to write her usual wall of text)... This funny little piece of news made me ask myself: could I imagine a statement like this to be made in Finland? Are public speeches of this kind on behalf of someone in Chavez's status only typical for the straightforward Latin temperament and their culture?

When thinking about it, Chavez' worry is not very unusual and the headline in all its silliness is about the same quality as we sometimes see in Finland too. But is the context still a bit different and thus more shocking, when we hear some-man-in-the-lead-of-a-country-that's-going to-a-war-with-its-neighbour make such a statement? Do we give his words some more "oh dear he must be dead serious about this"-value than we would otherwise?

One thing that keeps me wondering too while reading news from South America, is why does _everything_ seem to happen during televised political meetings? Sure, we televise meetings in Finland too, but in our country it's considered a part of democracy. What is it in Venezuela? An attempt to answer the global demand for transparency? ...Or just one way to keep the nation's ruler in the limelight and portray him in the wanted way?

Oh, transparency reminds me of one more figure that will probably help you with getting some perspective on corruption matters. It's from 2006, but I guess no drastic changes have taken place. From what I've heard, Brazil has moved up a few steps though.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781359.html

Written by: Iina J.

Stora Enso: The brighter side?

Last week I got feedback saying that Stora Enso has done also positive things in Brazil. Has it really? Here is a list of details Stora Enso, Aracruz Cellulose and Veracel have promised to the people of Eunapolis city.

- Respecting the environment.
Unilateral eucalyptus farming leads to monoculture: people aren't farming corn or grain. In few decades the soil won't have enough minerals. The staff of these plantations have also encouraged small landowners to farm eucalyptus. The question remains: is that a good or a bad thing?

- Fostering a better quality of life.
In 2003, Veracel organized extensive training to 2.300 about sustainable forestry management. They also ran educational campaigns considering the rational use of water and selective waste collection.

- Generation of employment.
Stora Enso, Aracruz Cellulose and Veracel have counted, that the plants will potentially employ 3.000-7.000 people. According to Helsingin Sanomat, at this point there are 741 employees.

- Following the principles of sustainability.
The firms promise to preserve and recover the native forestry and biodiversity. Is it really so? "The Mata Atlantica", Atlantic rainforest, is one of worlds diverse areas. In 1955 the Mata Atlantica covered 85 percent of the acreage, now the quantity has decreased to 4 percent.
But on the other hand, Veracel has also launched a program which produced native seedlings of rainforest tree species. The goal is to recover the ecosystem.

References:
http://www.sask.fi/julkaisut/tyomaana_maailma_2006/suomi-sellun_oppivuodet_etela-am/
http://www.finnwatch.org/pdf/StoraEnsonet.pdf
Helsingin sanomat, articles 15.6.2009 and 5.9.2009 by Jarkko Lyytinen and Tommi Nieminen.
http://www.veracel.com.br
http://www.veracel.com.br/web/en/sustentabilidade/ambiente_educacao.html

Writer: Katja

Spying and accusations

I decided to write something about Chile and I was looking for some interesting topic when I stumbled upon to the Santiago Times’ webpage. And again I found a piece of news that tells a sad story about the relations between South American countries (16.11.2009).

This time it’s about Chile and Peru. The history of these two countries is full of disagreements and rows. Last August Peru accused that Chile changes maritime frontiers shared by the countries and in that way offends international agreements.
Chile is also accused of threatening Peru with a conflict. Peruvian governance says that Chile practices military exercises and buys missiles and radar equipments from the USA. Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde says this will lead to the arms race, which is against the interests of Latin American peace. Chilean president Michelle Bachelet denies Belaunde’s accuses and says that Chile isn’t preparing for a war. Bachelet blames that Peru only hampers relations between the countries.

The latest conflict between Peru and Chile arises when Peru catches Chilean spy. Peru’s embassy’s former worker Victor Ariza Mendoza is charged with treason. When working in embassy he smuggled some secret documents to Chile for large sums of money – or at least this is Peru’s opinion to the issue. Also two Peruvian military officials are accused and warranted. Peruvian president Garcia says that Chile’s action is “lamentable and offensive act of espionage”. Garcia is going to pressure Chilean authorities to find and punish those who are participant to the spying case.
Chilean Foreign Minister Mariano Fernandez and government spokesperson Carolina Toha have tried to repeal accusations. “Chile does not spy and is not interested in espionage”, says Foreign Minister Fernandez.

