© 2022 PUBLICATIONS BY PRESIDENCY’S DIRECTORATE OF COMMUNICATIONS CONTACT STRATCOM INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT 1st Edition, Istanbul, 2022 Kızılırmak Mahallesi Mevlana, Bulvarı No: 144 Çukurambar Ankara/TÜRKİYE T +90 312 590 20 00 | webinfo@iletisim. gov. tr 03 RECEP TAYYİP ERDOĞAN P R E S I D E N T O F T H E R E P U B L I C O F T Ü R K İ Y E Distinguished participants esteemed guests; I would like to welcome you with the most heartfelt feelings and respect. Furthermore, I hope the International Strategic Communication Summit, organized and hosted by the Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye Directorate of Communications, would be beneficial. I would like to congratulate our Directorate of Communications and all the stakeholders who have supported the organization of this event. Many experts and leaders are coming together at the International Strategic Communication Summit from public and private sectors, academia, and media. I believe it will fill an essential gap in its area. With their valuable opinions, I’m sure all participants will contribute to this INTRODUCTION T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E 04 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 summit, and I would like to thank all these participants on behalf of my country and nation. Now, we are at a time when technological development is gaining pace, and digitalization has a meaningful impact on our lives. Strategic communication activities are gaining more importance in this process. Unfortunately, especially with the widespread social media, we see that lies, fabricated news, and disinformation rapidly become widespread. There are no effective monitoring processes in place. And millions of people’s lives are being impacted by the disinformation created on social media. In the beginning, social media was announced as a source of freedom, but currently, it is turning into one of the main threats against democracy. This is because digital fascism and disinformation or fake news are on the increase, and of course, this is causing alarm across many nations as it is on ours as well. And this is going beyond becoming an issue of national security. It has turned into a global security issue. So informing the public directly and struggling to deliver the truth is very important. Our citizens have a right to receive accurate news, and they have a right to hear the truth. And for that reason, we are trying to protect them from disinformation and lies. We are bringing to life some legislations, legal frameworks, and regulations in this area. And we are acting within the authority provided to us by democracy and international laws. We are emphasizing that no company is above the rule of law. Despite the global networks that see themselves superior to the rule of law, we will continue to fight against these issues transparently. We will not allow the devaluing of truth with fabricated news. We will not let the fact that is covered with lies. In line with this target, we have taken some historical steps. We created the roadmap for our relevant institutions and Introduction Now, we are at a time where technological development is gaining pace and digitalization is having an important impact on our lives. Strategic communication activities are gaining more importance in this process. 05 organs with the national public diplomacy strategy plan and an action plan. We will take these efforts to the next level with the strategic communication policy paper that we are still working on. I believe the International Strategic Communication Summit, organized for the first time, is another significant step taken in this direction. I think this summit will be critical in setting trends in this area and steering activities with its esteemed guests. I want to congratulate everyone who put effort into organizing this summit, and I would like to greet you all warmly. Introduction INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF TÜRKİYE RECEP TAYYİP ERDOĞAN 07 S T R A T C O M T A L K Strategic Communications in the Post-Truth Age Mr. Minister, my brother Hikmet Hajiyev, Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan, honorable members of parliament, distinguished representatives of the media, esteemed participants, dear guests. We welcome you at the International Strategic Communication Summit (Stratcom). As the Directorate of Communications, we have the honor to organize and host this summit. It is challenging to communicate the joy and excitement I experience by hosting this strategically important meeting today in this gorgeous city. My happiness and excitement have multiple dimensions. First of all, as a scholar who served in academia, not to mention many communication departments for over two decades, I am immensely excited and rejoiced by seeing such prominent figures and scholars gathered together here today. Over the years, we have attended many academic events in many different countries, together with the researchers, professors, and friends that are part T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E PROF. DR. FAHRETTİN ALTUN DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS OF THE REPUBLIC OF TÜRKİYE OPENING REMARKS 08 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 of this summit. Together we have witnessed the dramatic transformation in communication and attempted to understand and account for the rapid changes underway. During my time in academia, I assumed many different roles in the modern mass communication industry, from books and magazines publishing to television. I attempted to create content in media and communication as a self-taught and formally trained stakeholder. We have seen together how the professional ecosystem we operated transformed those processes. Those transformations caused some to experience deep concern, whereas it inspired great hope and others. We are in the presence of doyens of traditional media and leaders of new media. For the next two days, we will be part of STRATCOM, interacting with each other and talking about our concerns and hopes. Distinguished participants, the idea of post-truth emerged over the decades and began to manifest itself more prominently than ever before. Negative aspects of the new media and information technologies rather than their benefits came under the spotlight. Indeed, those new media and communication technologies could have democratized humanity’s access to information and, by extension, made a positive impact. That could have been the case; however, we see the negative aspects in the spotlight more. A significant part of the world’s population became addicted to those new media tools, whose appeal was partly due to being new. Cultures of everyday life thus became monotypes on a global scale. Yet, at the same time, there has been a lack of successful attempts at regulating those new media and information technologies and at establishing legitimate and functional legal frameworks. The crisis of the international system, together with a general state of disorder, accompanied that process of technological transformation and delayed the development of a universal legal framework that would put human rights and liberties first in the face of emerging media technologies. That situation continues today. Anarchy and chaos emerged in the international arena, which was challenging to cope with as the endless ambitions of global media and communication companies and their pursuit of profits entered the picture. In this state of anarchy, those nations which are home to those global media and communication companies have surrendered to the emerging status quo. Instead of serving as an umpire on the public’s behalf and allowing themselves to be The crisis of the international system, together with a general state of disorder accompanied that process of technological transformation and delayed the development of a universal legal framework which would put human rights and liberties first in the face of emerging media technologies. Opening Remarks 09 carried away by this new ecosystem, those states kept silent in the face of the hegemony that global media and communication companies generated. At the same time, some states which claimed to take precautions against that anarchical and chaotic process began to use those same instruments as a mechanism of social control and political censorship. We must stress that both approaches threaten democratic systems and social, cultural, and political diversity. From the perspective of the public interest, both procedures entail significant risks. Interestingly enough, those countries which reaped economic benefits from this disorderly communication regime have fallen to be the victim to the political acts of provocation and manipulation that the same rule has caused. In those countries, the people lost confidence in democratic institutions and their functionality. And this lack of trust was felt even more with the pandemic we are going through. Again, those same countries experienced the destabilizing impact of that new communication order in social, political, and cultural terms. They witnessed how their heads of state came to be censored by those new platforms after having accused many countries of attempting to censor the Internet and doing other things. Meanwhile, those states which tried to create a society of control with the help of new media and information technologies ended up footing the bill for the game of cat and mouse that they played: they restricted communication between their societies and the rest of the world, as they fueled quiet polarization among their citizens. In both cases, we faced a new state of affairs, which threatened government systems and placed at risk peace with individual nations. Both methods, which I just discussed, have been utilized for the last 20 years, and they yielded contradicting results and many adverse developments. Indeed, both approaches made room for cyber anarchy in the international system. And to make matters worse, forever aggressive information wars devoid of rules. As states began to build cyber armies, communication crises started, and social- political domains with disinformation, discrimination, alienation and hate speech were in their center. We find ourselves at a critical threshold today. In this crucial threshold, our country and those nations that suffer from this chaotic environment of global communication attempt to end this situation. In a strategic sense, we need a new cyber narrative, a new cyber order; we must accept this. An order which will enable states to preserve their cyber sovereignty and safeguard the individual rights of their citizens. An order that could terminate cyber pirates’ activities who terrorize the cyber world as if they own those unmastered seas. An order which INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Opening Remarks 10 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 can stand in the way of political engineering attempts by foreign governments, sub-state actors, and terrorist organizations through cyber channels and new communication technologies. An order which diversifies access channels so the Internet, and by extension, facilitates the monitoring and holding accountability of social media companies in line with the principle of responsibility. An order under which everyone can benefit from the cyber world and new communication technologies equally that is capable of ending cyber imperialism, cyber fascism, and the monotyping, repressive, divisive, and discriminatory language. Yes, that is the order that we need. We need that order for humanity’s future and the wellbeing of our democracies. That is a difficult task, but it is not impossible. And we all have specific responsibilities here. At this time, all stakeholders, the state, society, media companies, and international organizations must shoulder this burden together in this period. But, of course, first comes the state. Let us not mince our words here; cyber security has already become one of the most critical national security issues. That’s the case all across the world. Today, public institutions and non-governmental organizations, universities, research centers, and private enterprises are among the targets of cyber-attacks. The state’s responsibility is to protect society and its components from ever-growing risks and threats in the cyber world. As the Republic of Türkiye, we are fully aware of that mission and responsibility. First of all, we believe new communication tools and the opportunities to which the cyber world gave rise as a net positive for our society. We want our citizens to use those tools freely and equally without being exposed to outside influences or systematic disinformation. Cyber justice, just like income equity, is a significant issue nationally and globally. Especially during the COVID 19 pandemic, enabling all social groups to access the cyber world equally has been a substantial factor in efforts to combat that crisis. Therefore, the Turkish state deems it a priority that all social groups enjoy equal opportunities in accessing the cyber world. That is precisely why cyber justice is relevant to social peace. The cyber-world needs to be safer and more accessible. Preventing attacks on the personal rights of individuals on social media platforms is among the state’s responsibilities. We care deeply about all kinds of attacks that our citizens’ cyber identities, personalities, and rights may face, just as we care about their lives and property. We are currently working on a new legal framework in line with our President, Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s instructions. And our parliament is working on this. Our purpose is to protect our citizens against arbitrary or restrictive measures by state Opening Remarks 11 institutions in the cyber world and disinformation and manipulation perpetrated by non-state actors. As you can see, it is crystal clear what exactly I mean when I say that the cyber world needs to be safer and freer. I’m referring to safeguarding personal data, institutional data, and individual rights. In this sense, I do not exclusively mean freedom of access. I am talking about a cyber world where terrorist organizations and organized crime networks cannot attempt to take advantage of new communication technologies for their gain, nor use new media platforms for their propaganda. We need to refer to if we are talking about freedom. I am referring to a cyber world that no longer suffers from the politics of systematic lies or disinformation, which undermine truthful information that citizens and individuals need to make choices. I am talking about a virtual environment where fake content, which poisons social relations and serves ideological or class interests, is not considered legitimate or functional. I am referring to a digital world where social media companies cannot influence people as they please out of commercial or political considerations. It is only in that kind of cyberspace where one can talk about freedom. When information wars escalate, we are compelled to take necessary precautions to preserve national security and cyber sovereignty. And this is a duty for all states. All public institutions, starting with the Directorate of Communications, continue working diligently in this area. And of course, our Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure has pioneered these activities, and I would like to thank them for their support. Our struggle against information operations or political warfare, which targets social peace, economic stability, and state-society relations by using new communication technologies, continues without interruption. As part of that effort, we put the public’s interests first and aim to look out for the rights of our citizens. In line with the vision of our President, the Director of Communication works in unison with all relevant public institutions to guide our nation’s public diplomacy efforts to fight against systematic disinformation and to create a framework for the Turkish state’s strategic communication roadmap. So, I talked about the responsibilities of the state. What obligations do media companies, non-governmental organizations, universities, and multinational companies have? Social media companies undoubtedly have the most significant responsibilities in this cyber world, which is shaped by the new communication tools. We are talking about companies will with global operations here; we must not keep When information wars escalate, we are compelled to take necessary precautions to preserve national security and cyber sovereignty. And this is a duty for all states. All public institutions, starting with the Directorate of Communications, continue working diligently in this area. INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Opening Remarks 12 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Opening Remarks silent in the face of the cultural damage that such companies caused due to systematic disinformation campaigns and manipulative content. But unfortunately, those companies take advantage of a self-proclaimed shield of immunity. And I believe STRATCOM is a vital medium to make our voices heard because they are utilizing a self-proclaimed shield of impunity, as I said. Despite repeated calls for action, they do not ensure due to transparency or respect the principle of accountability. And they are standing before us as interest-driven stakeholders. And despite this fact, they view themselves as umpires, positioning themselves above all democratic institutions and players, which is unacceptable. In recent years, social unrest in certain countries revealed how social media companies spread conspiracy theories, highlighted fake news, polarized society, and even caused radicalization. Moreover, the hate speech they allow for spreading freely increasingly causes hate crimes in many countries. Indeed, those platforms turned out to be complicit in many acts of street violence, violent incidents, and the targeting of innocent people through lynching campaigns. At the same time, the fact that social media platforms can use their algorithms to promote artificial issues poses a threat to democratic politics, the culture of debate, and the public sphere. Moreover, the arbitrary and irresponsible actions of those companies with regard to data collection, coupled with their lack of transparency regarding the processing of personal data, fuels additional concerns. As you all know, the Brexit referendum and the US election were two cases where social media companies faced concrete and global scrutiny and criticism for meddling in democratic politics. In this regard, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, that cynicism gave way to a more optimistic perspective. People around the world demand healthy and reliable information from social media platforms. And unfortunately, those companies have deemed the source of nutritional and reliable information during the pandemic, but those companies failed to live up to that expectation. To make matters worse, all kinds of content that threatened public health and manipulative and panic-inducing stories and conspiracy theories appeared freely on those platforms without any supervision. It was public health that was at stake. But, unfortunately, the relevant companies were too late to take the necessary steps to address those severe problems. Sadly enough, there was no attempt to hold those companies accountable for their recklessness. Today, however, even those states which had sided with social media platforms and portrayed any attempt to regulate those platforms as an attack on freedom are now looking for ways to pass new regulations. It would seem that a gap will 13 emerge between those social media companies which will try to end this digital chaos and anarchy and others that will keep acting recklessly. Let me be apparent: Social media companies must abide by the laws of all countries where they operate instead of just those countries where they are headquartered. And they must work within a framework of accountability and refrain from actions and positions that may hurt the public conscience. Only by acting that way those companies can become legitimate stakeholders in a new global environment. Whereas we certainly need regulation by the public authorities, we also need social media companies to act in line with the principles of transparency and accountability. Of course, in this new age of communication, the public, too, has specific responsibilities as the primary audience of mass communication. To strengthen public opinion is to empower democracy. And this process of maintaining public opinion, the existence of conscious social media producers and consumers is critical. Aware citizens who are not merely passive consumers of cyber content but filter information was critical reasoning are the backbone of truth and the arc enemy of the industry of lies. Users who have been bombarded with content, mainly thanks to the rise of new media, must start consuming information more consciously. This is indispensable for our democracy, and it is vital to all world democracies. In this regard, social media literacy is among the most important sources of positive support. Social media literacy is crucial because it allows individuals to use all sorts of social media efficiently and, at the same time, raises awareness about the risks that those media tools entail. Indeed, the question is not just relevant to consumption; all individuals ought to act responsibly as they create content and the cyber realm. To find and abide by the truth is among the chief responsibilities of any civilized individual. It is one’s duty as a citizen. In this sense, users will inevitably become more careful with stories, messages, and comments posted on those new social media platforms. This is important for the public peace, and this is important for democracies to function healthily. In this regard, our government has lived up to its responsibilities by taking steps to ensure that future generations will be more aware of social media literacy. The Directorate of Communication, too, provides training and publishes educational materials regarding that issue. Universities, too, have significant responsibilities in this area. All social science fields must include social media literacy in curricula and teach young minds to approach information. Because social media is not just about our daily lives, it also impacts universities’ research activities and INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Opening Remarks 14 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 educational activities. Unfortunately, it can also turn into a platform sometimes, which is misguiding. We need to prevent that, and we need to raise awareness in this area. And, of course, this needs to be done within the habitats of universities. We believe that non-governmental organizations need to make necessary efforts to ensure that social media literacy can be promoted as an act of mobilization. In this anarchical cyber universe, all institutions have significant responsibilities in preserving our nation’s digital sovereignty. Taking advantage of this mobilization is among the duties of the society defending the truth is the single most powerful tool for promoting justice and peace in a given society. In a community where the people side with the truth, malicious operations in the cyber world are doomed to failure. It takes a lot of effort to access accurate and reliable information in a situation where populace demagogues divide communities, and foreign governments carry out particular operations on social media. Protecting the social fabric effectively and taking precautions against threats from those channels, starting with cyberbullying, must be viewed as each individual’s homework. Esteemed participants, in addition to the state and media, society and international organizations too, have significant responsibilities when it comes to ensuring the safety and stability of communication in a global sense. Indeed, the ongoing reform debate over those organizations, to some extent, relates to the problems and questions of the cyber world. There have been attempts to actively exploit the new communication tools, which multinational companies have directed until now in power struggles among states. All international organizations must prevent information wars and protect the cyber universe, which humanity considers an essential resource from harm. We must state the following point loud and clear: Act of provocation and mobilization resulting from information wars may lead to actual fights. We have seen time and time again how such conflicts fuel nationalist extremism and create a fertile ground for opportunistic and radical ideological movements. Therefore, all states must work together in combating piracy, criminal groups, and all acts of sabotage and espionage in the digital world. Unfortunately, efforts by individual states have failed thus far since digital piracy and crime occur across national borders. The message we have conveyed in recent years regarding the reform of the international system relates to creating a joint mechanism by states. An essential aspect of the principle of a fair world that our President established is to end inequality among communities and nations in the cyber world to end multinationals’ political engineering efforts and address the security crisis rooted in the cyber world through the joint efforts of all countries. Opening Remarks 15 Just as the world is bigger than five, our cyber universe is much bigger than a handful of social media barons. As the Republic of Türkiye, we are prepared to contribute to this new cyber security architecture as needed. Dear participants and esteemed guests, as I attempted to explain, everyone must work together so that communication can serve humanity’s common interests and become the main engine of progress in this new era. Instead of demonizing the new communication channels due to the problems they cause, we must strive together to make them easier to use and more beneficial. It is crucial for society, global platforms, and international organizations to support the relevant efforts by the state. By working against those groups who aim to exploit those platforms to pursue their sinister, self-centered, and aggressive agendas, we can liberate the Internet and strengthen our democracies. Türkiye is ready for this new period and willing to do what it takes. We hope that all communities, international organizations, and states will support this act of mobilization. In the end, our world, together with the truth and the cyber world, stands to win. Thank you all in advance for participating and contributing to our International Strategic Communications Summit. I respectfully salute you with those sentiments and opinions and pray that the summit will be a vessel for good. COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR OF THE PRESIDENCY OF THE REPUCLIC OF TÜRKİYE PROF. DR. FAHRETTİN ALTUN INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Opening Remarks Contents contents INTRODUCTION Recep Tayyip Erdoğan 03 President of the Republic of Türkiye OPENING REMARKS Strategic Communications in the Post-Truth Age Prof. Dr. Fahrettin Altun 07 Director of Communications of the Republic of Türkiye DAY ONE 11 December 2021 Stratcom Talk - 1 Karabakh: Communication of a Victory 31 Hikmet Hacıyev Assistant of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan - Azerbaijan Stratcom Talk - 2 Strategic Communication 101 41 Alex Stuart Aiken Executive Director Government Communications - UK Stratcom Talk - 3 Life Begins When We Connect 49 Adil Karaismailoğlu Minister of Transport and Infrastructure - Türkiye INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 DAY ONE 11 December 2021 Stratcom Talk - 4 Defining Excellence In Strategic Communication 71 Jānis Sārts Director at Nato Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence - Latvia Stratcom Talk - 5 The Story of Kindness from Hilal-i Ahmer to Kızılay 77 Kerem Kınık President of Türkiye Red Crescent - Türkiye Stratcom Talk - 6 AI-Powered Nation Branding: The Turkish Case 89 Timuçin Güler Executive Board Member at Türkiye Tourism Promotion and Development Agency - Türkiye Stratcom Talk - 7 Communicating for Every Child 103 Paloma Escudero Global Communications and Advocacy Director at UNICEF - Spain Stratcom Talk - 8 Defining the Nation Branding 109 Simon Anholt Policy Advisor - UK Stratcom Talk - 9 Welcome to Metaverse 121 Glen Gilmore Founding Faculty Member of the Digital Marketing Executive Programs at Rutgers University School of Business - USA Stratcom Talk - 10 The Next Decade of Digital Diplomacy 129 Matthias Lüfkens CEO of @DigiTips - Switzerland DAY ONE 11 December 2021 Stratcom Panel - 1 Rethinking Government Communication 139 Murat Karagöz General Director of Information at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Türkiye (Moderator) Eero Raun CEO of Fortator - Estonia Vladimir Gushchin Chief Communications Officer at Center for Strategic Research - Russia Lutz Güllner Head of Division, EEAS - Belgium Rihards Bambals Head of Strategic Communications at State Chancellery - Latvia Përparim Kryeziu Spokesperson of the Government of Kosovo - Kosovo Stratcom Panel - 2 Global Communication: Understanding Multiple Audiences 163 Robert Bole Managing Director of Signal Group DC - USA (Moderator) Clay Schouest Global Communications Strategy Director at Reckitt - UK Gabriel Borges Co-founder, Chief Strategy Officer at AMPFY - Brazil Dr. Segun Alabi Head of Corporate Communications of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry - Nigeria Jared Shurin Head of Planning at M&C Saatchi World Services - UK Stratcom Panel - 3 Digital Strategies Reloading 185 Sümeyye Ceylan Presenter at TRT World - Türkiye (Moderator) Miklos Gaspar Head of Digital Media at IAEA - Austria Matthias Lüfkens CEO of @DigiTips - Switzerland Sam Quan Krueger Head of Digital Communications at United Nations Development Program (UNDP) - USA Daria Santucci EU Official - Press and Communication Officer, European Training Foundation - Italy Nancy Groves Professor of Public Diplomacy at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies - Japan contents Stratcom Panel - 4 Digital Newsmakers: Rediscovering Journalism 205 Halil İbrahim İzgi Advisor at Türk Kızılayı - Türkiye (Moderator) Yusuf Özhan Deputy Director General, Editor In Chief at Anadolu Agency - Türkiye Bora Yıldırım Head of Digital at TRT News - Türkiye İsmail Halis Founder of Mücerret - Türkiye Doğukan Gezer Chief Editor of GZT - Türkiye Ersin Çelik Chief Editor at Yeni Şafak (Internet) - Türkiye Stratcom Panel - 5 Strategic Communication and Information Warfare 229 Assoc. Prof. Enes Bayraklı Associate Professor at Turkish-German University - Türkiye (Moderator) Assoc. Prof. Turgay Yerlikaya Associate Professor at Istanbul University - Türkiye Assoc. Prof. İsmail Çağlar Associate Professor at Istanbul University - Türkiye Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat SETA Washington DC Research Director - Türkiye Assoc. Prof. Yusuf Özkır Associate Professor at Medipol University - Türkiye DAY ONE 11 December 2021 Stratcom Panel - 6 New Trends In Nation Branding and Positioning 251 Jaffar Hasnain Anchor and Correspondent at TRT World - Türkiye (Moderator) Simon Anholt Policy Advisor - UK Constanza Cea S. CEO of Marca Chile - Chile Aaron Maniam Deputy Secretary at Ministry of Communications & Information of Singapore, Chief of the Global Positioning Strategy Office - Singapore Todd Babiak CEO of Brand Tasmania - Australia Stratcom Panel - 7 From Refugees to Entrepreneurs: Building Success Stories 271 Tarek Cherkaoui Manager of TRT World Research Center (Moderator) - Türkiye Reem Masri Fashion Designer - Syria Besim Hatipoğlu CEO of 2P Public Relations and Digital Marketing - Syria Marwa Bouka Deputy Managing Director of RMTeam International - Syria Mustafa Barodi Vice President of Syrian International Business Association in Türkiye - Türkiye Fadi Hilli Founder of FADI Art Space - Türkiye Stratcom Panel - 8 The Future and Content Strategy of Video 289 Hilmi Aydın Industry Leader at Google’s İstanbul Office - Türkiye Timur Altop Head of YouTube Partnerships - Türkiye Bora Başman Türkiye Content Partnership Manager at YouTube - Türkiye Stratcom Panel - 9 Data Is The Message 307 Sümeyye Ceylan Presenter at TRT World - Türkiye (Moderator) Dr. Tayfun Çataltepe CEO at Tazi AI - Türkiye Aslan Doğan Founding Partner and CEO of Etiya - Türkiye DAY ONE 11 December 2021 contents Stratcom Panel - 10 How Algorithms Shape Human Life? 323 Ömer Kablan Presenter and Executive Producer at TRT (Moderator) - Türkiye Assoc. Prof. David Carroll Associate Professor at Parsons - USA DAY TWO 12 December 2021 Stratcom Panel - 11 Strategic Insights And Data Analytics 339 Assoc. Prof. Yener Girişken Founder and CEO of ThinkNeuro (Moderator) - Türkiye Didem Şekerel Erdoğan Türkiye General Manager & Middle East Africa Analytics Leader at NielsenIQ - Türkiye Hande Beceren CEO of Kantar Insights Division - Türkiye Sider Gedik CEO of Ipsos in Türkiye - Türkiye Stratcom Panel - 12 Mastering Strategic Communication: Research Agenda Revisited 355 Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat SETA Washington DC Research Director (Moderator) - Türkiye Dr. Derina Holtzhausen Dean of College of Fine Arts and Communication, Lamar University - USA Dr. Dejan Verčič Founding Partner of Herman & partnerji - Slovenia Dr. Ana Tkalac Verčič Full Professor at University of Zagreb - Croiatia Stratcom Panel - 13 Exclusive Panel: TRT Showcase 373 Nilgün Balkaç TRT Presenter (Moderator) - Türkiye Prof. Dr. Mehmet Zahid Sobacı Director General of TRT - Türkiye Cemil Yavuz TRT 1 Channel Coordinator - Türkiye Erman Yüksel TRT World Channel Coordinator - Türkiye Osman Küçükdalak TRT Haber Channel Coordinator - Türkiye Mehmet Emin Öztürk TRT 2 Channel Coordinator - Türkiye Mustafa Bora Durmuşoğlu TRT Çocuk Channel Coordinator - Türkiye Stratcom Panel - 15 Future of Creative Industries 411 Burcu Özdemir CEO of TBWA - Türkiye Birçim Öztaşkın Chief Business Officer of Publicis Groupe Türkiye - Türkiye Rafet Fatih Özgür Advertising Manager at Turkish Airlines - Türkiye Alemşah Öztürk CEO of AKQA Group Türkiye / Ogilvy&Grey - Türkiye İlkay Gürpınar Chief Creative Officer - TBWA | Istanbul - Türkiye Stratcom Panel - 14 Does Media Spending Still Matter? 393 Volkan İkiler Head of Advertisers Association (RD) and CEO of Concept Advertising Agency - Türkiye Hakan Göl Partner at Deloitte Türkiye - Türkiye Neslihan Olcay CEO of Mindshare Türkiye - Türkiye Gökhan Akça Asistant General Manager at Zer Merkezi Hizmetler - Türkiye DAY TWO 12 December 2021 contents Stratcom Panel - 16 Media Planning in Strategic Communication 433 Ömer Erdem Publisher of Campaign Türkiye - Türkiye Nüzhet Algüneş CEO at OMD Türkiye - Türkiye Özlem Ergazi MediaCom Türkiye Chief Strategy Officer - Türkiye İnanç Dedebaş CEO of Publicis Groupe Türkiye - Türkiye Stratcom Panel - 17 Communicating Türkiye’s Brands 457 Nilgün Balkaç TRT Presenter (Moderator) - Türkiye Mehmet Gürcan Karakaş CEO of TOGG - Türkiye Mehmet Kalyoncu Board Member of Kalyon Group and Partner of IGA - Türkiye Mert Dorman THY Corporate Communications President - Türkiye Stratcom Panel - 18 Media Ethics and Editorial Policies 477 Erem Şentürk Founder of NotHaber - Türkiye Ali Saydam Honorary President of Bersay Communications, journalist, author, communications expert - Türkiye Meryem İlayda Atlas Editorial Coordinator for Daily Sabah - Türkiye Zeliha Eliaçık Opinion Editor at Anadolu Agency - Türkiye Stratcom Panel - 19 Inspiring Today: Women Leaders in Communication 493 Prof. Dr. Müge Elden Head of Department at Ege University Communication Faculty - Türkiye Şeyma Eraz Çelik Founder of Zera Medya - Türkiye Ayşen Akalın Chairperson at IAB - Türkiye Gonca Karakaş CEO of EFFECT BCW Türkiye - Türkiye DAY TWO 12 December 2021 Stratcom Panel - 20 Disinformation & Crisis 513 Ömer Kablan Presenter and Executive Producer at TRT (Moderator) - Türkiye Wasim Khaled CEO of Blackbird - USA Assoc. Prof. Ece Baban Associate Professor at Fenerbahçe University - Türkiye Prof. Dr. W. Timothy Coombs Professor at Texas A&M University - USA Dr. Jake Wallis Texas A&M University- USA Stratcom Panel - 21 Security and Networks in Cyberspace 533 Jaffar Hasnain Anchor and Correspondent at TRT World (Moderator) - Türkiye Assoc. Prof. Akın Ünver Özyeğin University - Türkiye Marc A. Smith Director at Social Media Research Foundation - USA Oleg Shakirov Senior Expert at Center for Advanced Governance - Russia Stratcom Talk - 11 Reaching the Core of the Audience: Communication of Nuclear Energy 551 Miklos Gaspar Head of Digital Media at IAEA - Austria Stratcom Talk - 12 Understanding Opinion in the Post Truth Age 559 Ben Page CEO of Ipsos - France Stratcom Talk - 13 Shaping the Future in the New Era With Consumer Insights 569 Yuneeb Khan Global President of Consumer Insights at NielsenIQ - Netherlands Stratcom Talk - 14 Rising Popularity of Streaming Services? 579 Pelin Mavili Public Policy Director of Netflix Türkiye - Türkiye DAY TWO 12 December 2021 contents Stratcom Talk - 15 Communication And Photography 587 Fırat Yurdakul Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Visual News Department at Anadolu Agency - Türkiye Stratcom Talk - 16 Storytelling And Storytellers 597 Bianca Ghose Chief Storyteller, & Head of CEO Communications, Wipro - France Stratcom Talk - 17 NATO’s Strategic Communications Priorities 605 Amy Trillard Stratcom Talk - 18 More Public for More Diplomacy: Challenges and Opportunities 615 Dr. Nancy Snow Professor of Public Diplomacy at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies - Japan Stratcom Talk - 19 Electricity and Flow: The Future Design of a Boundless and Autonomous Enterprise 625 Vala Afshar Chief Digital Evangelist at Salesforce - USA Stratcom Talk - 20 Fighting DAESH on Front Line 637 TÜMG. İlkay Altındağ Republic of Türkiye Ministry of National Defence - Türkiye Stratcom Talk - 21 Communicating in Times of COVID 643 Anthony Gooch Director of Public Affairs and Communications at OECD - France Closing Remarks 653 Prof. Dr. Fahrettin Altun Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye Director of Communications - Türkiye Serdar Karagöz CEO of Anadolu Agency - Türkiye Gökhan Yücel Head of Strategic Communication and Crisis Management Department - Türkiye Deputy Head for the Strategic Communications Unit at the NATO Public Diplomacy Division - Belgium DAY TWO 12 December 2021 DAY ONE 11 December 2021 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 31 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 1 Karabakh: Communication of a Victory 32 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Karabakh: Communication of a Victory 11 December 2021 S P E A K E R S T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E • Hikmet Hacıyev Assistant of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan - Azerbaijan STRATCOM TALK - 1 33 S T R A T C O M T A L K 01 Türkiye implements its own strategic policy in the field of communication as in all fields not only in our region but also in the world. Hikmet Hacıyev My dear brother Fahrettin Altun, our honorable minister, honorable participants, friends, and colleagues, I am pleased to see you in beautiful Istanbul. I would like to express my gratitude to my dear brother Fahrettin Altun for this invitation. I would like to express our deep appreciation for the hospitality shown to our delegation. I want to say our pleasure and deep joy to be in brotherly Türkiye, in beautiful Istanbul. Honorable participants, the achievements of brotherly Türkiye in all fields and the field of communication make Azerbaijan, as a sister country, very happy. Nowadays, brotherly Türkiye implements its strategic policy in communication as in all areas, not only in our region but also in the world. On this occasion, I take the opportunity to wish brotherly Türkiye good luck and new achievements. The summit meeting on strategic communication that Türkiye hosts these days is a clear example. I would like to wish success to our conference on 34 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 behalf of our country. A very important subject was mentioned at this conference, strategic communication. We want to thank you for this opportunity to share Azerbaijan’s experience in strategic communication. Unfortunately, even though the world did not know what strategic communication was, it witnessed how disinformation and false news were used to attack our country since the first days of Azerbaijan’s independence. Today, Azerbaijan marks the 30th anniversary of its independence. Since the first day of our independence, Azerbaijan has faced computer warfare, hybrid wars, and psychological wars. Especially during the Karabakh War, psychological and hybrid wars accompanied with the occupation policy of Armenia against Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan was faced with disinformation when the world was not aware of this issue; that is, it did not fully grasp what it was. However, at that time, we were not prepared for this war. Although Armenia occupied Azerbaijani lands day by day and continued this occupation with terrorism, aggressive separatism, and discrimination, the world condemned Azerbaijan. Even though the Armenian armed forces killed our people, this killing was presented as Azerbaijanis killing Armenians. And now, under the name of the Armenian genocide, this declaration and propaganda were implemented all over the world. At the end of all this, Azerbaijan tried to explain the truth to the world by waging its just war. However, even in the first days of independence before the 90s, we realized that it was not enough to be right, to be fair. We needed to be more active while telling the world that we were fair; we needed a strategic communication format to implement a smarter policy. From that time on, we decided that we could only stand against this policy carried out by Armenia and the Armenian lobby against our country in the world by bringing together our military, diplomatic, and informatics policy at a strategic level and implementing a policy in a coordinated manner. At the same time, all these events took place so that the world was silent, did not hear what was happening, did not want to hear what was in the background. Although the innocent people of Azerbaijan were killed in Karabakh and Khojaly, the world was told that Armenians were tortured in this war. In other words, behind the scenes of these lies, from the first days of the Karabakh War, we have faced the problems above and embarked on a long-term path. During this war of Armenia against Azerbaijan, we started to implement this by establishing a 30-year strategic communication. As I noted here, our main goal was to convey the policy implemented by all of Azerbaijan and the messages presented to international organizations, as a single message in a coordinated manner. In such a situation, we All these events took place in such a way that the world was silent, did not want to hear what was in the background. Although the innocent people of Azerbaijan were killed in Karabakh and Khojaly, the world was told that Armenians were tortured in this war. STRATCOM TALK - 1 35 S T R A T C O M T A L K also understood the risks of our introducing uncoordinated, unrelated messages to the world very well. Accordingly, we set off by forming a policy against the policy of Armenia and the Armenian lobby offices against Azerbaijan in with a diplomatic and informatics policy method. In this context, we have achieved quite a few successes. Even though the war is complicated, the war demands long-term things from us: informatics, hybrids, and military struggles. I think that we have ultimately succeeded in telling the truth to the world. Especially on September 27, Azerbaijan proved itself once again in the war of its people, that is, in the war of its homeland. On September 27, the Armenian armed forces started a new war against Azerbaijan and our civilian people on the borderline. The people of Azerbaijan retaliated with their rightful struggle against this war by defending 36 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 their rights. Once again, in this war period, the proper establishment and execution of strategic communication were among the most important tasks before us. Armenia was carrying out propaganda against our country using hybrid war with psychological warfare. Unfortunately, many doors remained closed in the world media against Azerbaijan, and the monopolistic information flow loomed like a big wall. We had to overcome this. I want to emphasize the struggle of our President regarding this issue by establishing a different contact with the world media and putting Azerbaijan’s strategic communication in the foreground. During this war period, our President gave hour-long interviews to more than 30 of the world’s most important television channels and media broadcasters for 44 days. It was a process that brought to life the same success in information warfare as the one that our soldiers had managed to cross the border on the line of contact. At the same time, social media accounts were used effectively, and it was ensured that the messages were conveyed to the world by being managed from a single center STRATCOM TALK - 1 37 S T R A T C O M T A L K There is still so much disinformation, fake news and politics by Armenia that in the end Armenia has become the victim of its own lies. by all Azerbaijan ministries and state organizations. In addition, our esteemed President explained these messages to both the world and our people through his social media accounts. However, we were aware that it was not enough to ensure our messages’ continuity, act quickly and with priority, and carry out the processes proactively and reactively. There is still so much disinformation, fake news, and politics by Armenia that, in the end, Armenia has become the victim of its lies. So much so that, even though the city of Shusha, which is the eye of Karabakh, was retrieved from the enemy on November 8 by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, the Armenian society was made to believe that they had won this war. They had lied and carried out such a disinformation campaign that they had started to believe it themselves. However, in reality, things were very different. At the same time, false content campaigns against our country were continued during this war by Armenia and the Armenian lobby offices, just like before the 90s. I want to give an example. A news item was released that Armenia’s warplanes were destroyed in the air, and Türkiye’s F-16 planes supposedly destroyed Armenian warplanes in the air. This also was a lie. They tried to spread this all over the world and tried to blame brother Türkiye for this. However, it was essential for us to investigate, confirm, identify and tell the world the truth with the principle of fact-checking to take precautions against such lies. I want to draw attention to the fact that brotherly Türkiye and Azerbaijan work shoulder to shoulder in communication and media, as they do in all areas. This platform, which we established as Azerbaijan and Türkiye with the contribution of The Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye Directorate of Communications, had an important role in conveying our strategic messages to the world in a coordinated manner during the war. Our media members from Azerbaijan and brotherly Türkiye were at the front, shoulder to shoulder in this war of truth. They continued to work to convey this truth to the world. As always, I would like to express my gratitude to the brotherly Turkish media for their efforts to have Azerbaijan’s righteous voice heard in the world. At the same time, I would like to thank each fraternal Turkish citizen who supported Azerbaijan’s righteous voice through their social media accounts. We are honored to see this support. This made us stronger. We carried out this campaign by giving voice to each other’s voices from both Türkiye and Azerbaijan without any instructions on social media. These events showed that it is imperative to carry out strategic communication in such wars in an associated way. Unfortunately, in the period after this war, ugly dark propaganda is still being 38 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 carried out by Armenia and the Armenian lobby against our country. We see this in the experience of our brother Türkiye. News is generated on social media based on lies and disinformation outside our country. These are false campaigns prepared to influence the domestic politics of our country. Despite this, I would like to congratulate our brother Türkiye on the occasion of a new national brand, namely the Turkish brand. It was a timely decision. As Azerbaijan, we are also in the process of a new national brand in the period after the war. Unfortunately, the South Caucasus and Karabakh are regions that have only been mentioned in connection with war and bloodshed until today. Just as the geopolitical situation has changed after the war, our policy has changed, and we are now implementing STRATCOM TALK - 1 39 S T R A T C O M T A L K a new national brand policy. In this regard, the re-establishment of Karabakh and the transformation of Karabakh into a paradise again are one of the main goals that stand before us. With the liberation of Karabakh, the liberation of these lands from occupation brought us face to face with such a new reality that we would not believe it if we saw it years later. However, a person who was on the field and saw these events could not help but be amazed. The destruction of cities and villages in the 21st century is unheard of in the history of the world. The city of Agdam, which was once one of the beautiful corners of Azerbaijan, was destroyed. Perhaps on a scale comparable to Hiroshima, perhaps on a larger scale. In other words, there was so much destruction and vandalism that it was as if Armenia had used a nuclear weapon on the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. Nevertheless, as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, I would like to state that despite this offensive and the brutality that Armenia has carried out against Azerbaijan, it makes claims against Azerbaijan and Türkiye. Armenia can’t talk about justice after destroying our cities with such brutality. At the same time, we were faced with destroying our civilization and culture. It is impossible not to be horrified by what we witnessed in Karabakh. Karabakh is one of the cradles of Turkish-Islamic civilization. More than 67 mosques in Karabakh; keeping pigs in a mosque is unheard of in world history. We have difficulty in grasping the logic and humanity this fits into. These are not humane things. Yet the policy of using injustices against Azerbaijan and then accusing us continues. Therefore, we have a great struggle ahead to have our voice heard in the world and reveal new truths. Azerbaijan is presenting these facts on an entirely new level. In other words, we are responding to the vandalism of Armenia by founding and re-establishing Karabakh. We are in the process of implementing this policy by turning Karabakh into a paradise again and moving our people to those lands with merit. The villages opened by our esteemed Presidents, new roads, and Fuzuli Airport’s emergence in Zangilan are among the most important examples of this. We think that this is a part of Azerbaijan’s positive strategic communication policy in the post-war period. In other words, it is a justified response to the vandalism of Armenia. My dear brother Mr. Altun gave detailed information about the works carried out in social media and the cyber world. I want to express with regret that Azerbaijan is also facing such injustices in this war. As we have been able to handle internet management or internet regulation worldwide, unfortunately, a policy that can be regulated in the social media order has not been implemented. There is a great need for this issue to be addressed within the framework of the United Nations in international organizations and international processes. There are such campaigns 40 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 against our countries on social media or processes carried out on social media without being subject to any rules, which also affect our daily lives and politics. In this regard, we think there is a great need for us to take initiatives at the United Nations in international processes, together with our brother Türkiye. I would like to wish success to Stratcom Summit on behalf of my own country once again. I am sure that there will be negotiations, exchanges of ideas, and new tasks to be carried out within this framework. I want to express my deepest gratitude once again; I wish you success. Thank you very much. STRATCOM TALK - 1 41 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 2 Strategic Communication 101 42 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 2 Strategic Communication 101 11 December 2021 T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E • Alex Stuart Aiken Executive Director Government Communications - UK S P E A K E R S 43 S T R A T C O M T A L K 02 Alex Stuart Aiken It is a great privilege to be able to address you at this conference and a truly impressive event. I would like to thank Professor Altun and his team for organizing this conference. The conference with more than 100 speakers and 30 different sessions, is also very important in terms of diplomacy and consumer insight. I would also like to offer my humble contribution. As Professor Altun said, it is an extremely important call for all of us that countries use communication as a soldier of democracy. Now I will talk about how we conduct communication and strategy in the UK. Our state has a contact page, I also tweeted about it. This structure of ours actually emerged after a conflict. We just heard from the Vice President of Azerbaijan who told us very important stories about combating disinformation during a conflict, and I would like to touch on disinformation a little bit here. The government communications system in the United Kingdom was established in All our communications should be strategic, they should all have a clear goal, they should all have an audience and we should have a strategy. 44 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 2 1917. The government of that period wanted to establish a department. They wanted to convey the truth strongly within the framework of the law, and false news about the course of the war was spreading at that time. Therefore, it was decided to establish a communications department that responded in a timely manner. Now, over 100 years, of course, we have had successes, we have had failures, and we have learned lessons from them. However, we have seen that this institution is very important for the public good. Governments can also communicate, among their other functions. On February 28, 2020, I was summoned to several meetings, notably with Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The government was seeing the challenges that COVID would create, and a communication operation was immediately launched to deal with COVID. Of course, things like drugs and science were our strongest weapons against this virus, and they still are. However, communication was an inevitable part of our response to the pandemic, and as with any strategic communication plan, I tried to set goals first. That was very obvious. To save and protect lives. Then we went back to the operation. Many governments are very complex, there are many departments, there are bodies, there are many different interests. We established a communication center and brought together people from various disciplines and backgrounds. We brought together people from international business to public health workers, from armed forces to government officials, and from the private sector to agencies and marketing professionals. If you want to demonstrate effective strategic communication, you need a lot of different skills, views and disciplines. You need to be able to evaluate many areas such as internal communication, insight, evaluation, science, data, digital fields. Of course, these are very important for the success of strategic communication. There is one more element that only democracy can offer, and that is open discussion about the direction, plan, implementation and how to succeed in strategic communication. And that is a very important factor. When we looked at our progress, we looked at the data and the impact on social media. This way we were able to evaluate how successful we had been and we made new decisions accordingly, discussed the matter together, and updated our plan by identifying the right tactics and communication efforts made a very important contribution throughout 2020, saving the lives of 30 thousand people. We have saved the lives of people who reacted to our communications, stayed at home or followed the medical advice we offered through our campaigns, and this is Over 100 years, of course, we have had successes, we have had failures, and we have learned lessons from them. However, we have seen that this institution is very important for the public good. 45 S T R A T C O M T A L K how I talked about the importance of strategic communication by saying that our strategic goals were to protect lives and living. Now I want to talk about some definitions. For example, we conducted our strategic communication campaign at the international level as Great Britain and Northern Ireland. What we call a strategy is actually a plan to achieve a goal. We tell you what we need to do to achieve a specific goal, and this is crucial to success. Our chief of staff, who is now retired, actually said that the strategy is very simple when we look at it, because there is actually a target and we go for it. The tactics or marketing elements to be used are determined. Of course, resources are also very important. How many people are there, how much is our budget, these are also extremely important. Strategies fail not because the goals are wrong, but because people don’t know how to implement the strategy, and resources are extremely important. When we look at the definition of strategic communication, we interpret it in the UK as follows; We are talking about understanding our audiences and implementing a 46 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 2 plan under one theme in a coordinated manner for their well-being and for the good of our institutions. So it is extremely important to understand the masses. For example, I can understand the masses in the UK, but I might not understand the masses in Türkiye. It is extremely important that messages are presented in a coordinated manner within the framework of a plan. I have seen this in many countries, from the Western Balkans to Sri Lanka, America and Asia, where I had the chance to speak and teach. Lack of unity, lack of planning and goals that have not been clearly defined are often the factors that lead to failure in strategic communication. You can view our strategic communication guide on our website. You can also find information on various ideas, insights and implementation and evaluation phases. Now I want to talk about how we conduct strategic communication on behalf of our government. You can see our government communications plan on our website. It is titled Build Back Better. Because that is our goal. We have run nearly 100 campaigns to improve the services people 47 S T R A T C O M T A L K Strategic communication focuses on developing all our colleagues within the scope of a development curriculum we have as an application. receive in public health, and we also have plans to work internationally with our allies in the US, NATO and OECD. In addition to this very remarkable subject, it is also very important for the people who will communicate to know what is wanted. Of course, at the center of this is our operation model, which we call OASIS as an abbreviation of target audience, strategy and score. How do we do our job? We say: all our communications should be strategic, they should all have a clear goal, they should all have an audience and we should have a strategy, i. e. we have an action plan and then we move on to implementation and then to the scoring and evaluation part. This is important because after the financial crisis in 2011, nearly 3,000 civil servants working in communications lost their jobs. The reason for this was: The new government had to pursue various austerity policies after an economic crisis and could not calculate the benefit of communication. They did not think it made a sufficient contribution. Therefore, a reduction was made in this area. Now, as a government communicator, I think it’s also very important to do our research correctly and at the same time, this is a professional field, so we have an operation model as you can see. We have various guides for its application. I can say that all of our communication is based on the OASIS campaign model that I mentioned earlier. Strategic communication requires it. At the same time, we focus on ethical practices, we try to put forward a correct approach towards our ministers to whom we are accountable as well as our people. Strategic communication focuses on the development of all our colleagues within the scope of a development curriculum we have as an application. For example, this year we had training activities in areas such as data science, contract management, leadership behavior, evaluation. Again, we heard about the importance of the development of platforms from Prof. Altun. In other words, the number of platforms is increasing day by day and we cannot be successful if our communicators are not aware of this. Also, turning to the international side, I would like to say that Türkiye and the Turkish government are truly an indispensable ally for the UK. Whether it is the fight against climate change, generating employment, or a trade agreement, Türkiye’s role and Türkiye’s presence in all these areas between our countries is of great importance for the United Kingdom. The campaign we present on behalf of our government is called the UK campaign and 10 years ago we decided to establish a strategic communication in our international trade and tourism activities. We organized a tourism campaign to attract tourism and tourists to the UK, to increase our exports and at the same time to increase 48 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 2 the number of students coming to our country. All government agencies had to work for this campaign. Before the pandemic, we used to organize nearly 100 events all over the world, and it was a worldwide campaign. We have spent 400 million pounds on the campaign since 2012, and we calculated the return on this as an increase in exports, tourism and the number of students. Thus, we had an increase of 4 billion pounds in return. In other words, we received 10 times the return on our investment. We are making progress with contributions both in the state and private sector in overseas countries, and we are trying to promote our country in a holistic way. Now, I would like to thank you once again for allowing me the opportunity to speak at this conference, and when we look at the future of communication, as we have heard from Prof. Altun and the Vice President of Azerbaijan, Mr. Haciyev, I think the following points are very important; communication is now digital, all communication is designed to influence people by what they see on their mobile devices. Communication now reaches the audience directly. We reach an audience of 30 million, 5 million of which is direct. Of course, this is also very important, sometimes we are wrong in communication. Even though I seem to be communicating with you right now, I am actually broadcasting to you, what we call communication is data-based, it is reciprocal. We established a platform during the COVID period, we received approximately 800 thousand questions through this platform and we tried to design our press conferences based on it. Something like this gives you very good data because you get to know what people are worried about. That is why I think it is extremely important to support data-based communication. On the other hand, it is very important to focus on diversity and fight disinformation. It is extremely important to communicate in a way that covers all segments of society. This is what I mean when I say diversity and inclusion. Work is carried out in all departments of our government against disinformation. We work in this area every week. In other words, communication that is directly based on data, includes the diversity of our society and includes the fight against disinformation is important in strategic communication. I hope this sharing has been useful. I would love to see my Turkish counterparts in England after the pandemic process is over. I would also love to visit you in Istanbul and Ankara. Finally, I would like to say: communication is now unlimited, everything is digital, communication does not stay within borders. We can hear everything at the same time in Ankara, Istanbul and London. This is the challenge we face, and in this way we can actually serve humanity as an agent of progress. Even though I seem to be communicating with you right now, I am broadcasting to you; what we call communication is data-based; it is reciprocal. 