In past few weeks I have read quite negative news about political conditions in South American. Also the relations between countries seem to be inflamed. Just wondering how are the countries in the region going to get along with each other when there appears all these accusations about war preparation, spying etc. I guess there are so much false information and rumours spreading that controlling of the communication flow has become very hard.
I admit that it’s important to notice that the piece of news was in the Chilean newspaper so it’s impossible to say if it’s true or just propaganda. I’m interested to hear for more news from the region.

Reference: http://www.santiagotimes.cl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17622:chile-denies-peruas-spying-accusations&catid=19:other&Itemid=142

Writer: Suvi

Case Alcoa

Wow!

Lying, cheating, corruption... That's hard! Since our blog's latest writings have been kind of gloomy I decided to offer good news for a change.

Alcoa, an aluminium-producing company, has a mine in Juruti, right in the very heart of the Amazon rain forest. There are loads and loads of information about the mine in company's website.

On October 8th Alcoa's communications actions in Juruti Bauxite Mine won the national 2009 ABERJE Award in the Sustainability Actions Communications and Social Balance category. ABERJE stands for Associação Brasileira de Comunicação Empresarial, Brazilian Corporate Communications Association in English.

The main tools of Alcoa’s communications strategy in the Juruti region are:

• Juruti Magazine, published monthly since 2006
• radio program Sintonia, broadcast every Saturday over the last two years in local stations
• institutional newsletter directed to partner organizations
• intense interface with the local media

Communications team in Juruti is working to keep the dialogue with local populations open every day. Communications strategy has paid attention to region's unique characteristics: areas which can be reached only by river boats or unpaved roads, the absence of traditional media and audiences with very low schooling, for example. Communications actions were adapted to local conditions and no imported communications models were used. Sounds like great PR!

After all this praise I must point out that my knowledge about the subject comes from Alcoa's own press release. To get more objective information about the theme I should have read local newspapers, for instance. It's just that my language skills in Portuguese are quite limited (read: zero)...

Writer: Anni H

Stora Enso in Brazil: False accusations or daunting truth?

During the international economical depression, we’ve read that Stora Enso is shutting down factories and paper machines in Imatra, Kotka, Varkaus and Kemi. In the past five years Stora Enso has invested three billion euros abroad and one of the biggest investments has been Brazilian eucalyptus plantation.

This is what Stora Enso is been accused for:
Illegal expansion of eucalyptus plantations.
Changing boundaries without authorities permission.
Forging documents.
Generous and controversial donations to politics.
Causing environmental destruction.

Hard core stuff, ha? Let’s take a closer look.

The Stora Enso gold nugget, the Eunápolis eucalyptus pulp mill was completed in 2005. Since then the 100.000 inhabitants of Eunápolis city have been complaining. According to local civic groups, the city is sinking into poverty: all farmland is filled with eucalyptus trees and farmers are forced to move to the slum areas, and due to that, insecurity is increasing, housing prices have exploded and local business is suffering. Promises of thousands of jobs haven’t been realized: in 2006 the pulp mill directly employed 741 people.

Under Brazilian law, a foreign company can’t own land closer 150 kilometers to a national border. Well, Stora Enso got greedy and bought land from that national border zone – but they bought it using different company name. The undercover firm “Azenglever Agropecuária Ltd.” was registered as a Brazilian company and it was owned by two of Stora Ensos managers.

But the Brazilian authority dealing with land issues, smelled a rat. It suspected “Azenglever Agropecuária Ltd.” to be a fake. The national security council granted the right to use land in the border zone, but Stora Enso had already started to plant eucalyptus trees in the zone area without a license. They were breaking the law.

In addition, at this point the local inhabitants started to accuse Stora Enso of pollution. They argued that eucalyptus plantations were leading to monoculture, which causes ground water to dry up and become polluted.

Stora Enso has also invested in Brazilian politicians and candidates. Ironically, “the corporate responsibility report” says that Stora Enso paid more than a million real (about 365.000 euros) in election contributions. Lavish donations took place in all political levels: campaigns for the president, governors, senators and state representatives.

…And now, classmates. I’d like to ask you what kind of personal thoughts did this text provoke? Is it only me who thinks Stora Enso acts like a massive liar and corrupted abuser, which wastes natural resource?