49 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 3 Life Begins When We Connect 50 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 3 • Adil Karaismailoğlu Minister of Transport and Infrastructure - Türkiye Life Begins When We Connect 11 December 2021 T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 51 S T R A T C O M T A L K 03 The transformation started in Istanbul 94, in 2002, it covered the entire country. I’ll talk about what we have done in this transformation process. Adil Karaismailoğlu Distinguished guests and participants, I’d like to salute you all and extend my deepest regards. Welcome. Well, we are in Haliç Congress Center today, but some of us remember, that this was a slaughterhouse 26 years ago. This is where a slaughterhouse was operated, and it was a muddy and silty area that everyone avoided because of the smell. No one wanted to pass through here. And it was derelict on the settlements here. Now it’s a nice area with social amenities like Haliç Congress Center. When these were built between 94 and 99, the President was the city’s mayor and is still ongoing. The transformation started in Istanbul 94, in 2002, it covered the entire country. So, I’ll talk about the transformation process taking the wind and what we have done in this transformation process. 52 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 3 Well, in 2002. By 2002, we have had an inadequate infrastructure. This infrastructure and communication infrastructure needed to be improved as soon as possible. We didn’t have much money, but we had to deliver services at maximum levels with the money we had. So, we had to come up with a transportation master plan. Because your lack of means should be planned very well to also consider anticipate problems that may arise in the future. We did a long-term master plan of various master plans using predictive models up to 2017. And we needed to update those plans as of 2002. In 1995, as the President was the Mayor of the city, I had just graduated from university, I was working in the transportation department of the metropolitan city. Well, I’m coming from this background of planning. We had a vast team to plan the transport and infrastructure. By this big opening breakthrough in 2002, the master plan was put into practice, and it was, well, quite the right way to go, which we are witnessing today. I will talk about the master plan now. First, you have to view the current situation and do a gap analysis. Taking into account the present means that you have, the inventory you possess, and then talk about room for improvement and then consider development plans other plans before you come up with your master plan of investments. And when you’re enlisting your master plan investments items, the geographical position of Türkiye needs to be taken into account. Then, finally, you have to integrate yourself with the world. So, we are close to 1. 6 billion people. We’re in the middle of Eurasia at a far distance from many places and a market that is 7 billion worth. So, we had to make infrastructure investments to access those. This is the world trade volume: in 2020, it will be 12 billion tons. But all authorities should say that by 2030, it will reach 25 billion tons, and we have to be ready for these trade volumes and trade corridors. And as a result of this long-term planning, we have to integrate ourselves with the world and very soon, to improve the transportation infrastructure, which has been relatively weak so far. So, we planned all this, we embarked on a journey, but nothing expected the pandemic to come in 2020, beginning of 2020. And the entire world closed its doors and shut down its systems and factories. But what did Türkiye do? Well, we had lots of stuff to do. We took our measures, we coordinated efforts with the Ministry of Health, our construction sites were isolated, and we did the opposite. We accelerated work in.We worked 50% more versus 2019. We made 50% more infrastructure investments in 2020. The pandemic came in 2020, and the entire world closed its doors shut down its systems and factories. What did Türkiye do? We took our measures and worked 50% more versus 2019; we made 50% more infrastructure investments in 2020. 53 S T R A T C O M T A L K The COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing, as you know. As you can see from the graph, summer 2020. We guess it will. We will go back to summer 2019. Everything is based on this scenario. You know the scenario without COVID, with COVID the best and the worst scenarios that we plan for everything regarding infrastructure investments. In our transport inventory, in transport statistics, we have reached 75% versus in 2019. We expect to achieve 100% in the summer of 2021 and 2022. Well, and then elaborate and further those more. So, due to COVID 19 pandemic, the income distribution and the supply chain.Well, there was a reduction decrease, and that’s why people had to invest accordingly. And this is what we’ve done. Our citizens, manufacturers, industrialists were supported with employment openings to overcome this process. 54 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 3 This is 2019. So as the Ministry of Infrastructure, we increased our investments by 50% to 83 billion. So, in 2019, it was 60 billion. This is unique to Türkiye, and all together with 700,000 employees, we devoted ourselves to contributing to the future of our country, as you can see. We started with this breakthrough opening in 2002, last 19, as the Ministry of Transport & Infrastructure invested 1 trillion and 136 billion. We have 4000 construction sites currently. And once all of this project is finished, it will go up to 1 trillion 600 billion TLs. So, our work is going on. In the last 19 years, we have made investments in these sectors; this is the distribution of assets. 55 S T R A T C O M T A L K Our road transport was not safe and sufficient, and we had to develop it very quickly. So, we focused on road transport, and 65% of the budget was spent on road transport improvement. We’ve reached a critical level now; we will invest more in the railway. There are investments in road transport and railway at the breakeven point, and railway investments will surpass road transport. Of course, we will continue to provide transportation and road transportation, but at a higher level. The level will. The share will be reduced. 48% we invest in road and 48% we invest in railway, but railway will go up to 65%, and road transport will go down to 30% in terms of overall share, in overall investments. Well, what did we do in the various sectors and industries? Well, 12,800 is the length of the railway, and more than 1000 is operating, and as for rapid rail, high- speed railway. In recent years they were not. We did not invest in the existing lines; they were not maintained. In the last 19 years, we have modernized the current railway lines. And we focused on high-speed rail, which is highly comfortable as a mode. You see the ongoing lines. We work on 4400 kilometers of railway tracks, and you see the projects of lines that were completed. The green ones are the ongoing projects, railway projects. So more than 20,000 kilometers will be the final destination. As we invest in those, we are trying to integrate Türkiye with the world. We talked about the middle corridor from the Far East to Far Europe. Beijing and London are being connected thanks to our track construction efforts. Baku-Tbilisi-Kars line, it was completed, Marmaray was completed. Export trains can go to China, as far into China and the transit, the central corridor is operational as a transit coordinate. We will have the Nahcivan Zengezur corridor with Azerbaijan, and Kars-Ardahan will be connected with our friendly countries’ lines. So, this is another transit connection that will be made possible. So, the world is growing, expanding, and developing, but Türkiye is increasing faster. From China to Europe, we have 710 billion US dollars of trade volume, and to improve our share in this trade volume, we continue working hard and expanding our infrastructure network. We talked to various sectors, especially in Northern Corridor. The traffic movement, logistics movement in the Northern Corridor. We want to draw it to the central corridor to a certain extent. There are three essential corridors from east to west: the Northern Corridor, due to its geographic and climatic conditions, is a challenging corridor. It’s pretty long at the same time. The travel time is 25 days in favorable conditions, but the central corridor that crosses our country can be crossed in 12 days. And this is the 56 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 3 most economic corridor that is based on investment forecast results. Therefore, there are possibilities to export more, they will increase and the exports goods will be sent to Moscow and China on the one hand, and to the Turkic Republics and to various countries across the world through railway. The historical Silk Road is being activated with all this investment. We talk about railways and road transport which are indispensable, but 90% of world trade 57 S T R A T C O M T A L K happens to be by maritime shipments. And northern mid corridor and southern corridor use through China, which accesses the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. These are also important corridors. 12 billion tons is the world trade volume. It will go up to 25 billion. So, we prepare ourselves for the situation. We are working hard like other countries do. The developments in Far east Asia, the growth in population and the production in Africa, the climate change in northern parts of the world and the issues between Russia and Europe are being monitored closely by Türkiye. So we are preparing ourselves for any future scenarios. The Suez Canal is crucial. It shortens the trade corridors of the world, and Egypt has an income of 5.6 billion US dollars. 28,000 ships pass the Suez Canal, which is preferred by the world. It’s on the maritime route of the southern corridor. The world trade volume is expanding, and the other countries are preparing themselves because all countries surrounding the Black Sea are investing in their harbors and ports. And you see the port investments, the harbor investments of the neighboring countries. That Filyos, Samsun, Trabzon harbors, and other small ports in the Black Sea has been expanded. Because, as I said before, 25 billion is the maritime trade volumeand we want to access to that point in order to take part in it. So, the world trade volumes have been growing and will be doubled in the coming decades. And we talked about the Suez Canal. The Singapore harbor, 26 billion years/tons, and the Rotterdam port. They are very far away in Europe and Asia. But, the Suez Canal is irreplaceable. It’s a transit corridor for many countries and we are talking about 28,000 ships and 5.6 billion income generated in Egypt. Of course, it is about population growth. It indicates that one day everyone will come to the Bosphorus. Annually 40,000 vessels cross the Bosphorus, but they have to take diligent measures due to the fact that it may not very safe otherwise. And we are making sure this to be implemented without problems logistically, but if you see the Bakırköy, Zeytinburnu, Samatya lines, there are hundreds of ships. They have to wait for hours and days to cross the Bosphorus. So, this crossing happens within 24 to 36 hours. Because the trade volume will increase, they may pass in weeks instead of days. Hundreds of thousands of ships will be waiting to cross the Marmara Sea and their existing presence in the Marmara Sea. Well, they consume oxygen, cause the warming of seawater, and impact the environment, which needs to be discussed. Istanbul Bosphorus is one of the riskiest routes. Accidents and fires broke out and caused fatalities. Hopefully, it will never happen again. But 43,000 ships across the 58 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 3 Istanbul strait having public transport ships ferries that cross. 500,000 commuters use vessels, which coincides with international ship traffic, which increases the potential of accidents. You will see that safety security measures were increased. Four to five navigation channel barges will be used to navigate the ships to the straits—the guide ships. And the number of vessels that can pass safely per year is 25,000. But we are pushing the envelope to decrease waiting times in the Marmara Sea. We take extraordinary measures to allow for 40,000 vessels to cross the strait. Today it’s 40,000, but all research and authority-delivered data show us that the world trade, which will go up to 25 trillion tons, should be 78,000 in 2050 and then to 86,000. And allowing that many ships to cross the Istanbul strait is very difficult. So, we should relieve the burden, the workload 59 S T R A T C O M T A L K of Istanbul straits. We looked into an alternative watercourse to provide for transit and transport. On the screen, you see the ships. Their waiting for 36 hours is 100,000 dollars. These are ships of various categories and the length categories shown. This made an alternative watercourse project requirement which is compulsory. So, it will also be extensively used when it will be created. The Istanbul Airport is the world transit center; we have the northern Marmara motorway and Marmaray. We have the mid corridor connections in place and manufacturing technology. And Yavuz Sultan Selim bridge in the north, the railway will cross this bridge. And Kanal Istanbul will generate its ecosystem. We design the projects on the Istanbul canal. We have started working on the transport routes that were designed and the bridges. There will be six road transport bridges; we have a railway, an extension of Marmaray which completes the central corridor from Halkalı to Isparta Kule. And underneath the canal, there will be a tunnel. This map is very significant. You see Kanal Istanbul once it is finished on a scaled drawing. So, it will be connected to Istanbul Airport, one of the transport hubs of the world which in the latest competition, it was chosen as the most efficient, the second most efficient and most beautiful airport. It was the first one in the COVID process. Together with Istanbul Airport, Turkish Airlines are necessary to transport providers globally. I talked about Istanbul Airport. Do not forget this map; I will show you a picture now. This is one of the most valued parts of Istanbul. 6-7 years ago, this place was quarried. Full of quarries coal mines, and the economic value was zero, close to zero. And the state came up with a legitimate project. It’s part of a long-term master plan. This area with an economic value of zero was attracted 10 billion Euros. International financial organizations came. There was an open tendering process, and the company which was awarded that contract is a consortium that will invest 10 billion Euros in four years. What happened as a result? This happened. The government did not spend any money from its budget; it’s 10 billion Euros worth. The operating time is 25 years; they will pay 22 billion Euros to the state. So, they invest 10 billion, and they will pay back 22 billion Euros to the state. This was an area with zero economic value. More than 200,000 people were employed in this project. It has been a very feasible investment. Since 2009 it has been opening, the guaranteed number of fares has been obtained. This is based on a long-term master plan. The operating time is 25 years. Well, once it is completed, it will belong to the state. It will serve this country for centuries. 60 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 3 So, we have had many such projects. I will touch upon several of those, which are also on the international agenda. Kanal Istanbul connects to the Istanbul Airport, Kuzey Marmara motorway, Marmaray, and all the transport networks in Istanbul. It will be on the agenda of Türkiye a lot and national agenda as well. It’s a long-term project; we planned everything. It will be discussed; there are many debated subjects. This is another critical project. So, we have this public-private partnership BOT (build, operate, transfer) arm, and on the other hand, we use our budget to serve citizens, in Anatolia. Because, as I said, we have a certain amount of funding, but in a short period, we had to complete the missing infrastructure via BOT projects PPP projects to generate additional funds other than the general budget. This was required, that’s why we could develop very quickly. This is the Artvin airport which will be opened in the coming months. It will be one of the most important airports. The sea was filled with concrete for it. Three million cubic meters were filled out. One hundred million tons of filling material was used. Once the foundation is finished, before summer arrives, before the summer season starts, it will be open for service, and it will be an essential infrastructure of the world literature. At the latest May, we’ll begin to serve our country. The projects do not end here. People have threatened bureaucrats and investors because of these projects. Last week, we had a procurement process a tendering process. This is all part of a long-term plan. This is Antalya airport. The capacity is fully utilized now. We had to invest 760 million Euros because the existing inbound and outbound flights terminals were not enough. And the aprons and the towers were not enough as well. That’s not enough. It’s not enough. So, we’ve planned everything. There’s one operator who needs to operate; I have to invest in it by 2025. And after 2025, I will have the income sharing, revenue sharing, tendering process, and the investment share to be provided by the state that was offered to the contractor. And what happened? Again, we will not spend any money from the state budget. External funding will come, 760 million Euros worth and 8.5 billion Euros will be paid back to the state in the operational period. And 25%, 2.138 billion will be paid in advance to the state. Türkiye’s attraction to the world has been increasing. This shows how much people are attracted to Türkiye rapidly Türkiye, and this is the most recent evidence. This is the result of the last week’s tendering process. Turkish, Russian, German, French companies entered, and it was a transparent procurement process. Nineteen rounds of auctions were conducted. The highest revenue generated for the state won. 61 S T R A T C O M T A L K The German, French, and Turkish consortiums won the contract. And in the next 90 days, 2 billion 138 million Euros will be paid to the state, and for 25 years, 8.5 billion Euros will enter the treasury of the Turkish state. 2002, the road transport network was inadequate, and we had to improve it. That’s why we introduced financial models like the PPP model and expanded the government’s investment budget. But it was very well planned due to maximize the benefits, we had to have a long-term master plan, and last 19 years, we’ve done that master plan which has been updated regularly. So, it was elevated to 28,000.in average speed of which. So, the speed, which was 40, goes up to 62 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 3 88 kilometers, and it is very safe, very comfortable, the entire journey that will take place on this road. And the traffic monster signage was removed. This is the Kömürhan bridge. This is part of the vision of the last 19 years. This is the Tohma bridge in Malatya province. The previous one was between Malatya and Elazığ. Hasankeyf is between Batman and Midyat. So, the Ilısu dam crossed the Ilısu dam. Last week we opened the Hayrabolu, Tekirdağ road. Ankara-Yenikent- Temelli motorway was open. This is Akdeniz, the Mediterranean coast road. This is Reşadiye in the Black Sea region. Aktaş border crossing.So, this is an important project. Terrorist organizations burned construction sites. This is Hizan of Bitlis and Pervari, crossing this area Beğendik, Botan bridge. The old bridges you can see at the bottom show the difference. It is the third-highest bridge with 165 meters. These roads were surrounding the mountains, which took people several 63 S T R A T C O M T A L K hours. Now it’s just one minute long with this transit corridor. Regardless of east and west, we’re trying to do our best for the citizens of the Turkish nation in the last 19 years, and we’re going to do that. This is Kars, Horasan bridge. Another bridge, Hogan-Pervari, is the connection road to the bridge I showed you before. This is Bursa, Uludağ road. We made a comparison. You see the third bridge, Yavuz Sultan Selim bridge, and Kömürhan bridge. While we have PPP, foreign funds generated, then we had have that. For the Kömürhan bridge, we used the money from the general budget because it was feasible to do that. Maybe if I hadn’t used the other model, I would have done just the third bridge or the Kömürhan bridge and not the third bridge because of the existing budget. So, the public-private partnership is essential whereever it is feasable. This is a fundamental model that we’re implementing from now on. We will use this PPP model very often. I can talk about Boludağ tunnel legend. In 2002, as AK party came to power, the project was initiated ten years prior. But then there was a delay of 10 years. And this 10-year delay caused economic harm; 400 million dollars harm was pushed to the Turkish economy because there was a decade delay. And 100 million vehicles cars could not use the safe shortcut. They had to use the way crossing the entire Bolu Mountain, and they spent more fuel, polluted the environment more, and the overall harm to the economy was 400 million dollars. The BOT projects, I mean, are essential. They were used in the third bridge and Istanbul Airport. They have been completed in three years, in a short period, and it has been made functional, and I will talk about the economic gains later on. Marmara is where the industry is concentrated, and the mobility is at maximum level there, and because it was feasible, we did many PPP projects in the Marmara region. The Marmara Motorway ring will be completed. The Marmara Sea will be decorated with a ring road. So, Marmaray is the Eurasia tunnel. It was a dream once that connecting the European side with the Asian side and it is 100 meters below sea level, from Kazlıçeşme to Göztepe it covers 15 kilometers over the corridor. So, it’s an alternative strait crossing. 62,000 cars are using it per day. What would have happened if it weren’t for this tunnel? 62,000 vehicles were diverted to this route. Otherwise, they would have used the first and the second bridge, and the travel times would be very long. So, 1.2 billion US dollars were invested. Not from the public budget, 400 million TL was guaranteed by the state. If the government had done it alone, 1.2 billion TL would have been spent from the public budget, and only for the operation, 500 64 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 3 million TL was needed every year. And the hundreds of people are working there and illumination costs, maintenance costs mean 500 million. And we only spent our core payment that 400 million TL. We got rid of all the operation costs, and external resource funds paid 1.3 billion TL. And the operation time is fixed once it will be transferred to the state when the operation time is completed. You spent less fuel and time on the road. Eight billion TL contributes to the Turkish economy of the Eurasian tunnel. You see Northern Marmara Motorway here. For the last 6-7 years, one of the invaluable projects. From Kınalı to Akyazı, it covers 400 kilometers, including the third bridge. Istanbul, Kocaeli, Adapazarı are being bypassed. 65 S T R A T C O M T A L K This is Northern Marmara Motorway and the annual project benefits. You spent less time in traffic, and the equivalent amount is 3 million TL. Fuel-saving: 518 million TL saved in fuel. And CO2 emissions are being reduced, equal to 16,000 trees CO2 reduction. And it is the total annual saving. So, we don’t spend money from the state budget, but you have the benefit of 3. 5 billion TL, which is a direct benefit. This is an additional benefit in terms of its contribution to the economy, tourism, and employment. 20 years ago, we had two bridges crossing the straits. So, the traffic was red, as you can see. But now. You had to think further ahead than the government 20 years ago. We had to come up with problems based on our master plan. The Republic of Türkiye planned that 19 years ago. The planning process started at the municipality. And you saw the red roads in 2002. The traffic congestion was alleviated in 2020. Eurasia tunnel was opened. Yavuz Sultan Selim, the third bridge, is open now. The traffic has turned to be. But what would happen if it weren’t for this new project? You would have the black picture to the right, no longer operating the bridges and using the bridges. Good planning good investment is acquired. We have to think about the troubles, the problems of Istanbul. We have a high level of mobility; we have many vehicles, people need a comfortable life. So, we have to produce and think about investments for Istanbul at all times. For the underground lines they’re also being invested in. We accelerated several projects. Hopefully, I wish the others would accelerate their assignments to solve the traffic problems of Türkiye and open some congested areas. And if the metro lines, underground lines, are not finished soon, we may have problems. We’re seeing the signal of these problems today. Hopefully, the current Mayor’s Office will accelerate the project soon. This is not a monument, but it’s a work of art. And so, now we are there. You can use it. You invest and spend a lot of time in these projects, think about those projects for people. They are criticizing them a lot. And this criticism will be forgotten, and future generations will know their values. Because the newcomers, the new generation won’t have a public infrastructure problem. They will deal with innovation, industry, and more technology because they will already have a robust infrastructure that they don’t have to think about. This is Istanbul-Bursa-Izmir motorway covers 426 kilometers. It shortened the existing route by 100 kilometers. The travel time was 8. 5 hours, now it’s 2. 5 hours. This 8.5 hours of travel time would have gone as high as 8-10 hours without this motorway. You invest and spend a lot of time in these projects, think about those projects, but people. They are criticizing them a lot. And this criticism will be forgotten, and future generations will know their values. 66 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 3 We have 3. 5 hours travel time and no more extended traffic congestion. Part of the trip was diverted here. The old road is also being used but here you see the number of vehicles. 40,000 that have been guaranteed. And people say using this new road, and the attraction of the old road is being lost, but we have the same amount of traffic on the old road. So, they’re both used. With this motorway, 3 billion of economic benefit was generated. We save time fuel, and we pollute the environment less. With the building of this motorway, it needs to be operated, of coursewe have done that. And the economic benefits and impact of the highway are being studied. And we have to plan this as well ahead of time. With the construction of this motorway between Istanbul and Izmir, we have had 306 more tourist facilities. The agricultural production growth, animal husbandry, cattle breeding, and agriculture activities developed with this motorway. You see its contribution to export: annual export grew by 113 billion TL thanks to this road. And there were eight new organized industrial areas created in the area, and it enabled the employment of 54,000 people through these infrastructure works. And one of the most important works we have ahead of us is the 1915 Çanakkale bridge. The whole world is watching this project. We’re only days away from the opening. There’s a 100-kilometer motorway between Çanakkale and Malkara, and it has a 318-meter pier, and it is the most comprehensive and highest bridge, and it’s going to be written in world history. And between the two ends of the strait, only a ferry can be used for travel. But if the weather is fine, it’s okay. However, there will be traffic on the way. You’ll be waiting in line until you go on the ferry. But if it’s a foggy day, you don’t have an alternative, and the ferry won’t be functioning. And with this bridge there, it will only take 6 minutes to go from one point to the other. We have equipped our country with such technological projects. And you can see the benefits of the Çanakkale bridge up here and the economic benefits as well. And again, lovely images from our bridge. So, of course, we have so many projects in place, in infrastructure, and you gain from emissions and fuel decrease. And of course, agricultural production, tourism, and education are indirectly benefiting from these infrastructure investments, but most importantly, through these investments across Türkiye. Despite the 170% increase in vehicle mobility, there was a decrease in mortalities caused by accidents. You may remember that we had some public ads on TVs And one of the most important works we have ahead of us is the 1915 Çanakkale bridge. The whole world is watching this project. We’re only days away from the opening. 67 S T R A T C O M T A L K about this. We had the traffic monster image. And with these investments, there was an 82% decrease in mortalities caused by traffic accidents. So, we enabled our citizens to have luxurious travels, and we saved their lives simultaneously. And of course, 80% of our budget comes from the general funding from the treasury. The remainder comes from additional financing resources, and we are doing that with PPPs in a build-operate-transfer model. And here, you can see the duration of our BOT projects. And this is a chart that shows the story. With PPPs and BOTs, we have around three. We had a project stock of 37. 5 billion Dollars, and we completed that. There was no spending from the state budget, and there were almost 38 Billion dollars of investment made. These projects will serve the country for centuries. But, of course, the COVID 19 pandemic wasn’t considered while we were making these plans. So when we add that on top of this, of course, in 2021, the journeys decreased a lot. And currently, we are seeing a trend that shows an increase recently, and we are expecting to reach the 2019 figures as of summer. Now, up to 2024 with our PPPs. We will be supporting our PPPs, and the vehicles that were guaranteed for several years may not be able to be met. Our feasibility works are showing that to us. But in the long term, we will be making extra income by surpassing the number of vehicles that were promised. And basically, we are receiving payment through airways and maritime ways all the time, and we need to support motorways to a certain extent. But after 2024, they will be balancing themselves, and we will be able to witness that the motorway projects will meet their requirements and create income. By 2040, there will be 18 billion dollars of revenue produced for the state as a result of these public-private partnerships. The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, we are the most prominent investors in Türkiye, and without receiving any support from the state budget, we will be able to generate our income and create our financing for the investments all across Türkiye. The Yavuz Sultan Selim bridge operation of duration will be completed by 2027, and they will be handing it over to the state. So, the condition can then make this free of charge, but there are a lot of operational costs here. After 2027, they can also create a revenue-generating project. But, of course, it depends on the government of the time. But, once the operators’ duration ends, this project will turn into a revenue-generating project for the state, and the feasibility works I showed you also tell us that these will be revenue-generating projects. They will be serving our country for centuries. And, of course, communication is essential as well. We have motorways, airways, 68 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 3 railways, maritime ways, and communication, which are all part of our area. And in communication, we have some crucial investments that we have made. For example, the Çamlıca Tower is a significant investment that we had. We had a lot of antennas there that was causing a lot of radiation. So we removed all of them and created the Çamlıca Tower, which matches the silhouette of Istanbul, and 100 radios can broadcast simultaneously. It has an observatory terrace, and it provides services to city-dwellers seven days a week. And in the area of satellites, we have a lot of activities. We’re actually on the verge of critical development. Our Turksat 5B satellites will be sent with the Falcon rocket, and the Turksat 5B will be our eighth satellite representing our country in outer space. 69 S T R A T C O M T A L K And as you know, we had previous satellites in place, and currently, our scope will be much more prominent in our area. And 5A will provide a lot of contributions in terms of communication. So you can see the range of 5A, and here you know that it will be turning into a revenue-generating model, and we are also protecting our orbits in space. And we will be the 10th country that will create its own and manufacture its satellite with the Turksat 6A in the future. So, I try to summarize our investments. We see our assets distributed by sector motorways, railways, airways, maritime, and communication. On highways, we had 105 billion Dollars. And again, airways were significant for us. We had 26 airports before 2002, and traveling by plane was beyond dreams. But now, the airways have become the way for the citizens. And we are going to increase our number of airports further. Twenty million journeys went up to 200 million trips. And of course, there are economic benefits of these projects that are very important. We look at the feasibility, and then we look at the results. Because these all create a foundation for the investments we will make in the future. So, we have a lot of learnings that we generate from these, and we plan accordingly. And when we look at the impact of all of our investments yearly, there are 1 million employments created, and we contributed to manufacturing with 169 million dollars, and we also added to GDP. So we contributed to GDP as well. Of course, we did all of this, and when we look at it by sector, you can see the distribution here. And for motorways, we had an investment of 105 billion dollars over 19 years. Still, we also had a contribution created of 6. 6 billion dollars, and in airports, we are contributing to the economy with 2. 6 billion dollars; in railways, it’s 0.7 billion dollars. In total, we contributed to the national economy with 13. 4 billion dollars due to these infrastructure investments. And then there’s also the annual environmental benefit. And through these projects, we saved 975 million tons of CO2 emissions. So, we had a reduction of 975 million tons, equal to 780,000 trees. So, we created a benefit equivalent to planting this amount of trees. I tried to explain the transformation Türkiye went through in 2002. I hope I didn’t bore you, but as you know, our motto is “Life begins when we connect,” and we are everywhere, where transport and connections are. Because we are increasing the quality of life of our citizens, the easier you can reach somewhere, the easier a country develops. When you look at transportation and infrastructure investments, they create added value for tourism and employment. It’s like the course of water; once you get the I tried to explain the transformation Türkiye went through in 2002. Our motto is “Life begins when we connect,” and we are everywhere, where transport and connections are. 70 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 3 investment, you see improvement in other areas. And of course, we will continue down this path; we will continue producing and thinking about technology. We will continue to be a company that develops technology and exports technology, and we are trying to become one of the top 10 countries. We are also trying to do our best as a ministry in this area. Thank you all very much. Stratcom Talk | 4 Defining Excellence In Strategic Communication 72 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 4 • Jānis Sārts Director at Nato Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence - Latvia Defining Excellence In Strategic Communication 11 December 2021 T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 73 S T R A T C O M T A L K 04 The digital environment offers us different kinds of information, and this increases the importance of the role of information in our daily. Jānis Sārts Congratulations on holding the first strategic communications summit. Knowledge information has been essential for people and human societies because we perceive the world with information. We define the good and the bad with them and reveal our feelings and relationships about our place in the world with knowledge. But today, as the President said a little while ago, the information field is changing, undergoing changes. There is an ongoing information consumption revolution. The digital environment offers us different kinds of information, and this increases the importance of the role of information in our daily life. Let’s think about it, how much time do the people around us spend on a smartphone while searching for information? This is a good example of how the field of knowledge has changed. Of course, there is a war of ideas in the information field. Information is used as a hybrid warfare tool. We know that this is the case in the eastern 74 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 4 borders of Europe. There is currently a war in the field of information on the borders of Eastern Europe. So, what needs to be done to be successful in strategic communication, and what are the most important building blocks of strategic communication? First, I think it is important to develop a strategic communication mindset. When I say strategic communication mindset, what I mean is that it is necessary to understand the process of how information and knowledge are channeled and transmitted to the human brain. One of the key elements here is: It is necessary to move away from the idea that what a person says, writes, or reads is information. From a research perspective, the key information elements are actions and experiences. People with a strategic communication mindset have to understand how actions, movements, and experiences reach people because that is how they grasp reality. Of course, this communication is supported by speeches, written information, and images. This, too, needs to be understood. The second building block is necessary to develop an understanding of the information field. For example, if a general goes to war without knowing the region and the terrestrial conditions, he cannot be successful. Therefore, strategic communication is impossible without understanding the information environment and domain. Nowadays, of course, this is a concept that goes beyond understanding what traditional media is writing. Now we need to understand what is going on in the digital world. It is not just about getting the feel of social media here; how do people get organized, how do they see information in different echo chambers or information bubbles in different channels online? Peer-to-peer messaging applications and video channels such as YouTube are used. It is also necessary to understand social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tiktok. Another important thing is other actors. Some malicious actors infiltrate the state, and their actions need to be understood. You can successfully convey your message correctly only after you understand this picture. The third building block is understanding the target audience. We can simply express this. We may think we know the target audience, but when we look at how strategic communication is delivered, we see that we do not have in-depth knowledge of who the target audience is in many cases. Everyone carries out opinion polls, but opinion polls are like the weather. A weather report can tell whether it will rain or be sunny, but it doesn’t tell me why it’s always sunny in summer or why it always snows in winter like in the region I come from. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the target audience more deeply; How do people perceive certain things, why do We need to understand what is going on in the digital world. It is not just about getting the feel of social media; how do people get organized and see information in different echo chambers or information bubbles in other channels online? 75 S T R A T C O M T A L K they perceive them, or why are they so interested in a certain subject? Another building block is measurement. That is, measuring the impact of the message. Many people can claim that their messages get a lot of clicks and therefore claim efficiency, but this can be far from the truth. You might have reached an audience, but whether the message you wanted to reach the way you wanted remains a question mark. Usually, we might not have an answer to this. Therefore, we must have concrete mechanisms that enable us to measure the impact of our message. We need to measure whether we have been successful and whether our strategic communication campaigns have brought about a change in behavior like we wanted. This should not be measured just by counting clicks. Another issue that I would like to raise is this; efforts should be combined. One of the key elements in the messages spread by many states is a simple and understandable style. Is it a single discourse, or is there more than one discourse? For example, this is a general rule in strategic communication, but it is challenging to achieve it. Because there are so many voices in the state, government, and nation, the state also has many voices, different institutions, and opinions; the views of these institutions can change. These different organizations might have different agendas, but you need to focus on the key messages if you want to establish a successful strategic communication campaign. There should be a uniformity and unity. Under this process, there should be a state-based and state-wide structure that supports this process. It is necessary to convey consistent messages, unity messages, and discourses this way. This is easy to say but hard to do, but in the west, we say; the state should also invest in its capabilities and processes to work in the same direction and speak the same language. Another issue that we have difficulties with in this information environment is as follows; Everyone has become a communicator now. In the military, we call this a strategic person, so this person might not be the main contact but can tweet. This can have a negative impact on your strategic development message. Therefore, such methods should be determined that these people under the chain of command, that is, people in the state hierarchy, have to align what they say with you. We see that an individual carries out communication in this chain of command and hierarchy in the modern information setup in the world. That is normal. Now people communicate in different ways. An approach that requires those who give these messages to act in accordance with the framework of strategic discourse and give the right messages should be practiced, even if they are communicating with very small circles such as their peers and friends. In other words, this uniformity must be preserved throughout the entire structure, and unity must be preserved. After all, the information revolution has not ended; it is ongoing. 76 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 4 Our information consumption habits are now determined by our smartphones, and the way smartphones work is important. This will change over the coming years. We believe that in 5-7 years, information and the information exchange setup will be more affected by new devices. The importance of augmented reality, virtual reality will increase in the processing and consumption of information. In other words, strategic communication institutions must keep up with this technological change. If you want to succeed in the information medium, you must have a good team and a tremendous technological skillset; otherwise, you will not be successful. You should have augmented reality experts in your team as well as big data experts. Communication should be data-based. You should have artificial intelligence experts in your team. These are the sine qua non of contemporary and future strategic communication campaigns. These are technologies that have revolutionized the field of communication. We are getting opportunities that we never had before. Therefore, we must be able to use these new technologies to support our values and our information space. We should also use them to deliver our messages. We cannot talk about success in communication in the coming years if this is not the case. Having directory experts, artificial intelligence experts, prominent data experts, and people who are experts in the latest information technologies in our teams is a must. To summarize, the importance of strategic communication will increase gradually. This is a crucial area of struggle between ideas, nations, and actors. Crises are inevitable. Disinformation will be encountered, and one of the most critical elements during crises will be this information struggle. What we are discussing is no longer a question of whether to communicate strategically. The question is, can you deliver the necessary messages on time, and do you communicate strategically? If you do not practice strategic communication, it will negatively return to you. Participants should definitely be prepared for this, think about it, and practice it. 77 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 5 The Story of Kindness from Hilal-i Ahmer to Kızılay 78 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 5 • Kerem Kınık President of Turkish Red Crescent - Türkiye The Story of Kindness from Hilal-i Ahmer to Kızılay 11 December 2021 S P E A K E R S T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E 79 S T R A T C O M T A L K 05 We want to engage in humanitarian diplomacy. We want to protect human beings’ dignity and create an environment in which their rights can be respected. Dr. Kerem Kınık Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Today at the Strategic Communications Summit, we will share the story of kindness with you and this strategic communication behind it. Our story began nearly 153 years ago. And since then, we have been working in various contexts. But we’ve been communicating the same value. Hilal-i Ahmer Cemiyeti, here is on the left hand found the first logo of our society and on the right-hand side found last one. So, the crescent is the same. It’s the one that is entrusted to us from our flag. So, we wanted to provide humanity with love. And right now, we are working tirelessly to reduce the suffering of humanity. We are aware that people suffer and they have problems. So, we communicate ways of solution to that. So, this is called advocacy in modern times. 80 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 5 We’re trying to be the voice of silent masses and express to the rest of the world the problems faced by people who cannot describe them themselves, to help human beings who cannot receive aid from others. We want to engage in humanitarian diplomacy for them. We want to protect human beings’ dignity and create an environment in which their rights can be respected. So, that was a part of our building, founding a value, and it is still today. Marko Pascha (Markos Apostolidis) was our first president. He was the rector of the Mekteb-i Tıbbiye-i Şahane (Ottoman Medical School), and Marko Pascha has a saying in Turkish: “Tell your trouble to Marko Pascha.” So today, both in our country and in more than 100 countries globally, we listen to people’s troubles. I am the Deputy President of the European and Central Asian branches of the Red Crescent and the Red Cross. Since the day of our inception, we have tried to protect people in wars and other troubles. The First World War was one of the most challenging times we’d faced. And we are talking about a time of national protection with hundreds of thousand millions of soldiers and Hilal-i Ahmer; The Turkish Red Crescent was active on all fronts. And what they were trying to do was alleviate the pains of human beings. Since then, the Red Crescent activists have been working differently. So, there are actively the four battles waged in the world right now. And we’re working to make sure the people that are part of these battles receive health care services. For example, only in Syria, 300,000 Kızılay workers are trying to alleviate the wounds of people suffering there in more than 40 centers. This is logistics work. We’re trying to carry kindness from one place to another. We’re trying to communicate that. We tell the people there was a problem here. And we want to attract people who are sensitive to this kind of information to cater to the needs of people. So, this is a way of transportation. But as you can see we have modern vehicles. Because my logistics today have vehicles that cover thousands of kilometers across the globe. Disasters are times when people need aid the most when they’re most vulnerable. And we have pre-arranged support mechanisms and also pre-determined risks. We try to assist people suffering after disasters based on those pre-calculations. And we also try to find our ways in physical conditions that are very challenging. And if you can’t find a road, we make the road to help people. These territories have seen so many shelters for people. We know that our geographies and heart are vast. But beyond that, we as Turkish Red Crescent We’re trying to carry kindness from one place to another. We’re trying to communicate that. We tell the people there was a concern here. And we want to attract people who are sensitive to this kind of information to cater to the needs of people. 81 S T R A T C O M T A L K know that there are many people seeking refuge in the Republic of Türkiye. We have efforts to support more than 5 million asylum seekers in Türkiye. And this kind of support that we’re trying to give is helping people that have had so many troubles on their way to seeking shelter. And we also help them integrate into a life filled with dignity. So, we give them multi-level services. Nearly 2. 1 million asylum seekers receive financial aid from us monthly. We also have social cohesion programs. We have our vocational efforts language programs designated for them, and also we teach them ways to live in the society with practical knowledge. And we also try to bridge Turkish society and also the refugees. 82 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 5 One of our most important duties during wars and disasters is to provide health care services. Right now, we’re heading in a different direction. Our capacity and mobilization and our infrastructure have all expanded hugely. And along with our global partners, we are building on our capacity; for example, Istanbul has turned into a hub for the training of disaster and emergency healthcare staff. And we receive participants from across the globe where healthcare staff receives training to provide emergency health care, in case of disaster, for instance. Tents mean protection refuge. Some things cannot be trained. You cannot educate people, but you can tell one thing to another. And think of how children learn about straight games. When you think of a child and ask them to paint a picture of a disaster, you see how they draw a tent with a crescent on it. This shows us the power of communication. This is a symbol of kindness for that kind because that crescent is something that people find refuge in, and it is embedded in people’s hearts. So, that’s an indication of what the Red Crescent means for people. And 83 S T R A T C O M T A L K it’s a huge brand. We are trying to fulfill our responsibility to ensure this brand is promoted at every point in history. For various reasons, we have found ourselves obligated to help people both in our country and in other parts of the world. Our primary duty is to help people suffering from social or natural disasters. We provide food security and food to people in need. Nearly 3 million people receive food services for months. So, we have that capacity. We have soup kitchens that work at all times to serve people in need, and those soup kitchens provide food for people in times of disaster. Mobility is indispensable for us. Mobility is something that we pay attention to in all our provinces. We have our capacities in place for that. And thanks to our mobility, we are carrying services to people wherever they are. And whenever they need us, we are there for them. The Red Crescent ships how so many stories that we can share with you. So, the first hospital ship in the history of the world was used during the Ottoman-Greek War. And it was used to transfer the injured people from the Balkans to Istanbul. And from Thessaloniki, we had this hospital ship, where the damaged or treated from Gallipoli to Şarköy, 150,000 soldiers were carried to receive treatment. These ships were turned into a hospital, where triage took place. But these ships also had goodness and kindness. In the 1940s, Greece, where we fought a war just a couple of decades before, Greece was invaded by Germany, and they suffered hugely from a lack of food. Nearly 350,000 Greeks died of hunger during that time. We did not remain silent about this disaster. We, ambassadors of kindness, used that ship. We rented that ship. And we went to Athens many times. And this independence ship has an unhappy ending. It sank after hitting a rock in the sea. But that independence ferry was replaced by another one. Lady Leila is another ship. And for a very long time, it worked for Gaza, which was under siege for a long time. And it was the first ship that Gaza received. And it went to the Asia Pacific to other territories as well. So, it carries on providing aid to many different geographies. The Red Crescent has experienced so many breakthroughs. It broke new ground in so many areas. During the First World War, Fahreddin Pasha protected Medina. And there was a considerable hunger incident that made people suffer. Fahreddin Pasha and his soldiers did not leave Medina. They ate bugs and tried to live. But the Red Crescent made way to provide aid to them. We used AirDrop charity, Airborne charity, for the first time. Mehmet Fazıl used that aircraft to Mobility is indispensable for us. Thanks to our mobility, we carry services to people wherever they are. Whenever they need us, we are there for them. 84 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 5 give aid to Medina by air travel. On the last journey, unfortunately, he suffered from a sad accident. During the COVID pandemic, we worked with the Health Care Ministry and the Presidency’s Office to help more than 100 countries. We used Koca Yusuf, which turned into a brand. From London to India, from countries in Caucasia to other places, we carried PPEs, ventilators, and different equipment required in those countries. 85 S T R A T C O M T A L K So, when some countries grounded some aircraft to confiscate aids, what we did was to serve both our people and the rest of the world. We helped countries that demanded help from us and nations that we knew needed help. So, we extended our helping hand to those countries. Our international aid began in the 1800s. In Latin America, there was something called El Turco. So, when you think of people from so many different nationalities, from Lebanon, from Syria, who held an Ottoman passport, they were referred to as El Turco. And of course, there was this substantial Latin American migration there; they were still referred to as El Turco. And during this massive migration to the US, some people migrated from Harput, Elazığ in Türkiye. And some people traded coffee in Ethiopia. What they did was during the Independence War, and during the First World War, people wanted to help others. So, they tried to set up a different branch of Hilal-i Ahmer, Red Crescent in Addis Ababa, Harar, Jijiga, in other places, including Madagascar, Mozambique, and Detroit. So, what they did was to collect aid to send to Anatolia. People from various countries, including Egypt and Caucasian nations, were a part of that. So, these international organizations change their form, but they continue as well. We have three areas of work, humanitarian aid, social health, and disasters. We also work on raising awareness. And we have to set up an extensive communication system for that. This is within a framework of communication where everybody has this awareness. This is a poster from 1910. It is a colored print, which was delivered to all schools all public buildings, and it tells people how to do first aid in terms of different scenarios from bleeding to an animal attack. So, we had this poster in 1910 to communicate to the public and raise awareness on first aid. And today, we are trying to do this in newer ways with mobile applications. If we are going to talk about the history of art in this country, in Türkiye, one must refer to the archives of Hilal-i Ahmer. During times of war and difficulties, life had to continue. Life in the ship of Titanic when the orchestra was still playing the music. Life had to go on. The public had to be calm, and they had to be energized. One thing that you see here, the Galatasaray Lisesi. This is an art exhibition. During that time, that was held, which was also raised charity. So, while raising money, they did this in a way that supported art. Likewise, today we see on the right-hand side of our exhibition that we continue to offer and organize. Our Kızılay magazine continues to be published. And today, it is being published under the brand of 1868 for people who want to follow the agenda of kindness 86 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 5 and goodness. And each issue of this magazine has the value of a collector’s item. And you can access it from digital channels as well. It was essential to raise aid from Hilal-i Ahmer because it did not receive any contributions from the government. It increased its own income from the public and people. In the old times, we used to have boxes at schools where you used for charity, and today, we send SMSs from our mobile phones to make small contributions which add up to larger amounts. Here you see a picture from Ruhi Arel. It is one of the masterpieces in Turkish art. And it is an art, a piece of art on Hilal-i Ahmer Aid. Likewise, we organize such events still today to auction art. This was in Geneva. And you can see the Red Crescent at our First Lady Emine Erdoğan when we are presenting it as a gift, this crescent as a gift. Young people are very crucial for us. They must be involved in the management. We keep receiving their huge energy. Women as well continue to produce during times of difficulty. They aid, they aid the soldiers. They sew the clothes that are needed. They continue doing that in 81 cities across Türkiye. What we see very frequently is that, what Hilal-i Ahmer people call the Eid of Flowers, in what is, in reality, the Eid of Ramadan, they collect aid. But today, that was in the past, and today we collect it via credit cards. We need to have a good governance. Good governance is crucial for us. 11,000 people help 27 million people, and 8.5 million people are abroad. Ten million is the amount that we collect the units of blood. 1.5 million people contribute to Kızılay. And so, it is essential to manage the governance of this through digital processes. We no longer use paper. All functions are based on digital channels. And in terms of interoperability and analytical reporting, risk management, decision management systems, and holistic management, these digital platforms offer enormous opportunities. The First Blood Center opened in the 1950s. And today, we still have our centers with the highest technology where we offer blood to patients in Türkiye. We receive 9000 units of blood in 300 points across Türkiye, and we distribute this to thousands of topics. So, this means 3 million units of blood are being delivered to 7 million patients. We have around 1200 vehicles, including airplanes, to provide these. And we have also successfully delivered stem cell deliveries, and our patients can be treated now. Young people are very crucial for us. They must be involved in the management. We keep receiving their huge energy. Women as well continue to produce during times of difficulty. 