Reference: This blog post is based on an articles published in Helsingin sanomat 15.6.2009 and 5.9.2009 by Jaakko Lyytinen and Tommi Nieminen.

Writer: Katja Ruokamo

The C-word

Okay, when we think about the organizational culture of Latin America, what's the one word that (sadly) comes to our mind? Corruption. The phenomenon hardly ever makes headlines by itself, but it is fair to suggest that it might somehow be entagled with various threatening situations. Especially if we take into account all the aspects of corruption ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_corruption ). But it's also no wonder that the corruption scandals rarely make it to the news, if this map by Transparency International ( http://www.transparency.org/about_us ) portrays the reality even somewhat correctly (the redder the area, the higher the corruption):



In some parts of the world the phenomenon simply is a part of everyday life and the "accepted" (PR) culture in general. Thus even recognizing it, not to mention changing it, is extremely difficult. There's always the hard question about what kind of action can we actually call 'corruption', too... This applies to all countries though.

I've personally been wondering, to what extent do economical and cultural reasons contribute to the amount of corruption. I found this academic paper written by British economics ( http://129.3.20.41/eps/pe/papers/0406/0406004.pdf ), which makes interesting references to another studies and their findings on the subject (p. 6):
" To a large extent, it is difficult to separate the historical factors from the political and judicial factors since the effectiveness of the judicial system is dependent on the colonial heritage of the country in question. La Porta et. al. (1999) show that those countries that were former colonies of Britain and who adopted the common law system appear to have more effective judicial systems than those who adopted civil law systems associated with former colonies of continental European countries. Treisman (2000) also explores the direct influence of historical tradition on perceived corruption showing that former British colonies or dominions appear to reduce perceived corruption in excess of the role played by the common law system. "

The whole section on social and cultural factors is awfully interesting, as they also note for example how Catholicism - the largest religion in South America - " reduces the quality of government and, by extension, may reduce the deterrence of corruption". (p. 6)

Well, that should shed some light on the mystery of South America's PR field and its corruption-plagued reputation. At least I'm feeling very enlightened! Although corruption could indeed be found anywhere, it's still reasonable to think about why we associate it with some countries more often than others.

( Whoa, check that out, I just managed to create some links! Oh joy!)

Written by: Iina Julkunen

ATTENTION! What kinds of changes are currently taking place in Southern America?

ECONOMICALLY?
Southern America and Latin America are facing political, economic and social challenges, because the continent is becoming a major player in the global marketplace. State-owned industries are becoming privatized, democratic and economic reforms are continuing, trade barriers are eliminated, export is rising, consumerism is increasing and there are more foreign investors in the business field - like Finnish UPM and Stora Enso.

IN MEDIA ENVIRONMENT?
Media environment is also changing rapidly: media is moving away from an informal system, in which reporters and journalists were paid to publish stories. Journalists are freer to express their opinions and the number of media outlets is growing. For example in Brazil there were almost 1.000 magazines and thousands of radio stations already in 1998. During these last ten years, the number has increased rapidly.

IN PR FIELD?
Alan Freitag and Ashli Q. Stokes state that the profession is highly valued and it has become institutionalized with legal support and scientific research studies. PR practitioners see their role as practitioners concerned with ethics, social responsibility, community well-being and government harmony.

The most important thing to remember is that practitioners should adopt tailored approaches for each country, because each country has a long complex history and understanding these origins will help today’s practitioners to be prepared for a dynamic public relations environment. For example Brazil has changed from colonialism to a federal republic – and again from dictatorship to democracy! History might be the reason why public relation practitioners in Brazil are concerned with social environments.

It’s fundamentally important to recognize that US standards for public relations won’t work in Latin America. Campaigns that are planned for US standards might fail because they would not be designed for effectiveness in different cultures.

Reference: Alan R. Freitag & Ashli Quesinberry Stokes. 2008. Global Public Relations – Spanning borders, spanning cultures. 1. ed. New York: Routledge. Pages: 206-211.

Writer: Katja Ruokamo

Disagreements between Columbia and Venezuela

I’m not sure if this quite fits to our blog’s theme but I found this piece of news pretty interesting.
On Helsingin Sanoma’s webpages was told about the tightened relations between Columbia and Venezuela. There have been lots of disagreements between those two countries concerning the releasing of hostages kidnapped by Columbian commandos.
And now the situation has come to the point where Venezuela has threatened Columbia with a war. Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez recommended in his own television-show that the army should get prepared for a war and the citizens to defend their country. According to Chavéz this is the best way to maintain peace between Venezuela and Columbia. Chávez has also commanded 15 000 soldiers to the border and he explains this by increased violence in Columbia.
USA and Columbia also made cooperation agreement that displeases Venezuela. This contract ensures that USA is able to use Columbia’s military bases in a fight against drug dealing. Venezuela is now afraid that USA could invade to the country.
Columbia’s president Alvaro Uribe says that Columbia isn’t willing to provoke but to ensure the successful preventing of the terrorism related to the drug dealing.
At least Venezuela has bought war equipments but although the possibility of a war has generally kept quite slight.
From now on it is interesting to follow what is happening between Columbia and Venezuela and – the most important – how they are going to inform about the evolving situation.


Writer: Suvi Joensivu

Public Relations and Sustainable Development - a Match Made in Heaven or Hell?

When reading Katja's interview with UPM's Timo Kekki I started wondering companies whose core operations cause some kind of harm to the environment. Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that UPM, for example, wants to do bad things. It's just that if you're producing paper, your actions have effect on the surrounding nature and also people living in that area. I guess you all agree with me when I say it would be more natural to leave those Uruguayan or Brazilian forests untouched.

Another example of a line of business I just described is aviation. Airlines' business is to get people and cargo from one place to another and there's nothing wrong about that. Air traffic, however, produces emissions and thereby speeds up global warming and climate change.

I ran across the theme of aviation when I read an article about Green Living Project and its newest media expedition to Brazil, Ecuador and Peru. GLP is an organization promoting sustainable living. One of its partners in this South American project is Chilean LAN Airlines.

We know sustainability is THE thing nowadays. No smart company ignores the topic in its annual report or strategy. For example, see LAN Airlines' annual report 2008. Question is, however, are companies taking sustainability seriously or are they just polishing their image taking 'green issues' into account.

Is LAN Airlines hypocrite when it's promoting sustainable development being in partnership with GLP? After all, air traffic isn't the most environmentally friendly business. On the other hand, there's no end of flying and travelling in sight so should we just be happy when airlines and travel agencies are trying to do their job sustainably?

In many South American countries tourism is fairly big business and therefore airlines', travel agencies' and tourism boards' 'greenness' matters. When it comes to those actors, is taking environment into account a necessary evil? Or is it a chance for PR professionals of those organizations to do their share for the common good? Is it PR manager's job to take responsibility for the environment? Public Relations Manager of Brazil Tourism Board, Mariana Szauter, is looking forward to work with GLP (see article). Is it to become a win-win situation when Brazil attracts tourists and makes income while partnership with GLP builds "an awareness around sustainability"? What do YOU think?

Writer: Anni H

PR, Ars Suprema

Since communication is, as we all know, the highest form of art, it's only natural that an art historian should also have her say on the subject. Right?

It doesn't take an art historian, however, to notice what communication and the world of art - or as it is sometimes referred to, culture - have to do with each other. Through communication - words, symbols, different contexts - the phenomenon we know as culture manifests itself. When we see different types and traditions of communication, we immediately see different cultures. This relationship is so unseparable that it makes the utmost sense to stop and think about the surrounding culture a bit when we want to get a clear picture out of a certain area's communication field, its tradition and practices.

Sadly many regions still, in the era of information technology, seem a bit
unaccessible for us Finns. Take South America... All the researches that find their way to the Finnish academic world seem to be solely written by Northern Americans and thereby from their point of view (and curiously often they tend to focus on Mexico...). But although there's little variety amongs writers, the amount of research material for an interested soul is almost endless. If you want to take a closer look at a certain culture, you'll have to search through the region's history, it's popular culture, its folklore and traditions, study its art... Luckily ye olde realiable Wikipedia is here to give us all a brief idea of what we're dealing with (although I might just be shooting myself in the academic leg by posting this link... but I'll take the risk): CAN YOU PEOPLE SEE A LINK HERE? ON MY COMPUTER IT SHOWS IN THE WRITING MODE BUT DISAPPEARS WHEN PUBLISHED. (Sorry, one humanities student right here, coming through...) Well, I'm sure you can use google too...