87 S T R A T C O M T A L K And our source of commercial income was the commercial enterprises for Kızılay, which is a society, Islamic society, and they are under Kızılay. They support the financial sustainability, these commercial enterprises, to Kızılay. Our tents units or hospitals have been renewed according to the modern age. Our old patients’ houses have been renewed across different parts of Türkiye. And especially in terms of social enterprise to prevent poverty. And next year, we will also have a breakthrough across this. We have mineral water factories as well. We were leading the market and doubled our capacity in Türkiye. In our communication, we 88 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 5 always message that this is a good brand that is for kindness works for kindness. And this is a brand that represents kindness. We have many products. And people, famous people who support us in the eye of the public, raise awareness of humanitarian aid and Kızılay across the masses. And we work with a vast team of both communicators and volunteers, and our aim, our only objective, is to protect our brands, the crescent which we take from our flag. And our motto is “We can’t do without you.” Thank you. 89 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 6 AI-Powered Nation Branding: The Turkish Case 90 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 6 AI-Powered Nation Branding: The Turkish Case 11 December 2021 • Timuçin Güler Executive Board Member at Türkiye Tourism Promotion and Development Agency - Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 91 S T R A T C O M T A L K 06 The basic element of a brand is perception. No matter how you describe yourself, the basis of the movement about you will be adopted on how you are perceived. Timuçin Güler Hello and welcome. First of all, I want to say this: artificial intelligence or branding is a concept you have all heard of. Sometimes they can come together, and sometimes, they can diverge. The biggest question mark in the minds about this is how to use it more. They can come across piecemeal, but if needed within whole marketing or a country branding, how can we combine them? I see that there are young technical friends among us who study these matters. We also have participants who are interested in marketing. I want to give brief information about how these two can be combined and how we did it. One of the basic elements of a brand, especially in marketing, is perception. No matter how you describe yourself, the basis of the movement about you will be adopted on how you are perceived. Therefore, when managing a country brand, perception, which we evaluate in 92 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 6 terms of tourism, takes on a different position. When you look at managing a brand within yourself, you address the people in your own country, and you know how the messages you give in the brand will be perceived since you are a part of that country in general. But when it comes to the world, the situation is different. Türkiye is a country that receives visitors from all over the world. Therefore the audience we address and what we want to tell about the country is very comprehensive. Each country has its dynamics. Sometimes words and events that mean different things to us can be perceived differently in another country. You may have experienced this. Therefore, we need to control this movement worldwide, describe our brand accordingly, and ask ourselves whether we communicate correctly. Because what we call marketing is an expensive business. Your work dedicates time and effort, and this needs to be measured. So you always have to be one step ahead. When we look here, what we say is the measurement of perception. Measuring global perception is one of the most important issues in our work to plan our next step properly. Normally in our system, if you know where there has been a positive perception about us and where there has been a negative perception, you can determine your other steps before proceeding to the next step. The time in between becomes significant for you. I am talking about how you will act when the perception changes, how will you measure this perception, and what are the right actions to take when this perception reaches you? What can you do here now? I would like to say that one of the issues that should be avoided today is the notion that I am not like that perception. You always have to reveal your good sides and the sides that can be perceived differently. As I mentioned earlier, the issues where we see ourselves as wanting or the issues we see differently can contain different perceptions for other people in other countries. Therefore, it is necessary to act with a comprehensive perspective. Why do we call it artificial intelligence? Normally, as Türkiye, we have television broadcasts in 22 countries as advertisements. Our digital promotions are broadcast in 82 countries. These contents also have a constantly changing structure. So we have to control everything in this whole range of motion. Visitors from abroad, how long do they stay, what do they do when they come to our country, what perception they go back with when they leave, how do they perceive some issues when they come here? Therefore, it is crucial to establish the right strategy and make marketing investments according to this strategy. Speaking of perceptions, it needs to be mentioned that we are in a very digital age; we all When you look at managing a brand within yourself, you address the people in your own country, and you know how the messages you give in the brand will be perceived since you are a part of that country in general. But when it comes to the world, the situation is different. 93 S T R A T C O M T A L K have phones in our hands. An issue can spread anywhere in an instant. At the same time, they need to be followed. Maybe you can easily follow the country’s agenda yourself; you can get some information from various news sources in the country. But when the field is the whole world, you need to follow it. Now, let’s say there is an issue in a country about us. The green dots you see on this screen are a simulation, but this is how the system normally works in the structure we use. When there is negative news about Türkiye, the perception turns red; when you see gray news, the perception is neutral; it manifests a positive perception when you see green news. This is one of the issues we are following with the platform we have at the moment. At the same time, the system has some alarm mechanisms. What do these mechanisms give you? Is a perception about us growing or turning into a snowballing movement, is it fading away, is it increasing, and what should we do accordingly? The system tracks them. Of course, we follow them in different languages. As I mentioned earlier, each country’s perception is different; the language usage of each country is different. Why do we call it artificial intelligence? Artificial intelligence uses it properly by making sense of the sentences we call Sentiment over time. In general, if an artificial intelligence works with a performance above 80%-85%, this is an excellent and acceptable rate. We can go very high in some countries from time to time, and our results can be low in some countries. We said perception, but how does artificial intelligence see perception? Now I want to talk about a few things in more detail. These are the issues that we cannot see with the human eye, these balloons. And this complex network structure in between. Think of all this like this; each note here, each box can be a person, a publication, it might be something else, but what does this show us; how the news is distributed, how people focus on the news, how the subject moves between follow-up points. Let’s give an example; a group of countries, let’s say in Europe, reacts to this; on the other hand, the subject may have been perceived differently. The distribution and spread of reactions can be different. The human eye cannot detect it. Normally when we, as humans, follow this type of news network, we can do a certain number of things about it, no matter how much we look at it. In other words, let me be an analyst, let the news come before me, how much news of how many countries can I read or what things in how many countries can I evaluate properly? But what does artificial intelligence do? First, it picks up the language and translates it instantly. What we call Sentiment indicates whether it is positive or negative. Subsequently, its distribution map is revealed of it, and if it is a crisis, it doesn’t matter whether it’s positive or negative; how this growth took place is 94 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 6 also portrayed. The things here, be it the perception of any subject, are indicated at the moment when the number of balloons formed in one hour is revealed. The number of balloons indicates that the issue has grown significantly. Secondly, the rate at which these bubbles form is significant. Many balloons can form, but they remain small under normal conditions, do not grow, and do not bounce to the back. What artificial intelligence sees is a study in the data point. Let’s say that there are small dots here, this topic may have faded here, but then the subject may have fluctuated and grown again. What do we say in this case? How much of a dataset is formed hourly? I call them balloons; actually, they are datasets. What is their hourly growth rate? The spread of this perception or the crisis means the growth of the crisis and the formation of impact groups. How many nodes are there, how many tabs are there between them? Let’s say you think of them as newsgroups; Currently, news can be received with some APIs that we call the news API in the world. Let me tell you this; There are 55 thousand news sources. In other words, whichever one of us counts, we can count 100 or 200, but there are 55 thousand sources in the world that distribute news. Therefore, it allows us to see how this movement is distributed among these news sources. 95 S T R A T C O M T A L K Likewise, if the nodes are dense, it means there is more intense communication, it means that it disperses very quickly, and in such a case, you need to develop your strategy differently. It would be best to communicate more intensively and with more solid foundations. Here again, we say that the number of Accounts, there might not be many nodes in this section. Let’s say there are big bubbles in this area, and the center is not so dense. If the center is not dense, you can see that it is a regional perception and only dispersed at certain points. Let’s say it’s four countries in Europe, three countries in Asia, two countries in the Americas. Still, the issue is very scattered if the nodes and balloons have increased too much here, although artificial intelligence combines it with something else in the back. It’s being talked about everywhere now, which means the subject can also grow. Then there are elements that we call several accounts: news sources or people, their followers are significant. The followed spot can have 1000 followers. Currently, sometimes evaluations are made as follows; that person is an influential person, this person has 1 million followers. Believe me; follower numbers are not that important. As I will talk about in the next slides, the power of an influencer or influential person, opinion leader, is related to the power of those who follow him to spread the news about him and interaction. Second, the followers under him have their follower counts. Again, why do we call it artificial intelligence? AI, you’ll see in a moment, takes this into account when evaluating two people and measures the real impact. Because AI moves forward by understanding the subject observed here, as I showed in the previous slides, and whether those reds have passed or not. The issue I just mentioned is how I see the crisis, I look at the news, friends bring files, I examine them, I ask, we have attached at many points abroad, information comes from them, but still the number of topics and news that you can follow as an individual is limited. Especially if you are managing a country brand, it would not be easy to infer about it. Therefore, you need serious decision support systems and artificial intelligence in the background, and if you have such a tool, it will give you a great advantage. I mentioned groups. This is one of the issues you see on the other side, the balloons. Now you look at this bubble; a perception group has formed in the middle, it dissipates the issue, for example, the group says Türkiye is very good, we had a great experience there. Historically, the opening of Göbeklitepe, he says he saw 12 thousand years of history, he suddenly says this. Who is following him when he says it? There are groups following him, but also individuals. The colors are related to the interests of those groups, those individuals. It could be about art; it could be about history; it could be about gastronomy. Therefore, each point also shows how the subject will go to the next Especially if you are managing a country brand, it would not be easy to infer about it. Therefore, you need severe decision support systems and artificial intelligence in the background, and if you have such a tool, it will give you a great advantage. 96 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 6 stage. You can do a study on history, but if the area on this side of history is a powerful gastronomy field, perhaps the people there will turn this subject from history into gastronomy after a while with a meal or something else they ate next to a historical artifact. Therefore, we do it this way when we monitor and analyze the results. Followers also show the power and speed of the distribution of work and perception. I just mentioned an influential person. He has 40 thousand followers 78% interaction; of course, this is a tremendous rate, but this is an example. He has 1. 6 million interactions in total. How is this happening? Retweeting him, the power of sharing the news about him makes this person stand out. The figures at the bottom indicate 550K followers, a 23% engagement rate, a real influence of 1 million. At the same time, there can be a lot of bot accounts and bot followers; this is a fact of the virtual world. It is essential to choose the real and right person, introduce you while making your brand investments in the long term, and clearly state the messages and topics you want to spread. Thus, if you advertise with the wrong person, you will get the wrong results; you will get the right results if you promote with the right person. Therefore, the person is significant, but you need to determine the area of influence very well, not just his followers or other issues. We host more than 2,000 different types of hospitality in Türkiye throughout the year. We bring people, show them the historical and touristic places related to If you advertise with the wrong person, you will get false results; you will get the right results if you promote with the right person. 97 S T R A T C O M T A L K the country. These people need to be chosen correctly because this is a serious and time-consuming effort. The right person needs to be chosen to properly use this time and this effort. I talked about news analysis. We are talking about 55 thousand sources. 900 thousand daily shares. It is a subject that I witness most of the time. There is a news item from Twitter, or they say that a famous person wrote this; we look at it, we examine it. But when you study them, look at the news outlets, the first point of departure are the newspapers. Let’s say many people do not follow the New York Times or look at the Daily Mail, but there are people from Türkiye who follow them. You are also following them. The person receives a news item, adds a little something, he might do something else, throw it away, and suddenly the news source looks like that person. But from your or our point of view, the source of the news is significant. Artificial intelligence tells us about the main news sources, their analysis, and the spread of these news sources on social media. Therefore, when we look at it, artificial intelligence tells us that the source of this is the news, not the person AI is telling us. Hashtags are one of the most important things about a country. They set the agenda. The recipient shares it with them. The alarm, other issues, or other distributions in this artificial intelligence section that I mentioned at the beginning are always caused by the analysis of these hashtags. In other words, it is imperative to follow and analyze them properly in determining and forming the plan. Marketing always appeals to perception. At the same time, marketing is always selling something, promoting something, giving good feelings, reflecting good things. In-country promotion, of course, we have a lot of things to promote. We have nature; there is food, the sea, sand, sun, historical places, and art. It is essential to reveal this and capture the right wave on the right plan. There is a pandemic going on; what happened in the pandemic, people’s perceptions, experiences, and pleasures have always changed, or they felt lonely and restless, did not want to go out, and forgot some things a little bit. What we did in these situations, we always followed the general perception. What is the current mood, what are people talking about, how can we get them out, how can we remind ourselves, how can we communicate correctly with these studies? The first campaign we started, called “Turkish Therapy,” which we see here, was relaxing, a long, beautiful, and pleasant music activity. These words during the quarantine days led us to the Turkish therapy promotional film and campaign. Then, when the issues got a little softer, we started to see them as keywords, and, by remembering the past a little more, we made the “Choose Your Memories” campaign with a view on how we can generate a tourism movement, can we travel. Subsequently, when we say let’s move now, 98 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 6 let’s make a reservation, start the travel movement somehow, the “Move Forward” campaign, which triggers the action, was initiated in line with these perceptions. Although travel has begun, the security issue, the issue of safe tourism has become prominent. Türkiye has become the country that implements tourism in the best way in the world, especially with the work it has done for safe tourism and the health security measures in airports, transportation networks, and hotels. This has always been highlighted and explained in the aforementioned safe tourism campaigns. Therefore, this was a powerful program for the resumption of Türkiye’s tourism movement. From time to time, we have said that perceptions are changing, the perspectives of countries or people are changing. For example, we say let’s show the following when advertising in country A, these issues should appear when advertising in country B. We have the Go Türkiye platform, our digital face that opens to the world. Within the Go Türkiye platform, you see content according to your country. The content is determined by the countries’ perceptions, according to the things they like. For example, some countries are very interested in history. These audiences especially prefer to go to regions such as Cappadocia and Göbeklitepe in our country. Therefore, we present people from these countries with things according to their interests. This system is backed up by artificial intelligence. The design makes its evaluations monthly, and we see the distribution; where did the people from that country go, which pages they visited, and how much time they spent on any given page? What happens is this: we put health, wellness, art, or blue to the fore, together with the formation of AI and new information, while the previous content presented museums, sustainability, and weddings. The system changes the content to be presented in line with a dynamic analysis of the users. Of course, this involves very detailed marketing, which can be very complicated and sometimes costly, and the media must be used very well. If health is at the fore in a country according to perception, health should progress differently if that country’s interest shifts to another point. Or channel following can also change, so the channel orientations automatically suggest media optimization plans. For example, in some countries, while the work we do on Facebook does not go well or does not meet our expectations at the rate we want but attracts more attention on Twitter, Instagram or other platforms, the marketing plans of that venue are revised accordingly. Or in some countries, while Instagram is very active, Facebook is not, and the system reports this from Türkiye has become the country that implements tourism in the best way globally, especially with the work it has done for safe tourism, together with the health security measures in airports, transportation networks, and hotels. 99 S T R A T C O M T A L K time to time. It is not easy to control 82 countries one by one, so it needs to be followed instantly and based on data. One of the most important things is, of course, with artificial intelligence, what we call forecasting, how many tourists come, how to make predictions about them. In artificial intelligence, we can make more than 85% accurate predictions from data sources and other points. We can even do this on a country-by-country basis. Therefore, this will be very beneficial for our investments and future planning. Finally, I would like to talk about the data structure. Briefly, it is technical information, but if you look at the bottom, it includes and examines all the points related to tourism, such as the World Tourism Organization and the sources that provide data, information about IATA or countries, SkyScanner searches. I want to point out one thing here; The system never includes any personal data. We never track personal data; we do not process any data. All information entering the system is what we call open-source information from the internet or compiled and written information. The power of artificial intelligence emerges here. Otherwise, it’s not about processing resources and doing a data study about it. We use the method to scan the whole internet and get information with a live system. 100 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 6 Audience Lecturer Dr. Ahmet Faruk Çeçen, from the Directorate of Communications. My question is, you said that you do not use personal data, but there is a very detailed study here. Do you carry out something like digital profiling respecting personal data, or how is it done? Can you talk about the technical part of this work? Timuçin Güler The person we see there, who speaks the news, is a number for us. Therefore, no profiling is done. We look at the subject and the news that the point distributes, the dot below it, the distributed news. In other words, we do not initiate person profiling. If we are researching history at that time and the information involves history, we look at the cluster classification, and that person is no longer in the system. Instant follow-up is carried out. Only when celebrities have a very high number of followers do we naturally research with our resources to determine whether the number of followers is correct and what the impact is. Otherwise, we do not keep a person profiling or notification in the system. 101 S T R A T C O M T A L K Audience My name is Samiha Raulf. I am a communication student accomplishing my PhD. I am writing my doctoral thesis, and the subject is; the use of artificial intelligence and the internet of things for climate change. So my question is this: How is your agency working on the climate change scenario, or are there opportunities for cooperation in this area? Timuçin Güler It’s a good question. Sustainable tourism and climate change will be one of the most critical issues shortly. There are global agreements, you know. These agreements will affect all sectors, including tourism. Maybe you missed it as I showed and talked about sustainable and green environments. It is one of the top agenda items. We see that searches are done on sustainable green issues through different channels. So what are we doing about this? We have introduced another sustainable and green tourism standard to counter these searches, trends, perceptions, and sustainable tourism. The Ministry announced it this year; it will be implemented next year. I can say: While talking about artificial intelligence, you can feed artificial intelligence with different sources and present additional data. There are several data providers for the climate, as far as I know. Some are paid, but there is a wide variety of open sources on climate change. When working on such a thesis, you create your artificial intelligence model and associate it with a news method. You can select the country or region near you. You feed artificial intelligence with data for climate change and upload climate data for a certain period. On the other hand, you can create another artificial intelligence. That AI collects different climate-related keywords. Subsequently, you associate the two; you can make them work together. At the same time, you can see how climate change has affected the news or if you don’t focus only on the information. People have personal insights; they have opinions about climate change, you can associate them. You can show the effects of this. You can build this relationship on it if you want. Audience My name is Mahon John. I am studying for a bachelor’s degree in sociology; I am doing a double major. How successful are the governments of Asian countries, such Sustainable tourism and climate change will be essential issues shortly. Global agreements will affect all sectors, including tourism. 102 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 6 as China and Singapore. They manage their trade or international perception with digitalization. What do you think about this? There are also reviews on Google, which cause negative perceptions about some countries. For example, there are negative reviews on tourism for Türkiye on Google. You mentioned a strategy; how does it affect your plan? If Türkiye is evaluated negatively on the internet and everyone sees it, how do you reverse it? What is your strategy for this? Timuçin Güler As I said, we sometimes use influencers. If you see direct adverse effects on the education system in your country or another issue, these are image weaknesses or harmful image elements. For example, there is a news source and a distributor. You have to identify the right channel, I.E., who serves the right image? We are not just talking about users, influencers, and news sources here. They can act aggressively and offensively. There are natural news providers. For example, there are genuine influencers; you provide the news, invite them to Türkiye and tell them that this is the truth, or if you explain that this is the good news, it will be easy to understand. Everyone is looking everywhere, but sensational news attracts everyone first. If you present natural perceptions, it is easy to understand. For example, aggressive word spreads like blisters and bubbles but immediately bursts and declines rapidly. We see these trends. But if you present and disseminate the right content, everyone can easily understand it in 2-3 weeks. In other words, right is easily distinguished from wrong. Alican Ayanlar You have displayed very well how important it is to follow the right strategies and explained how a big brand like Türkiye could be managed, especially with artificial intelligence. 103 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 7 Communicating for Every Child 104 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 7 Communicating for Every Child 11 December 2021 • Paloma Escudero Global Communications and Advocacy Director at UNICEF - Spain T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 105 S T R A T C O M T A L K 07 Not just the communication or digital team, but every UNICEF volunteer working for children’s rights worldwide is a communicator and an advocate for us. Paloma Escudero It’s great to connect from New York; it’s a special day for UNICEF. Today is our 75th anniversary. Now is the time to discuss and share UNICEF’s global communications advocacy strategy with you and how it reflects this strategy in all of its activities for children in 190 countries. I hope most of you know that UNICEF is the United Nations Children’s Fund. Authorized by the United Nations General Assembly, it works in 190 countries and territories to protect the rights of every child. You can see the content of our official authority here; an extensive authority has been given to us by the United Nations. It also has a legal framework when we need to explain to the public and young audiences what UNICEF is doing in more than 100 languages, whether, in Türkiye, Uganda, or Peru, UNICEF is the same organization, the same organization everywhere. We have a robust network of communicators in every country where we work. Thanks to them, we can transfer our jurisdiction and what we do. Four years ago, we outlined our UNICEF global communications and advocacy strategy in our strategic plan. We coordinated four years with this and implemented it. Not 106 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 7 just the communication or digital team, but every UNICEF volunteer working for children’s rights worldwide is a communicator and an advocate for us. It is the defense of the freedom of every child to stay healthy, live safely, and receive an education. Therefore, we have reflected on this communication and advocacy strategy everywhere. We have 40 targets. We want to be the leading voice for children in every country. We want to be leading advocates for issues that matter to children, and we want to be a leading brand that everyone associates with children’s rights. Of course, while doing this, we wanted to engage 100 million individuals digitally; that is, we wanted them to advocate children’s rights by interacting with us. Who are the key target audiences? These are individuals who can be advocates, donors, and volunteers. Our focus is primarily on parents. But right now, we focus more on children and young people; we have a target audience under 24. Along with our communication and advocacy strategy, we also want to influence the political decision-making processes and try to influence those in authority. When we adopted this policy and strategy in 2019, we didn’t know it was vital because there was a massive backlash with COVID-19. We thought about what we would do in countries during the pandemic if we did not have such a communication network. Because of this strategy, we were able to communicate fully digitally, we were able to run education, health, and protection programs after the pandemic was announced. Here you see our key strategies. As always, we wanted to be the leading voice. We wanted to be the critical moral voice. We tried to shape the agenda of children’s rights, and, as previous speakers have said, we wanted to create change for children on networks by evaluating existing content. During the pandemic, teenagers had produced content videos about children. They had been locked at home during COVID and shared these videos. In other words, producing great content is one of the essential features. Beautiful videos were produced, and it was an organic process; videos came from every country. There is the concept of intellectual leadership; we want to stick to the data. Together with the strategy, we want to generate new policies and proposals. We want to be inspiring and authoritative. We want to give content media responses; we want to be proactive by boldly defending our principles. We wanted to give content media responses boldly wanted to be proactive by defending our essentials and principles. We didn’t want to react to the daily news. As our second goal, we want to inform the public, so we communicate. We also want to advocate for children by communicating strategically. In other words, we tried to use our information sharing, policies, program, research within partnerships. To be strategic and integrated. We wanted to advocate by adopting We want to inform the public, so we communicate. We also want to advocate for children by communicating strategically. In other words, we tried to use our information sharing, policies, program, research within partnerships. 107 S T R A T C O M T A L K more integrated approaches. Let’s communicate strategically. We didn’t want to take any temporary communication measures. We want to be global; we have global goals, strategies, and messages that can be tailored to each country. So it can be reduced to the local level. That’s why it’s global. We want to move forward with strong partnerships. Partnerships are important to us. We have digital partners. We create content with them. We build effective partnerships in our work area as much as possible. Our third goal is to be the leading brand. UNICEF has a perfect collaboration with the state in Türkiye. We want to be a reliable brand. We want people to associate our brand with what we do for children. For this reason, brand identity should be based on some core values for each child. We want staff and teams to be brand ambassadors; we want them to feel that way. We don’t just want to be an organization working for children among thousands of organizations; we work by giving ourselves, and we want to protect each child. Another approach to communication was that we wanted to attract the attention of individuals. We want to evaluate 100 million individuals in our studies in the coming years. We have reached 130 million individuals. They use our social media platforms, and each person finds an area where they can support or find a place where they can interact with us for children’s rights. We are target-oriented. Each message is always organized and adapted to the target audience. So, for example, if 15 contents are produced, 15 different contents are classified according to the target audience. Our first audience, of course, is children, young people. TikTok and other platforms were mentioned. We also use them to produce content for young people. Every August, we have media days, thousands of people helping us create content for the following year. In other words, our focus on young people has brought a very different perspective to our communication advocacy strategy. One thing that was important to us was that we wanted the whole organization to adopt the new approach. We worked effectively and successfully in previous years, but now we wanted to introduce everyone to what is strategic change. Until 2017, we were doing one-way advocacy for children’s rights. Now we empower others and enable them to advocate for children’s rights. We’re spreading the message about the rights of the child. We were saying that the public supports the implementation of children’s rights. We have now included decision-makers and a wider public. We were telling compelling stories, but now we make the target audiences say to this story. We were communicating; they were listening. Now citizens become advocates, donors, or volunteers to create content for children’s rights. We produced content that could be used in several channels for printed publication; now, we are developing content specific to each 108 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 7 channel. We used to be data-driven; we still are. We want to know everything about children. For example, you can access the latest data on children at UNICEF. org. We want to lead more at the intellectual and intellectual level concerning children’s rights at the policy level. We had communication strategies. We now have both a communication and advocacy strategy. We were campaigning on priorities, but now we achieve these goals through advocacy. We communicate only for a clear purpose, to bring about change for children. We had partnerships specific to UNICEF; now we have partners, especially young people are among our partners. That was the change. I know that the best experts communication experts are here today. In conclusion, I would like to say that we continue to learn continuously. We live in a very dynamic, fast-growing world. I can declare that we have discovered five lessons. These may lead you to think or attract the attention of today’s participants. First, a shared global strategy has been put forward. We felt that each team could adopt this strategy and reflect it in their daily work. When we started, emergency plans for COVID were published, and we identified our advocacy approaches for our 190 offices. We should have identified the priorities; concrete targets should have been under them. We also have KPIs; by the way, we measure our performance, the work we do must meet a goal and produce child-related effects. If you work with too many countries, a glocal approach is required. It should identify and define strategic advocacy and communication opportunities, but it should do so at national, regional, and global levels. Working with teams, he should use the entire force of the organization as leverage. We are the United Nations. Sometimes we lack the flexibility to adapt to local contexts. So our teams must be outstanding so they can think strategically and have enough expertise. Fourth, integration and aggregation do not have isolated communication alone; we are fully integrated. We serve each team within our organization. Eight years ago, before the pandemic, we made the digital decision. We started digital transformation projects. We established digital platforms and trained all our teams on the latest content to be persuasive. The most challenging part is to work with the target audience. We need to use research data to use evidence when delivering our messages. The target audience that guides us determines our content. For example, a parent portal was created for COVID. Within 24 hours, we immediately found out what the issues related to the parents were. We gave them clues. What will life be like at home with the children? Communication strategies were produced to support them with their parents. I hope that the lessons learned by an organization like UNICEF will be beneficial for you. 109 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 8 Defining the Nation Branding 110 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 8 Defining the Nation Branding 11 December 2021 • Simon Anholt Policy Advisor - UK T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 111 S T R A T C O M T A L K 08 The image issue is a really interesting topic because you have to go into human psychology very deeply. Perception and reality, is it the same thing? Simon Anholt The issue of the image of countries is a fascinating field. And it’s something I’ve been working on for the last 25 years. It is an endlessly fascinating subject because it contains many other disciplines. When you talk about the image of a nation, you should definitely mention culture, international relations, politics, economy, that is, all the issues that make the world work. The image issue is a really interesting topic because you have to go into human psychology very deeply. Perception and reality, for example. Is it the same thing? Perceptions at the most basic level are critical to us humans. Because we can only understand the world through our perceptions, that is why this issue is significant for states and governments today. Because they care about their country’s position in the 112 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 8 world. Why are we here, what are we doing, what is the purpose of a country in the 21st century? Now, of course, I will not directly go into these philosophical questions, maybe we will save them for later, but I want to touch on the concept of the nation as a brand and talk about where this idea came from. In the 1990s, I wrote an article in an academic journal called “the Nation Brands of the 21st Century”. It was a concise article, actually, not an academic one. I discussed this at the time; in a period of advanced globalization, when the product you bought could come from anywhere on the planet, the people you met, the people you hired, the people you worked with, the people you studied with, the economy you applied for a job, the economy you invested in, all these could come from all the countries on the planet; these nation brands suddenly became an important title. Because to make a choice, people needed a reference. So if I’m going to buy an automobile, one from Italy, one from Germany and one from China, how will I choose if that’s the only difference? What kind of feelings do I have about Italy, Germany, China that will draw me in one direction? Do I trust the Germans more than the Italians, or do I think the Italians are more stylish than the Chinese? Do I believe that the product in China will be a little more developed, maybe the cost will be effective compared to the German product? In this age of globalization, countries’ images are strangely more important than reality. Because we don’t really know the reality of 205 different countries. Many of us know very little about countries. We know how we feel; we know what we believe. Our perceptions, our prejudices, our ignorance. Let’s be honest, because we have never even visited most of these countries, so we do not know anything about them. That is why these simple stereotypes are of great importance. Because these stereotypes govern the behavior of millions of people worldwide and affect where trillions of dollars flow, that is why, in the 21st century, I said that states now have to measure the image of their countries. As a country, I wanted to talk about whether this image is actual, whether we deserve it, whether there is injustice, whether it is a little biased, whether it is behind or suitable for our goals and dreams. Now, I want to talk a bit of a word. I’ve heard many about branding at this extraordinary summit. It makes me very suspicious that the word branding, even the word brand and all the terms it passes, creates a question mark at the same time. Why? Because there’s no common definition. Ask 20 different people how to define the brand or branding. Ask 20 different people how to define the brand or branding. You’ll probably get 20 different answers. For example, when people talk about nation branding, city branding, or regional branding, they often promote specific sectors in those countries, regions, and cities. 113 S T R A T C O M T A L K You’ll probably get 20 different answers. When people talk about nation branding or city branding, or regional branding, they often talk about promoting certain sectors in those countries, regions, cities. For example, they want to encourage tourism, sell holidays or encourage foreign investment in their economies, that is, to promote investment. That is why I want to discuss this principle with you first. It is necessary to be very careful; the public image of a country should not be confused with promotional activities in the fields of sector-specific promotional activities, tourism, investment, culture, and export. If you’re selling a holiday to someone, you’re sending a straightforward message. You say come to my country on holiday; you will love it. So you offer a product, take this, this is good. Using marketing to do this is not only legitimate; it is very effective and even necessary. Because all your opponents are doing the same thing. So you have to balance them in some way; you have to do it better than them. This is the marketplace 114 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 8 in tourism; this is for investment incentives, this is for exports, this is for Turkish Airlines. It’s for everything you sell to the world. But on the other hand, if you want to improve Türkiye’s image as a country, this is an entirely different message. Take this; you’re not saying this is good. Because Türkiye is not for sale as far as I know. So everyone has a beautiful country, everyone is pleased with their land, and nobody sells their country to anyone else. So your message here is taking this; this is not good. The message you’re trying to send is that you will change your mind about this country. But, of course, what happens is that it appears as propaganda from a foreign government, and it is directly rejected. All the studies show that messages containing this type of propaganda, look how beautiful my country is, are ignored and ignored. So I All the studies show that messages containing this type of propaganda, “look how beautiful my country,” are ignored and ignored. 115 S T R A T C O M T A L K started to conduct an annual survey called the Nation Brands Index in 2005 or perhaps before. It’s an extensive questionnaire, there are more than 40 questions, and we’re trying to understand people’s perceptions. By asking questions about 60 countries, we investigate their knowledge, ignorance levels, stereotypes, and opinions deeply. We send it to 60 thousand people; we reach a sample of about 70%. It’s a massive study, there’s a lot of data coming out, and it’s telling us important things. The first thing he said in 2005 was that the images of the country do not usually change; they are very stable, fixed phenomena. In fact, sometimes I joke that this may be the most boring social survey because the results do not change over the years. In other words, people do not want to give up these thoughts easily after creating their perceptions and prejudices about other countries, and almost nothing can change their minds. Because the images of these countries are not something you create yourself; actually, they come from the culture around you. I, for example, grew up in the UK with an idea of who the French were because they were our closest neighbors. When you look at it, the views on France in the United Kingdom are actually about the culture of the United Kingdom. So France is part of French culture in its sights on the United Kingdom. So there is a cultural phenomenon here, and to think that we can change it by making purchases in the media and sending a few advertising messages, is a colossal mistake; we can say that it is a big dream. There’s no evidence that this worked. Over the years, I’ve tried to test it. I looked to see if there was a correlation between the amount of government investment in nation branding and the image change. However, sector-specific promotional activities work, Türkiye does this very well. For example, Türkiye spent a lot of money on Turkish tourism, Turkish Airlines introduced itself very well in the same way. These are the marketing activities you carry out when selling a product or service, and they work. But changing the public image of a country is an entirely different matter, and governments want to learn how to do it. Why, because it’s essential. In the late 1990s, I started writing about, I said, national images are significant, and my argument was if a country has a strong and positive vision. Everything is easy and cheap for that country. For example, if you are Sweden, and you have such a wonderfully positive image, everyone loves Sweden; everyone loves Sweden except Norway. It’s so easy for Sweden to attract foreign investment, attract tourists, and attract talent. It’s easy if they want to export their products, services, and cultures or establish good diplomatic relations with other governments. Why? 116 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 8 Because Sweden has such a good image, everyone wants to work with them and do business with them. They even have a very thriving tourism sector. It’s freezing, but everyone still wants to go there because it has a great image. But on the other hand, if you have a negative image, if people match you with things they don’t like, or if you have a weak idea; that is, if people don’t even know where your country is, how to write its name, then everything is expensive for you. For example, promoting tourism for the Albanian coast is tricky and more costly. Introducing Albanian beaches is much more complicated than teaching French beaches. Because everyone thinks they love France very much, but not everyone thinks they love Albania very much. I don’t even know if that’s true, fair, up-to- date, but that’s how it is. And there’s one thing that I’ve said many times over the years; there’s only one superpower left in the world, and that’s the international public. We’re all trying to do diplomacy with that superpower in different ways. So we need to take this seriously. Even if it is based on ignorance, we still have to take it seriously. A lot of work has been done over the last 20 years, and it’s 117 S T R A T C O M T A L K shown how important the national image is about everything a country wants to do. The national image is very much related to the increasing welfare deficit or wealth deficit. Because the weaker countries are not only coping with the weak economy and weak infrastructure, they are also struggling with a constant wind. Even if they do something good, people doubt it. In other words, a hostile or weak image creates a structural deficit. It makes everything complicated. Now, there’s a dilemma here. An excellent national image is critical; we know this; it supports every work you do or can prevent every work you do in the modern globalized world. But on the other hand, we don’t know how to make the image more positive and what works. We can fool ourselves into thinking that with a new logo and a great slogan, we can now market the country as a product, but as I said, there’s no evidence that this worked. I’ve been looking for one tiny piece of evidence for the last 25 years. I mean, I’ve been looking for evidence that giving these kinds of messages can change the image of a country. No, I can’t find it at all. If you can show me that a city, a region, or a country has changed its international image with marketing and communication activities, I will come and kiss you. Because I really want you to be able to change my mind about this. However, I have not found any evidence so far. If it doesn’t happen with messages, public relations, slogans, logos, then are we staying with our current image? We can’t change that, or is there a way to change it? This is a fundamental question, and I said in 2012; I will try to find some answers to this question. I was lucky; there were a lot of yields. Because the nation brands index I mentioned earlier had collected more than 1 billion data points by then. One billion is a perfect figure for data. So there may be some answers to some questions there; you can find them there. Unfortunately, I’m not a very good statistician, so it took a lot of time to get the truth out of this database, but the truth was a straightforward question for me. Why do people around the world admire some countries more than others? There are about five reasons why people love one country more than the others. Four of them are things you can imagine. For example, does it look good or does it look bad? Now, those of us who are fortunate to be able to see have the chance to see and like a country visually. When we see a country and think it is beautiful, we feel good thoughts about it. It’s in our nature. So if a person looks gorgeous, we believe that she will be reliable, which often does not work this way, but it is our nature. A poet named John Ceeds said that truth is beauty, beauty is natural because the only thing you know and need to know in the world has gone a little too far, maybe as a poet, but this is it. Therefore, the physical characteristics of a country are substantial, and countries such as Australia, which carry out many tourism promotion activities The national image is very much related to the increasing welfare deficit or wealth deficit. A negative or weak image creates a structural deficit. It makes everything complicated. 118 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 8 such as Türkiye or New Zealand, are working on this basis. Also, if a country has a chance to show its power in the international community, has a large army, a large area, that is, hard power, then it has a more robust image. It may not have a more positive image, but it has a more robust image. On the one hand, technology has a vital role. On the other hand, many people, especially young people, admire countries that they think are technologically advanced. We like innovative, modern, up-to-date countries, but this is not a significant factor. On the one hand, there is the concept of validity so that I may like a country in Latin America very much, but after all, it will not have a very positive image because it does not have much effect in the world I live in. But the fifth one, look, was shocking, and by far, it was the most potent element. It was a perception of the goodness of a country. What’s it mean to be a good country? Now it seems that the research said that people admire countries that they say this country exists. For example, I admire Norway because thank god that Norway exists. So why thank god that Norway exists? I’ve never been, never will, and I don’t know anything about it. Wait a minute, I know one thing; I remember the Oslo Peace Talks, and that was something to do with Israel-Palestine. What was that, was the conflict? I do not like the conflict; then I love Norway because Norway acts against the conflict and tries to establish peace in the world. That’s why I love Norway. And that’s why I’m more likely to buy a Norwegian product, more likely to go on vacation to Norway, even though it’s freezing, and more likely to hire someone from Norway, more likely to live, work, study there. Because I think Norway is good. Because I think that it is a country based on values and I think that these values reflect my values as well. Culturally, it may be very different, but they care about humanity and the global challenges that society faces today. So what is a good country? It is a country motivated by our shared values. I can list all of these things: climate change, poverty, inequality, armed conflicts, human rights violations, women’s rights violations, child rights violations, and individual armaments; we are living with all these global difficulties. Whenever we turn on the news, we keep seeing these existential challenges waiting for humanity. The United Nations’ 17 sustainable development goals make an excellent shortlist of what should keep us up at night. Sometimes I wake up screaming in the middle of the night, remembering these things. Because we are really facing a lot of difficulties. I don’t care if there are great mountains in I can list all of these things: climate change, poverty, inequality, armed conflicts, human rights violations, women’s rights violations, child rights violations, and individual armaments; we are living with all these global difficulties. 119 S T R A T C O M T A L K another country. I don’t care as much as he does about climate change or if he’s trying to protect those mountains. I don’t care if a country takes good care of its population because I don’t live there. But I’m looking to see if he’s trying to stop the pandemic because the pandemic affects me. Do you know what I mean? In other words, many governments often think of telling the world how beautiful it is and how successful it is while doing nation branding work. But no one cares because it’s no use to them. What they care about is, can I say that there are good two for this country? Does it benefit the international community? Would I miss it if it was gone? Would you know where it was? Does this nation contribute to building a world where my children and grandchildren will live in peace, stability, and happiness? So the answer is straightforward, after all. If you want a better image, you have to change direction. To do good in the world, you need to make solemn national commitments to your people and all 120 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 8 women, men, children, and animals. Because only then can admiration and dignity come. Only respect and dignity create prosperity. So no one has a choice; it’s the only way to go right now. I’m certainly not saying that nations should compromise their interests. I’m not saying that governments should give more money to poorer countries. That’s helpful valuable, but that’s not exactly what I’m talking about. This is not an act of self-sacrifice. So you have to fight climate change because it’s the right thing to do, and I’m not saying that you go to heaven when you die. I’m just saying, from the point of view of the short-term economic interest, all the examples show that when mission-oriented countries that care about the entire planet, fulfill their internal and external responsibilities, do their duty to both their people and to the people of other countries correctly, that is, take steps towards the well-being of those people, then they benefit from it. It’s both the right thing to do and the right thing to do. Doing the right thing is the same as doing the right thing in corporate social responsibility. I’m talking about corporate social responsibility here, not for an institution, but for a country this time. It’s working, it’s proven, and it’s the only option we have. So when we talk about nation branding, we should think less about opportunities and more about the good that can be done. I congratulate Türkiye. You have accepted so many refugees from Syria that rich countries have become ashamed of what they have not done, and stick to it; it seems like a terrific cause. 121 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 9 Welcome to Metaverse 122 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 9 Welcome to Metaverse 11 December 2021 • Glen Gilmore Founding Faculty Member of the Digital Marketing Executive Programs at Rutgers University School of Business - USA T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 123 S T R A T C O M T A L K 09 Metaverse, this place that brings together the digital and physical worlds, will not just be “meta” as defined by Facebook. It will be a world that brings together the digital and the physical. Glen Gilmore Welcome to the Metaverse. This is an Oculus device, and this is not the Metaverse. Mark Zuckerberg is not the Metaverse; Meta is not the Metaverse. But they’re all part of what will be the Metaverse. The Metaverse is a place that brings together the digital and the physical. And a device like this right here is something that lets you enter a completely immersive world. If you look at a game like Fortnite, it’s a game that has had at one given moment in the day, nearly a million players using it. And it’s a device that you access via your smartphone. The matter is what we hear about most when we hear about the Metaverse because it’s Facebook, and everybody’s using Facebook, and everyone’s on Facebook. But the Metaverse, this place that brings together the digital and physical worlds, will not just be meta as defined by Facebook. It will be a world that brings together the digital and the physical to find, I hope, by all of us. A work of art just sold the other 124 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 9 day, and it’s not a physical work of art; it is a digital unit of art. It’s sold for $69 million. You can see it in the Metaverse. When we hear the term metaverse, it may bring a lot of images to mind and a lot of question marks to mind. But the question that we all have is, “Will the Metaverse be a place that we’ll enter that we’ll want to advance?” This is an image of the Metaverse. This is an image of a doctor using an immersive virtual reality headset to do an operation on a mouse. Still, it will be a person, 30 kilometers away—a successful organ removal operation in the future. Think of the possibilities when you hear the term metaverse. Don’t just think of Facebook, Meta. When you hear Metaverse, understand that what Metaverse does is it taps into technology. There have been efforts in the past to use immersive technologies, but they haven’t quite worked. Technology advances, and so now we have 5G, the fifth generation of wireless communications that give us nearly instantaneous reaction time and data information. That is the only way that an operation can take place in the Metaverse because there can’t be a delay in the information that the doctor is receiving and the information that is being received by a robot. But think of the possibilities of the Metaverse because this is part of the Metaverse. Wherever you are in the world, there’s no reason you shouldn’t have access to the most incredible doctor. That’s what we need, excuse me, to think about when we think about the Metaverse. In this age of COVID, we’ve all changed how we work, and we find ourselves too often in front of a one-dimensional screen filled with many people. And it’s not how we as people are wired to interact with each other. What makes a difference, though, is the ability of the Metaverse to bring us together in an experience that feels very much like a real presence. I have a video that goes along with this, but I don’t know if it’s going to show for us. Well, it’s all right that it doesn’t, but this is an example of an enterprise application of the Metaverse that Microsoft has. And I’d encourage you to go on YouTube and look at it. And if you do, you will see an immersive world in which you’re at your home, or you’re at your office, and suddenly you bring together people from all over the world. And when they meet you, you see them physically. What’s so important about that is what’s important when we interact with each other. How I move, how I gesture, they tell an abundance of information. The ability to collaborate in the Metaverse is enormous. And as we continue to face problems like COVID that disallow us from having the sort of interactions that we would like to have more consistently, more frequently, the Metaverse offers us an opportunity to do that is very positive, practical ways. Seoul, Korea, is very much at the forefront of the digital, digital transformation. They’ve just announced that they’re going to have their city metaverse. Now, there might be some who recall a platform called 125 S T R A T C O M T A L K Second Life, and it promised to do many of the same things. So, what has changed here? What’s changed here and now is the technology that allows people to use immersive technologies, whether it’s an Oculus set or something like that, that gives you that immersive experience and does it reliably. Meet your mirror as an avatar? Meet yours. You fill in the blank. But an ability to have someone that you can have what we call data visualization if you were to, for example, put on a HoloLens set, which is kind of like the virtual reality set that I showed you a moment ago. Still, it’s much lighter, and it is made for enterprise. But when you put something like that on during a meeting and I’ve done that, and someone wants to show you a chart or someone wants to offer you a building, suddenly you can twirl the structure around. And we now have digital twins of buildings so that we can see what’s happening and go into much detail about what’s happening, again, using that immersive experience. At Davos in 2015, Eric Schmidt was asked about the future of the internet, what his prediction was for the end of the internet, and he said, “I expect it to disappear.” The CEO of Google. But he explained what he meant by he expected it to disappear. He went on to say that through the Internet of Things connected devices, I hope us to be immersed in the internet, kind of like The Matrix. And what makes it possible and what makes it now, again, is that advance in technology that Internet of Things connected devices what makes it possible and what makes it now, again, is that advanced technology that allows us to have real-time information and real-time experiences. 