Even without the wikiarticle we all know something about the Latin America though.
We know that its culture started shaping as a close-to-nature pagan culture with incas and such, and since then it has been widely affected by immigration, especially from the Latin countries of Europe. The old colonies still bear the mark and atmosphere of imported cultures on many levels, with their créole languages (i.e. a mix-up of old regional language and the language learnt from newcomers) for example. Although the various indian tribes of South America apparently had very effective (mass) communication methods of their own, I think today's communication field is still mainly understood through the integration/fusion of old tradition and the European culture. South America sure provides an interesting cultural climate for the communication methods to thrive and develop.

The future ponderings of this one young art historian in-the-making will hopefully contain more precise thoughts. I will most likely take a look at some of the worst stereotypes we tend to have about the Public Relations -field in South America and try to find some hopefully interesting and funny bits and pieces around the internet and the library to illuminate the continent's culture-communications -atmosphere, its effects and its development, for you.

Here's one book I'm personally reading at the moment concerning the subject, it's well worth taking a look:
James Lull: Media, Communication, Culture - A Global Approach. Columbia University Press, New York, 2000.

Oops, first posts get so long so easily...

Writer: Iina Julkunen

UPM in Uruguay / Interview

BACKROUND:
Finnish paper firm UPM-Kymmene Corporation is taking over the Fray Bentos pulp mill and forest plantations in Uruguay. UPM is the world’s largest magazine paper maker and now it will gain sole ownership of the Fray Bentos eucalyptus pulp mill, which was operated by UPM and Metsaliitto’s joint venture Metsä-Botnia Oy.

UPM Chief Executive Jussi Pesonen has stated that the deal will strengthen UPM’s position in emerging markets and substantially boost its pulp production capacity. At the same time, the company is cutting its pulp output at its home base in Finland.

I interviewed Timo Kekki from public relations point of view. He is Strategy Manager in UPM's Mergers and Acquisitions -department.

INTERVIEW:

1. What were the most essential stakeholder groups UPM had to take into account when acquiring business in Uruguay?
The amount and levels of stakeholder groups are very wide. When considering acquisition all the groups were mapped. In principal stakeholders were divided into three levels: i) internal ii) local iii) international. Internal considers naturally employees of acquired companies but as well labour union, project team and UPM personnel. Local stakeholders are e.g. Uruguayan government, local municipality and their citizens, local suppliers, NGO's like environmental associates etc. International stakeholders covers Finnish government, EU authorities, international NGO's (WWF, Greenpeace...), customers, financial institutions to name few. All in all more than 60 stakeholder groups were identified. Local employees, authorities and Uruguayan government were identified as the most crucial ones.

2. In your opinion, how important positive publicity in Uruguay is for your organization?
'Positive publicity' could be defined as fact based publicity. Naturally it is very important that stakeholders and people in Uruguay will get correct picture of our organization already from the beginning. Therefore open and consistent communication among different stakeholders is very crucial. As a big foreign investor in Uruguay it is important that our company principles, values and code of conduct a transparent not only for our employees but also for other parties involved.

3. How UPM has been promoted in Uruguay? How would you describe the volume of the promotion?
UPM hasn't organized any specific promotion in Uruguay. When the deal was published in the summer, parties (seller and buyer) held together press conference in Uruguay and met local authorities and other stakeholders. In those relations UPM presented its business and management principles, such as commitment to sustainable development. Otherwise UPM has no intention to arrange any kind of public promotion campaign. Best way to earn positive image, is to act accordingly.

4. In your opinion, what kind of brand image does UPM have internationally - not only in Uruguay?
I would say that brand image within our industry (incl. employees, suppliers, customers and e.g. financial institutions) is very reliable. And although company has had to make some difficult decisions, which may have negative impact on image among private persons, the open, fact-based communication has strengthen this reliable image.

5. Stora Enso has had conflicts in Brazil. Do you think that will affect public opinion toward UPM?
This doesn't have any direct impact on UPM. In Uruguay UPM or the predecessor haven't had any conflicts, on the contrary the plant and operation in general has very good image and it is very highly appreciated there. Our challenge is to maintain this good heritage and transfer it under UPM brand. In order to succeed in this task our communication and acts must be carefully planned and executed.


Writer: Katja Ruokamo