126 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 9 allows us to have real-time information and experiences. Technology improves, technology becomes less expensive and, therefore, much more accessible. And when it does, things change. And this is why when people ask me, “Well, haven’t there been efforts of this before and haven’t they failed?” Yes. So, what’s changed? I believe that high-speed internet is a game-changer for the long term, and that’s only going to get better as we move into 6G, which will allow that instantaneous exchange of information. When Google came out with Google Glass, the first version was a gentleman you see with the wires. That was the first version of Google Glass, and it went from that to this. Almost razor thin. And there are a lot of reasons why Google Glass failed. I had the good fortune of being a Google Glass explorer. I loved it. I love the experience of being able to walk down the street, and I could ask for information if I wanted to take a picture of someone; I could wink literally wink, not a blink, and I could take a photo. But when this came out, it was like it had a terrible reaction, people were like, “That’s an invasion of my privacy. I don’t want this.” And yet it was a glimpse of the future because tolerance changes over time, not just technology, so does tolerance. And so, when you had Google Glass come out, everyone was so upset with it because it can take pictures. Then Snapchat came out with their 127 S T R A T C O M T A L K glasses. It takes a video, you can snap a video and share a video, and suddenly the privacy issue wasn’t a problem. They said, “Well, that’s because these have yellow lights that show when you’re taking a video.” That’s not it. We’re sharing more, and we have a different tolerance level. That’s my perspective, at least. So, when someone asked me yesterday, “Well, why will I go into the Metaverse? Why will I use a metaverse?” My response is, will you use your phone? Why will you use your phone? “Because that’s where data is. That’s where social connection is.” As wearables become more accepted, they become less expensive. Google Glass, when it came out, cost 1500 US dollars. Now, it did a lot more than Snap glasses, but these were maybe about 130 US dollars. The prices change. Apple is promising, secretly, that it will come out with some wearable soon, and when it does, that will be the game-changer. Because whatever Apple comes out with, for whatever reason, for many reasons, we all gravitate to it. And suddenly, the notion of having a wearable will become commonplace. With Google Glass heads up, hands-free access to information virtual, which means not virtual, augmented, which means an overlay of information. But now we’re getting into a mixed reality, which gives us an immersive experience where you enter a world, augmented when you see it in front of you, and it’s here to stay in this time. It’s here to make a difference in a very positive way. We read about a virtual plot of land in the Metaverse for 2.4 million dollars. I say that’s crazy, but it’s not so crazy. I recently started reading Snow Crash, which is the book that coined the phrase “the metaverse.” And in that book talks about the value of virtual land. And it said, “Well, it’s expensive because that’s where the brightest, most innovative people are going and spending their time.” And this particular plot of land is a plot of land that’s being identified as part of the fashion district. So, it’s where people interested in buying luxury clothing are going and when we look at a platform like Snapchat, which has about 280 million daily users. Two hundred thousand or 200 million of those daily users are daily using augmented reality, part of the Metaverse. And what are they using that augmented reality for? To do, you know, silly selfies? In part. But they’re also buying watches with that augmented reality. They’re trying on a shirt; they’re trying on a dress to see how they look. So buying digital art is undoubtedly one aspect of the Metaverse. But what I need to help you understand is that the Metaverse, which uses technology to bring us an immersive experience, is a place where we can do incredible things. I was in China, and I watched a demonstration of people wearing a virtual reality headset, and they were learning how to solder metal with a piece of equipment that’s very dangerous. And yet they were able to do it in virtual reality with a very real-life experience at a minimal cost, minimal Two hundred thousand or 200 million of those daily users utilize augmented reality, part of the Metaverse daily. And what are they using that augmented reality for? 128 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 9 danger. And when I think of the necessity of educating people worldwide, I want to follow what Simon had said in commending Türkiye for leading the world in welcoming refugees and caring for refugees. We’ve seen with virtual reality training that it is staggeringly more effective than any other sort of training. And so, it’s something that we need to consider when we think about not just retail, and we think about games, but we also think about education. I spoke to another colleague here just yesterday, and he said that he’d created an application that lets workers learn how to do maintenance on the wind turbines out in the ocean. They said that’s a dangerous job to do, and it’s challenging to train people, but it can be done without that danger. But with a very realistic experience in the world of virtual reality. My introduction to the world of virtual reality was in 2015 when this headset was mailed out to about a million people who happen to subscribe to the New York Times. You fold it together, put your smartphone here, and then watch, not watch because for those who have used virtual reality, you know you don’t watch, you’re suddenly in a new world. My first experience with virtual reality was to step into a story that was told in the world of virtual reality. And for those of you who are in strategic communications, and I suspect nearly all of you are, think about the power of virtual reality to tell and share a story. For me, it was extremely powerful because what the New York Times chose to do was to tell the story of three refugees, one from Syria, one from Ukraine, and one from Southern Sudan. And we have heard all of us too many stories and read too many stories about so many tragic examples of the torment that refugees go through. This story was different in virtual reality, using this simple box on my smartphone. When I put this on, I wasn’t reading a novel. I was in the back of a pickup truck that had other kids, kids who were refugees who had found safety in a new country, only to be used for very cheap labor out in fields. And I found myself looking at the sky, looking at kids in the back of a pickup truck who are going on their way to work. And it is an image that haunted me because I was in that world. I saw it happen. When we think about the Metaverse, we should think about education, we should think about business, we should think about opportunity, and we should also think about social responsibility. There aren’t many people who can spend 1500 US dollars on Google Glass. But somehow, innovators were able to send out over a million of these, and there was no cost to those who got it. We need to be creative. The Metaverse is here because technology has arrived to allow it to happen. It’s upon all of us to have the imagination to bridge the digital divide and ensure that there’s opportunity and responsibility in there for everyone. Thank you very much My first experience with virtual reality was to step into a story told in the world of virtual reality. And for those of you who are in strategic communications, and I suspect nearly all of you are, think about the power of virtual reality to tell and share a story. 129 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 10 The Next Decade of Digital Diplomacy 130 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 10 The Next Decade of Digital Diplomacy 11 December 2021 • Matthias Lüfkens CEO of @DigiTips - Switzerland T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 131 S T R A T C O M T A L K 10 Today, 190 UN countries have a presence on Twitter, either with their head of states, the government, or the foreign ministries. There are only three countries in the world which are not, where the government is not on Twitter. Matthias Lüfkens I’m here to talk about the next decade of digital diplomacy. Because, as you probably might not know, digital diplomacy is celebrating this year ten years. On the 25th of May 2011, the former Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt sent this Tweet to Khalid Al Khalifa, the Foreign Minister of Bahrain, with a simple message trying to get in touch with you on an issue. This Tweet made international headlines because everybody wanted to know what does he want to talk about with his Bahraini counterpart. It turned out he wanted to address an issue of a Swedish national who was imprisoned in Bahrain. A day later, Khalid Al Khalifa replied at Carl Bildt: “Nice to hear from you to catch up on matters. Your Tweet caught the world’s interest”. Obviously this was kind of the first time that foreign ministers connected directly on Twitter. Carl Bildt didn’t choose traditional diplomatic channels through the embassy and the government channels. But he 132 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 10 went straight on Twitter, and he sent a public reply to Khalid Al Khalifa. And this is seminal, really the beginning of digital diplomacy. Fast forward to 2021, today, 190 UN countries have a presence on Twitter, either with their head of state, the government, or the foreign ministries. And here’s just a selection of them. There are only three countries in the world that are not, where the government is not on Twitter. Does anybody have an idea who they are? No, China is big on social media. North Korea, obviously one. Turkmenistan is two, and the last one is Laos. So, Laos, North Korea, and Turkmenistan are the three countries where the government is not active on social media via Twitter, Facebook, or other channels. So obviously, you know, these heads of state and governments are on Twitter over the past ten years. They have digital teams who will be tweeting and posting social media content for them. There’s nothing wrong with that. As long as they know what the message is, as long as they know what they are saying on social media. Over the past ten years, it has become a bit like a digital arms race. As world leaders were vying to get an army of followers, this is from a couple of days ago, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the most followed world leader with 73 million followers on Twitter alone. These are just figures for Twitter, Joe Biden; the US President is in the second position with 31 million. Pope Francis 18 million just ahead of the Türkiye President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Then the Indonesian President, the President of India, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Sheikh Mohammed of the ruler of Dubai, Queen Rania from Jordan and King Salman of Saudi Arabia completed the top 10 list of the most followed world leaders. So, they’ve created armies of social media followers, which is excellent. But these ten people or eight of them have one thing in common. Do you have any idea what that is? What do they have in common? Well, to be very blunt, Joe Biden, Pope Francis, we had to tell you about one. The President of India, Imran Khan, Sheikh Mohammed, Rania, Queen Rania, and King Salman do not follow any other world leader, which I think is sad, because you know, social media is there to connect with people, and they don’t connect with other world leaders. The only one who’s well connected is the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He does follow a host of other leaders from small and big countries. But what’s interesting he does not follow Joe Biden nor the official POTUS account. So, I think this is quite interesting. You know that he is very selective about who he follows. The Indonesian President Joko Widodo does follow one other world leader, and that is, specifically Narendra Modi. So, you know, it’s unfortunate to see that these, our leaders, do not connect with each other on social media because that is what digital diplomacy is about, I think, you know. It’s really important to follow other 133 S T R A T C O M T A L K users and maybe interact publicly, as we’ve seen with Carl Bildt and Khalid Al Khalifa. So, this year, the US State Department tweeted this: “The United States is leading with diplomacy, basically tweeting,” we are back. America’s alliances are our greatest asset. And leading with diplomacy means standing shoulder to shoulder with our allies and critical partners once again. “Great message to, you know, see the US State Department’s, you know, being active again with its allies. But if you look at the Twitter account of the US State Department, they’re the most followed foreign ministry on Twitter with over 6 million followers. And they are following 222 other accounts. How many foreign leaders, how many foreign ministries do you think they follow? Did I hear that? Well, it is zero, no. They are not following any other foreign ministry. I have to admit; the Turkish foreign ministry is not much better. The account of the Türkiye foreign minister does not follow any other foreign ministry, which is sad. Because you know, if you have diplomatic relations with a country, I think it is a matter of courtesy to follow each other on social media, Twitter in this example. Now, one country or foreign ministry is Iceland’s Foreign Ministry. They’re among the best-connected ministries in the world. They only have 20,000 followers. So, it’s instead a small account in the scales of things. But they have mutual Twitter relations with over 120 countries. So, they’re following the other foreign ministry America’s alliances are our greatest asset. Leading with diplomacy means standing shoulder to shoulder with our allies and key partners. 134 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 10 and the foreign leaders. So, I think this is really what we want to have when we speak about digital diplomacy. And I think this is for the next decade, what we need to achieve better communication, better coordination on social media, and that they follow each other. So, as the Foreign Ministry, the Icelandic Foreign Minister tweeted: “See, size doesn’t matter. Hashtag digital diplomacy, hashtag Iceland, hashtag small states.” Talking about digital diplomacy, last year, the Israeli government had a significant impact after the signing of the Abraham Accords. And Israel accounts tweeted: “What better way to celebrate today’s history, historic peace agreement than with a new filter, and the UAE, Israel, and Bahrain flags. Check out our special filter on the Israeli Instagram account” And here it is, this filter, which more than a million people used, really to express joy at establishing diplomatic relations and digital relations between Israel and the Arab states in the Gulf. So I think this was a great example of how digital diplomacy had an impact, how users could on Instagram, put this face, you know, this filter on there with the flags. So I think this was a great example of positive digital diplomacy. 135 S T R A T C O M T A L K So, as we’ve heard during the COVID pandemic, our leaders and we all were pushed into Zoom calls and had to learn how to mute your microphone, which is subtle in diplomatic terms, to shut up. This is the EU Council meeting online here, the first one. And so, leaders had to adapt. And adapting does not mean adoption of these new digital channels. We saw last year. They were following the Zoom calls in their respective offices. So, this is a new reality that everyone, old leaders, had to get used to. The key question is, did they have closer relations through Zoom calls? I think with video chats, they had. This is an example of the President of Armenia chatting to the President of Georgia here on their laptops. And I think by looking each other in the eye, on computer screens, they maybe have a much more intimate relationship than we think. It was not in the big meetings. The G7, the G20, the UN General Assembly were just a collection of pre-recorded video statements. And especially during the UN General Assembly, you did not have to stay to listen to all of them. And that’s in general at the UN General Assembly. But here, I think, Zoom calls are, you know, for big meetings don’t work. And there was one thing that was missing, and it is the base of the discussions in the corridor. As you know, that’s where you kind of have the face-to-face meeting, the bilateral meetings. And in that way, you know, the digital bilateral meetings, the hype on video calls, I think they can still work. But you know, for big gatherings, meeting your peers in the corridors is essential. So, talking about hybrid diplomacy, the UK and New Zealand just signed a free trade agreement talking about hybrid diplomacy. And what was interesting was that neither Boris Johnson nor Jacinda Arden, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, traveled around the world. But they just did this digitally in a video call here, where you can see both sides, and it was an adorable little video that was shared, you know, ready to show their the celebration of this free trade agreement. I think this kind of hybrid diplomacy will see much more in the next couple of years, whether we still have COVID or not, because, you know, ministers and world leaders will think twice before traveling around the world for a short meeting. So, I think this is; that’s a new reality. We have to live with it. And you know, that’s hybrid diplomacy for you. I don’t know what you think about selfies. I love selfies, especially when you have well leaders posting selfies. This is the Foreign Minister of Singapore. Here, on the left, Vivian Balakrishnan. He snapped a selfie with the North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jung-Un just before the summit with a former US president. I like it because it brings people together and another one is historic. It’s Narendra Modi visiting the Forbidden City in Beijing and snapping a selfie with the Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang. This is a great way, you know, really to show friendship, when you gather for a selfie. Since then, this is from a couple of years ago; China has We will see much more “Hybrid Diplomacy” in the next couple of years, whether we still have COVID or not, because ministers and world leaders will think twice before traveling around the world for a short meeting. 136 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 10 made great strides on social media. All the ambassadors, all the embassies, the foreign ministers, and massively on Twitter and Facebook, and start also to be on Instagram. Well, Twitter and Facebook are still banned in China. The missions are very active, and they’ve adopted a tone and style, which is not really diplomatic, I have to say. This is, for example, a broadside against the Americans. There is no leader of democracy in the world, and no country has the right to lecture others on democracy. Remember that Tweet from the US Foreign Ministry just a couple of slides before. So, you know, very, very strong wording. They also praise China’s model of democracy and, obviously, the Chinese Communist Party. Here is a tweet that has become very popular on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s account about the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. If you want to say Russia and Ukraine are almost at loggerheads or on a path to war, if we’re looking at Twitter. Russia has the Russia account on Twitter and Ukraine as the Ukraine account on Twitter. And since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, the relations have not been the best. And that’s an understatement. But what is interesting on Twitter, it is still the Ukrainians who have the @Crimea Twitter account. And, you know, what we can see on their accounts is quite interesting. Because they accuse each other sometimes, you know, for example, a couple of days ago, the Ukrainian account tweeted the four types of headaches: migraine, hypertension, stress, and living next to Russia, which gave them a severe headache, to which the Russia account replied, a couple of hours later: “Dear Ukraine, the 137 S T R A T C O M T A L K red wine headache, also known as RWH, has you confused. Choose your wines carefully, order from Russia’s Crimea.” So, this is the kind of Tweet for Tweet that we can see on their accounts. And I don’t know if it is beneficial for, you know, peaceful, digital diplomatic relations, but unfortunately, that is the way it goes. And sometimes, we do have an all-out war, which is then reflected on the Twitter channels. At the beginning of this year, Hamas fired hundreds of rockets against Israeli civilians, and the Israel account tweeted 12 Tweets with the rocket emoji. The aim was here to give you all some perspective. These rockets are the total amount of rockets shot at Israel’s Israeli civilians. Each one of these rockets is meant to kill. The Israeli Foreign Ministry also then organized several Twitter spaces. These are audio conversations with people living under the constant threat of Hamas attacks. It’s interesting how this war played out on social media, unfortunately, you know, for an unfortunate reason. The Israeli Foreign Ministry was excellent during the first lockdown of the pandemic in 2020. And in March 2020, they tweeted: “We are bored, you’re bored. So, now’s your chance to ask us anything you’ve ever wanted to know about Israel.” And they proceeded to do a Twitter Q&A, where you could ask questions, and they would answer with lots of humor and chutzpah. It was a great, great exercise. They’ve done it; they’ve done it several times. I wish more world leaders would go out and do these, you know, Q&A sessions and more Twitter spaces, talking to their social media followers. I think it’s essential. And also in the coming decades, you know, I want our governments, our leaders to connect with us, you know, with the citizens on social media, because that’s where we are. Now, some of them already do. Who knows this woman Jacinda Arden, the Prime Minister of New Zealand? She holds the regular press conference about the latest government decisions, about the state of the pandemic in New Zealand. And then, in the evening, after hours at home, she takes out her phone, and she’ll sit down and do a Facebook Live. It’s always an impromptu life. So, it’s not announced, you know, she will speak to talk to her community. So here it’s been a while, a quick Facebook Live just to check-in or check-in to see how everyone’s doing and recap on a few government decisions. She talks about her work like you know; you would talk about your work to your children in the evening. And basically, a very conversational, you know, way to interact and directly address our audience. Her videos get hundreds of thousands of views, and you know, they’re, it’s herself, alone on her sofa after having fed her baby. So, I like this style of direct interaction with your community. The Foreign Minister of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, does the same. He opens his laptop and gives a short 10 minutes talk about what has happened. But he has been consistent in addressing his followers 138 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 10 on social media. And I like this, because It’s so personal, it’s not the official press conference. The Russian account tweeted an anniversary picture with Vladimir Putin here and preceding the Russian bear about the Russian President for 69th birthday. Russian President Vladimir Putin does not have a personal Twitter account or Facebook. Neither does the Chinese President Xi Jinping. They probably don’t need it. Angela Merkel, the outgoing German chancellor, always refused to open a Twitter account. And she even deleted her Facebook page with several million followers. So, it’s unfortunate that some leaders don’t open up to social media. And I find it sad. I hope that will change over the next decade as the younger generation comes to power. Jacinda Arden is in her early 40s. So, it remains to be seen how our elected officials will use these channels. One thing we can, I can say for sure, I don’t think they will adopt the Metaverse. So, this Metaverse where the online and the offline fuse imagined by Mark Zuckerberg here fencing with fencer in doing this, this video. I can’t see our world leaders playing or even having a roundtable discussion with their avatars because we know how it works in big Zoom calls. So, I don’t know it’s something, you know, we will see how they will use these new channels and embrace the Metaverse. But, for me, one thing is sure. They will only assume the Metaverse if they can control the Metaverse. Because I think one thing that we also hear from speeches is our leaders are insecure when they cannot control these digital spaces. And as you all know, these digital spaces are not owned by one government, but they’re owned by a few handfuls of, this morning somebody said, Social Media Barons. So, unelected CEOs of these companies. And if you look at the statistics, the biggest country in the world is Facebook, followed by YouTube in terms of their citizens or terms of their users. And I think this is something that won’t change over the next year. So, I don’t think we will see any government-owned social media space. So, with that, thank you very, very much. Unfortunately, I will have to bail out. I’m happy to take any questions and comments. And you can follow me on social media down there. It’s @luefkens, @DigiTips. So happy to connect, and thank you very much for listening. 139 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Panel | 1 Rethinking Government Communication 140 STRATCOM PANEL - 1 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 1 Rethinking Government Communication 11 December 2021 • Murat Karagöz General Director of Information at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Türkiye (Moderator) • Lutz Güllner Head of Division, EEAS - Belgium • Eero Raun CEO of Fortator - Estonia • Rihards Bambals Head of Strategic Communications at State Chancellery - Latvia • Vladimir Gushchin Chief Communications Officer at Center for Strategic Research- Russia • Përparim Kryeziu Spokesperson of the Government of Kosovo - Kosovo T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 141 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 01 The pandemic is probably an important opportunity for states to reach out to threatened citizens. Murat Karagöz I want to welcome everyone. This is our first panel, the first panel in hybrid form. We will discuss a challenging topic in this panel, but we will also discuss it with an incredible group of experts. I think it will be an informative and fun panel. At the end of the session, I am sure that you will have gained many inputs and insights, and these achievements will be helpful for your future work. You will also have the opportunity to compare because you will see different stakeholders’ performances; opinions will be presented in a range from Russia, the European Union, Latvia, Estonia to Kosovo. We will also hear examples from Türkiye. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous global impact; it has affected many areas such as health systems, economy, education, tourism, culture, and transportation. The pandemic is probably an important opportunity for states to reach out to threatened citizens. Because governments are having great difficulty reaching 142 STRATCOM PANEL - 1 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 them. The communication skills of the state are being tested in this trial process. From an international point of view, many nations have either failed in this area or have slowly established effective communication and coordination with other countries. Today we will listen to some best practices in communication skills that we hope will help us through this challenging process. It would be beneficial for Türkiye to address three points, especially from the perspective of foreign policy. I want to call it success or gain. These achievements are also directly linked to government access. The first one is success in evacuation. In the process, more than 100,000 Turkish citizens from 143 countries were evacuated or were able to return home. Thirty-eight thousand foreigners from 91 countries were able to return to their countries from Türkiye despite the border restrictions. This requires successful communication skills. And very successful coordination could be made between the state institutions for this. Second, openness and generosity in international cooperation. Since the pandemic’s beginning, Türkiye has extended its hand to 160 countries and 12 international organizations for various reasons. At the same time, it provided 1. 7 million doses of vaccine to 12 countries. This shows Türkiye’s commitment. It also indicates successful state communication. Finally, of course, multilateralism and intense interest in consultation. In this context, I want to reiterate the importance of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum. Because in such a process, countries, individuals, and institutions can disintegrate, but what diplomacy means is to talk. We have a situation that requires us to talk to each other. What we did we communicated with Zoom and other technologies. This was important. These were the three attempts of our Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu. He launched the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, a senior and diplomatic professionals meeting. Despite the severe conditions of the pandemic in Antalya last summer, ten heads of state and 45 foreign ministers met. In other words, a quarter of the foreign ministers of each nation were in Antalya. There were 60 representatives of institutions and opinion leaders, media representatives, and the business community. Common regional and international issues were discussed. It was successful this year as well as last year. Because 2000 people gathered in a single congress palace and of course, serious health measures were taken, For this reason, there was no negativity. We will discuss diplomacy again in our meeting to be held again in March. Now I want to go back to the panelists. Eero Raun, from Estonia. He has a remarkable career, an excellent combination of music, public relations, and communications. And currently, he is the CEO of Fortator company. He worked beginning this year as Communications Director for Prime Minister’s Office or State Chancellor if I’m not wrong. About 5-6 months, he conducted his job. And he 143 S T R A T C O M P A N E L also had a PhD studies at the very famous Tartu University. And he also worked for a while as the Board Member of Estonia Institute. Eero, if you do not mind, may I ask to what extent the Estonian government’s communication efforts were practical since the pandemic outbreak? Eero Raun Thank you, Ambassador. And I do agree with you that it’s essential to sit down in the same room in person together to keep the relations strong. And I would like to thank the organizers, the Directorate of Communications, for the invitation for the brilliant arrangements you have made in a very last minute and a short time. I can bring you some observations from Estonia. First, I was unfortunate to see in March 2020 how quickly and easily the Schengen regime ceased to function because of the rapid growth of the pandemics. And, the free movement of people and goods, as the basic principles of the EU, was severely disturbed. 144 STRATCOM PANEL - 1 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 But my most positive impression has been to follow that after this short period of confusion, the European Commission has been really able to work for supplying the European citizens with vaccines, and also to relieve, I should say, the anxiety and fragmentation of politics within the Member States sometimes. So, the EU has proved its necessity once again. Focusing on my native country, Estonia has gone through three major waves of pandemics. The first one in March and April last year brought the establishment of a state of emergency. So, you see the streets, schools and offices were all empty, people were afraid of each other, and the economy got seriously hit. Political decision-makers did not know the new disease, as we all didn’t know. And they agreed to pay a large amount of compensation for private companies. And this phase ended in strong solidarity among the whole nation and will to get over all the consequences of the pandemics. When we spoke in March this year, the second wave happened shortly after the exchange of government in Estonia. Therefore, it took away a significant amount of trust on behalf of citizens towards the new government. So, there was no more a state of emergency declared, no more compensations paid, and not enough vaccines for people. Domestic political tensions, therefore, got extremely high. And by the way, Estonia, at that time, was led by two female leaders, both President and Prime Minister, and they were personally strong to survive this intense turmoil. And the third wave came from Estonia has gone through three major waves of pandemics. The first one in March and April last year brought the establishment of a state of emergency. 145 S T R A T C O M P A N E L its sharp just a month ago, right after the presidential elections, and precisely during the local elections. Schools now are being kept open as much as possible. And so the economy. We now have plenty of vaccines but not enough people are willing to have the injections. So about 40% of the population is still not fully vaccinated, and definitely, it’s too much. As always, freedom of expression has at least two sides, if not more. There are small, but strongly resistance-minded target groups who share their belief in conspiracy theories and alternative truth. Major news channels tried to keep the balance in line, but you know, the power of social media. It always remains independent, and it might do harm a lot for ordinary people. Estonians are currently proud of the excellent results of economic growth but worried about the possible common crisis in the economy and the new versions of the virus. So, what are the lessons to learn concerning also strategic communication? First, if people outside our area talk about communication, it can be interpreted as a euphemism. There is a talk about maybe leadership on the different levels. So, lack of communication often means growth of distrust due to weak management. Second, we need to learn more to combine the efforts of the public and private sectors. Third, the crisis regulation needs to use and trust the professionals. One of the best decisions made by the Estonian government was to invite the most experienced scientists, knowing the viruses and human behavior altogether, to join a scientific council. And this council has given the best possible advice about vaccination and the need for restrictions to the government and helped answer the crucial question “why” to the journalists and the rest of society. There is always a need for more proactive management of expectations of the people, as poorly reactive management style. Following the assumptions of citizens might be a dead end. We will have continuously complex challenges in front of us and future governments. And they have to build more trust on a broader scale to solve these problems. So, strategic management and strategic communication can help a lot of if it that can always be precise, fresh, and I should also say open-minded. Murat Karagöz Eero, thank you so much. Thank you for this candid response. The next speaker online is Mr. Vladimir Gushchin from Russia. We will go online to Moscow. Vladimir 146 STRATCOM PANEL - 1 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Gushchin is the Chief Communications Officer at the Center for Strategic Research. He has a communications professional focus on international relations and public affairs. He is an experienced consultant to state authorities, NGOs, and big businesses. And he also enjoys profound expertise in market access and strategic communication issues, particularly on Russia NCIS. And now, Vladimir, if I may, how do you evaluate the Russian government’s communication skills during the pandemic period? Vladimir Gushchin Okay. “Hello Ambassador and dear guests.” I hope that it all sounded good. Greetings from Moscow, and thanks a lot to you for this opportunity to take part in the event. And so, I would like to share some experience from my side in this field. 147 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Your excellency and dear guests, when you are talking about strategic communications and government communications in Russia, you should consider the peculiarities of government politics and understand the structure of government activities at the moment. As you said already, the pandemic is not over yet. And we’re all fighting with the new types of the Coronavirus. Therefore, we see that because of these and other issues, the transformation of government communications in Russia is underway and has become nearly permanent. Moreover, this process is stimulated by a profound restructuring of the economy. Some global issues and, of course, digitalization. That is going on. As you probably know, the state in Russia has always played an essential role in maintaining social stability and economic growth. It also is. Right now, it’s the heart of the social-economic environment in the country. And those shifts that have emerged because of the pandemic affect the business climate in the country dramatically. It’s trade imports and exports. The government now proceeds from the need to support businesses that have suffered a lot from the disruption of many chains and reducing or dramatic changes in consumption. So, it aims to start the energy transition process and stimulate further digitalization of various fields, including government services for the population. And let’s talk about the structure of the state. It would help if you understood that the government had done a lot to set up a community of NGOs and even big businesses to involve all those structures in solving problems that emerged in the pandemic. And frankly speaking, it seems these tactics have turned relatively efficient because, since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic, a lot has been done to promote vaccination for small and medium businesses to get that support from the government in various fields. So, I think that the government efficiency is relatively high at the moment. But we still have a long way to fight this even skepticism among people. That is still spread despite. So, there were substantial information flows and streams. So, that’s it, Mr. Ambassador. Murat Karagöz Vladimir, thank you. Again, another glorious career. He is the Head of Division at the Strategic Communications at the European External Action Service (EAC). He assumed a critical post within the European Commission. For a while, I believe, between 2009 and 10, he also acted as a spokesperson for Catherine Ashton. And his work focuses on addressing disinformation threats for the EU and its 148 STRATCOM PANEL - 1 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 neighboring region, which we address today, especially during the keynote speech of Prof. Dr. Fahrettin Altun today. So, if I may Lutz, the EU is widely criticized for being slow in responding to the COVID crisis. Please correct me if I’m wrong. What could the EU do better in communicating its efforts to cope with the pandemic, and to what extent criticisms targeting the EU were part of a disinformation campaign? Lutz Güllner I think this crisis has shown us one key takeaway: political communication is changing, not only political communication. There has been for a long time the saying about “to do good and talk about it”, which is very much the idea of any PR company. But this has changed now. It’s no longer “do good and talk about it,” but “reflect before you do something, and talk about it before you do something.” So, this point that Jānis Sārts just made about the mindset, the STRATCOM mindset is crucial to integrate it into political communications at the beginning of the process, not at the end, to sell something. I think this is something that a lot of, particularly on the government side, people still have to internalize that a lot of our political agenda points will depend on how we build in the information environment. And there are lots of opportunities. I’m not mentioning all of them. But if you see how we have started to learn from this crisis, in terms of vaccination rates, for example, how we engage within the international sphere, with our partners. There are many issues here. But there is, of course, also significant risk and as Jānis has eloquently referred to this. In my view, the risk is not just a communication challenge. The trouble is more significant, it can have an impact on the entire society, and it can have a real-life impact. And I think especially during the crisis, during the health crisis, we have seen that the manipulation and disinformation can lead to real, real impact to death, to something substantial. So, it’s not an esoteric issue. And we need to understand this, and we need to affect this. There are four points that we need to do to deal with this, and maybe also a bit for our discussion. Again, the first one is something very much in line with what Jānis has explained. We need to invest more to understand better how this threat is working; our situational awareness is still relatively low. And I think all of us here professionals need to constantly and continuously learn. What is the issue? Who This crisis has shown us one key takeaway, and that is that political communication is changing, and not only political communication. 149 S T R A T C O M P A N E L are the actors? What is the behavior? What is the content also used? What is the effect? These are crucial elements, and we need to be really on top of the issue. And then, of course, we need to build our resilience. And that resilience will not be quickly or easily achieved with just one or two policy areas; we need to think of many policy areas together: media policy and educational policy, sometimes also foreign and security policy. And indeed, the issues that we talked about here also improved our ability to communicate strategically. And then something we have not talked about is, of course, also the role of social media. I think the President talked about this. There are issues around this. We need to have a more precise set of rules of the game. But we need to be careful; we should not regulate the content in particular if it’s not illegal content. But we need to have more responsibility, more transparency, and more accountability of the social media companies. I think this is precisely also what is happening here. And last but not least, let’s also think about international cooperation in this field. How do we work together? And maybe also what are the rules of the game internationally? I believe this is important. We don’t have any international norms in this field. And it will be good to think about what is responsible state behavior in that field. Thank you, Murat. Back to you. Murat Karagöz The next speaker is Rihards Bambals from Latvia. He has a career as a diplomat with 11 years of experience in foreign and security policy. He is currently the Head of Strategic Commissions at the State Chancellery. His doctoral thesis was about “Human Security as a National Interest in Foreign Policy: Case Analysis of Japan, Canada, and Norway.” So, I guess it’s quite an interesting one. And with this thesis, he was honored with the award of the year for achievements in science by the University of Latvia. So, Rihards, welcome again. If I may, how did you use communication strategies for reaching out to Latvian citizens? Would you call your strategies convenient and practical enough? Rihards Bambals Yes, hello! Good morning, Murat and all the panelists. First, I think the question we should answer is: why? Why Latvia? What do 150 STRATCOM PANEL - 1 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 we have to tell Türkiye? And what do we have to say to the world in strategic communications? And first, I think we have the outline that we have lived the disinformation and misinformation since the restoration of independence 30 years ago. Secondly, I believe small states such as Latvia often specialize in niche expertise, which is helpful for larger countries and international institutions such as the European Union and NATO. And third, I think it’s also a matter of national security, which has to be protected in all domains, including land, sea, or air, and cognitive warfare and our security in the information domain. And having said that, I think Latvia has an excellent record of accomplishments. For example, in 2014, we established the NATO STRATCOM Centre of Excellence. You just heard it from the Director himself, just an hour ago. A year later, in 151 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 2015, during the Latvian Presidency of the EU Council, we were the country that pushed for a more coherent, united, used approach to responding to the threats of disinformation and, hence, establishing the STRATCOM Task Force. And since then, Latvia always has had a kind of experts to the international team. And last but not least, I think this year in 2021, Latvia was among the countries that spearheaded globally, an initiative in the United Nations to adopt the General Assembly Resolution on media and information literacy, which invites all UN countries to incorporate mill in their policies, and to do it every year, end of October. So, this brings me to Latvia in, remarkably now enduring pandemic. The main thesis here I want to make is that when a crisis strikes, one is just as good as all the preparation work and all the instruments that have been developed in advance before the crisis. And here, I think our model has been built on a whole of government and call of society approach and developing resilience against such turmoil, including the information security domain. Moreover, my department at the time leading since September this year, the Department of Strategic Communications, has been created right before just a month or two before the crisis trap. And since then, the department has evolved and developed into an institutionalized strategic communication capacity, beneficial and used by all state institutions. And here I think of maybe just a word to say what we do, and perhaps, it might be beneficial for others in this model of cooperation work. First, we constantly monitored Latvia’s information space, including social media, disinformation, and hostile narratives. We cooperate closely with social media and tech companies. We are Latvia’s international point of contact on short lines, Facebook, Google, and others. And we also do regular research and opinion polling, especially on COVID-19, which then feeds into the policymaking process, in the decision-making process, be it the Ministry of Health or the vaccination bureau, or the government, or the crisis team, which has also been created within the state Chancellery and takes all the decisions related to the security measures and COVID-19 and vaccination. And moreover, we have an essential function of coordinating joint messaging and actions across all ministries and government institutions in Latvia. For example, I lead myself personally every week, weekly meetings between spokespersons heads of communication departments of different ministries to convey the main messaging narratives on COVID and exchange the main topics of the week in a very focused way other domains as well. We also do strategic communication campaigns, including in COVID-19. We also created one particular website, a one-stop website, and a one-stop phone line on COVID-19 questions. Not just in Latvian, but also in Russian and English, even though those do not 152 STRATCOM PANEL - 1 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 state official languages. And we have also invested in building state and societal resilience by organizing different pieces of training crisis simulations, even during the pandemic. The pandemic didn’t stop the work both for state officials but also for municipalities, schools, and other actors. And here, I just want to finalize my intervention; I want to emphasize that we build all our work on strengthening and creating a healthy and secure information ecosystem based on three main principles. The first principle is effective and timely communication between the state and its citizens. But this is just one part of a frame. Second is as essential, which is quality to be independent and safe media environment and actively engaged civil society treating journalists as our friends, as our allies in the fight against pandemic and not restricting their 153 S T R A T C O M P A N E L access to information. So, we have also often organized cross-sectoral briefings with experts from different ministries right after different government meetings to explain in detail to journalists, what has been taken, what kind of decisions have been taken; be it security-related, be it vaccine-related or other. And then the third element is building societal resilience by equipping all inhabitants with media and information literacy skills and critical thinking skills to be better able to counter disinformation, misinformation, information operations, and other hostilities. Murat Karagöz And now I move on to our next speaker, a young but highly efficient person, Kosovo Government Spokesman Mr. Përparim Kryeziu. He is a very experienced researcher, and the fields he usually works in are statistical data analyses. They also work in various think tanks. Compared to other European countries, Kosovo is notable for its low number of cases. For example, when we look at the statistics for September 9th, we see only 19 new cases. How did your communication strategies contribute to this? Përparim Kryeziu Well, let me start off by saying thank you for having me here. It’s an absolute pleasure to be part of this panel with such distinguished guests and distinguished audience. I would like to take this opportunity to share some of my observations that have, I think, turned into lessons from my experience in the communications and during the pandemic. This past year has been a true testimony how a proper communication at such a large scale of public health crisis can help contain a pandemic and save lives, or how an improper communication could negatively affect institutional efforts to fight and contain the virus. And I think that during this time, our governments have experienced one of the largest undertakings in mass communications. Now, as you mentioned, I think it’s fair to say that Kosovo has been a successful story when it comes to managing pandemic, both in the first round of the wave of the pandemic in the early March 2020, up until June 2020 when Kosovo, in several cases was mentioned as a successful story in containing the virus at a time where many of us had not much information on how to deal with it. And to this day, Kosovo remains a successful story with a very low number of cases, the 154 STRATCOM PANEL - 1 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 lowest in the region, but at the same time, with the highest rate of vaccination in the region, with now around, if not over 60% of population of 16 years old or over getting vaccinated with two doses, and over 6-7% of the same group of population with at least one dose. And this has certainly helped in the low number of cases and low number of hospitalization and most importantly, low number of deaths. Now, without going into the types of the restrictive measures that Kosovo has took, which of course were designed and proposed by health experts, supported and adopted by governments that believes in science and implemented by attentive and responsible personnel of their respective authorities. I think that there are three things that made have a massive impact on how we handled that pandemic from a communication perspective. First one I would say was the public messaging and the breaking down of the public messaging into goal, objective, ways and results. Obviously, the goal was pretty straightforward, at least at the beginning of the pandemic, and that is stopping the spread of the virus. The objective at the time was clear, and that was to flatten the curve. The ways, in addition to the restrictive measures, were the call for wearing a mask at all times, especially in indoors, washing your hands, keeping the hygiene and minding your distance. And the results were the daily update of the new numbers of cases and those who have recovered and have left hospital to sort of give people the impression of keeping track of their behavior. And this allowed, I think, that citizens to become much more responsible of their behavior and become active contributor in disseminating the message being that the message was very clear, and it was broken down into specific categories, and also become actively engaged in fighting the pandemic. The second, I think, is that we were very present in public, as government officials via regular press conferences, media appearance, and other means of communications, leaving no or leaving less to no room for conspiracy and disinformation, which has been something that I think every one of us, all institutions have faced during this time. So, we were available and accessible to the media, and we treated media in a friendly way. And we were very prompt in addressing their concerns and misunderstanding. And also, we work consciously.We consciously expressed doses of vulnerability towards the fact that there are things that we don’t have answers to, because there were still many unknowns, and I think that this gave the citizens the feeling of being part of something that we’re all in together. And the third thing is that we gave floor to the medic. We gave the floor on the spotlight to the medical experts in the public. Health professionals became 155 S T R A T C O M P A N E L the new celebrities in Kosovo, basically, everybody knew them. And they quickly became the new figures of public authority when it came to discussing pandemic and clearing out any doubts about the true risks of the virus. And I think that these three steps, three things are just as valuable to any type of communication, even beyond an actor, such a health crisis. Thank you. Murat Karagöz Now we will move to the second part of the panel. This time we’ll start backwards. That’s why I’m going to start with Përparim. Domain data analysis in which he is strong. Benjamin said it was called lies and then statistics. So, this quote from the former British politician tells us the power of numbers. Now, when we convert raw data into statistics, we can see a summary of what really happened. From this point of view, can you talk about the increasing role of data analysis in state communication? Përparim Kryezıu Yes, well, as you mentioned, my academic background is in sociology, and sociology often tries to explain their projects, social behaviors, and social happenings based on empirical data. I’m pleased to say that the new government of Kosovo aims to establish evidence-based policymaking as a new norm of policymaking. As you all know, policymaking for a long time has often been based on ideology and what could be perceived as common sense. But over time, we have understood that policies often succeed at particular times and contexts. And time and context could be determined or acknowledged based on the evidence and data. And I think that the same logic applies to communication as well. Of course, you want your strategic communication to be based on data because such data will assist you greatly in knowing and recognizing your audience, evaluating your performance, someone thinks that has been said already, during this summit, and reshaped accordingly. That’s very, very important. Now, it is unfortunate in the case of Kosovo, at least, to the best of my knowledge, that communication offices within the government institutions, especially media or press offices, in the past, but currently as well, do not use data analysis to upgrade and advance its communication. And this, of course, must change, and I am confident that this will change, especially given that our new government has one of the main objectives, the digitalization of services and data. And we are 156 STRATCOM PANEL - 1 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 currently drafting our digital plan for 2030. In addition to providing electronic services, that will undoubtedly help us build a large set of databases that could be used to monitor, evaluate, assess, and reshape our way of doing things and saying things. Murat Karagöz We now stretch from the Balkans to the Baltics and turn to Rihards Bambals, back to Latvia. Rihards also created new definitions during this pandemic period. One of them is social resistance or flexibility. In this case, what can we infer from the pandemic regarding social flexibility, and what can be done to strengthen society’s reactions to such significant threats? This is very close to capacity building; please correct me if I’m wrong. How can societies increase their resilience and resilience to such disasters? For example, do you have a to-do list in this field? Rihards Bambals Yes, thank you. From the outset of the COVID-19 crisis already from March 2020, I believe the World Health Organization coined the term not only societal resilience but also “infodemia” is the new term that came up with this crisis. And it was already from then identified as one of the key obstacles. We have experienced in different ways, be it within the European Union or in Latvia, that infodemia has stopped people from wearing face masks. It has stopped people from taking the virus seriously initially from following the safety and security measures put in place by the government. And once the vaccines have been developed, disinformation has hindered effective vaccine uptake by the population. So, this coincides also with the research that we have done in 2020, where we learned that not that many people have good media and information literacy skills. Only 1/4 of the population felt confident that they could distinguish actual and factual information from fabricated and manipulated. So, on the one hand, you have massive infodemia that accompanies the pandemic. And on the other hand, you have a vulnerable society, which is not adequately equipped with media and information literacy skills and how to counter it. And when we go more into depth when you ask questions and opinion polls about COVID-19 and obstacles, why people have delayed their vaccine uptake, why they don’t vaccinate. Then we realize that they repeat the same hostile disinformation or misinformation narratives that have been pushed our way that 157 S T R A T C O M P A N E L the vaccines against COVID are not safe, that the government wants unnecessarily control people, that the government is inventing the COVID-19 numbers in the hospitals, or that they are inflated that the virus is not dangerous, that it’s even safer to contract the actual virus and to recover from it rather than to vaccinate it, etc., etc. So, we see that disinformation can have substantial health harm on people’s lives and create individual tragedies. But we have learned from this, and we tried something exciting and innovative. Last month, for example, we combined the influencers, using influencers for campaigns, and we combined it with gamification. So, what we did for the occasion of the Global Media Information Literacy week, starting 25th of October this year, we launched the Latvian adaptation of the world-famous online game “Go Viral.” And everyone can go and play it on a webpage goviralgame.com. And then you have at least 10 or 12 different languages, and Latvian now is one among them. And this is a game that is based on a pre-bonking or the inoculation theory, which means that players can learn about the techniques used by the manipulators in a safe environment in order to better recognize and counter real-life traps and on social media next time when they see them. And we’ve seen this approach as highly successful both as a campaign by empowering local influencers and spreading the word about the game and the game numbers. And we see this as the future. And having said that, we will be definitely prioritizing media and information literacy and critical thinking skills in our work as a government, as government communicators to make not just our state resilient, but also our society resilient and be better equipped, not just for the COVID but also for other future crisis and in the future as well. Murat Karagöz Let’s go back to Brussels, the European Union. Lutz is on my right side, and now we say that the risk of spreading fake news is higher than ever due to the scope of social media. If you have listened to Prof. Altun’s speech, the Head of Communication has primarily mentioned this in his speech, and it is a headache for Türkiye. Türkiye is a critical case here. With the Head of Communication, we are trying to resist shoulder to shoulder disinformation activities. As I said, the pandemic created another term to increase society’s resilience, right? Infodemic; this concept includes the epidemic and epidemic spread of information, information pollution, the spread of fake news, and disinformation. In what way can state communication play a role in increasing society’s resilience? Because there is Starting 25th of October this year, we launched the Latvian adaptation of the world-famous online game “Go Viral.” Everyone can go and play it on a webpage goviralgame.com. 158 STRATCOM PANEL - 1 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 disinformation and what can the state’s communication institutions do to make society more sensitive to fake news? Lutz Güllner The communication units of the state can play a vital role in this matter, but I want to take a step back. Because what do we see in our societies and social media today? Different phenomena and phenomena take place in front of our eyes simultaneously. There is information and confusion; we call it junk news. These may be false, false, or strange stories told. These stories are shared. It is shared for misdirection, but there is confusion. What can the state’s communication units do against this? It can provide references or sources, for example, for communication units. They can act more proactively, but on the one hand, there is another phenomenon, which is disinformation. This is deliberately spreading false information or misleading information. This is a coordinated effort. So it is an effort made and carried out gradually. It has political motives, sometimes economic reasons. The second part, the response to disinformation, should be different. Of course, states should intervene in this, but how much? How much to invest in making society durable is an essential approach for us. But how the rules of the game should be determined in this field should be considered by the state for the actors. Both cases have misleading information, mesenchymal information, and disinformation; we divide them into two. The state’s role is vital in both, but not only in telling the truth; in fact, this can be dangerous when you look at it because the state sees itself as the provider of truth or can be an honest mediator or provide consumer protection. In addition, however, the state can help consumers find reliable sources of information. To do this, the game’s rules must be defined first; for the general context, the rules must be set. Murat Karagöz Now I want to go back with Russia, Mr. Vladimir Gushchin. Mr. Vladimir, almost all states have reconsidered communication, and we have seen this. States have reviewed their development strategies, made sustainability a priority, and have set out to take measures against potential new pandemics. So what is expected to happen in the future in this respect? What will happen? 159 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Vladimir Gushchin And I think that everything that is going on right now is about the pandemic and various challenges in the social-economic world, global information challenges, and others. So, they force the government, and it’s not about Russia; it’s about all other countries inventing new tools and making all the communication processes more transparent. And I think that is the only way to provide more efficiency to solving the problems. So, transparency of information focuses on public interests, which we see here in Russia. I work closely with the Premier’s office and with various ministries. And I see that in there recently, in the last several years, we started talking more carefully. We started talking to each other about various NGOs and involving people in making the decisions. I think this is the critical criteria of success: how people are interested in government, politics, social, economic issues, first of all. And of course, as Mr. Bambals said already on this panel, one of the main issues is the societal resilience to government efforts. Not taken only for the government itself, that’s very important to make people understand. What is introduced by the government is a measure that is aimed at solving the problems and not at defending the government’s stance on research at issue. So, the word “transparency” is the keyword for success, I think so. Murat Karagöz This is the end of the panel: the last speaker, Mr. Eero Raun. When I introduced him, I said he had music, PR, and communication background. In addition to cultural and music subjects, he also worked in tourism. Tourism is also essential for my country. Tourism makes a necessary contribution to the economy. When we check the figures, 7. 8% of the gross national product in Estonia comes from tourism revenues, right? This is a considerable proportion; we are a touristic country. For example, Antalya has a population of 2 million; 12 million tourists come to Antalya every year. In other words, the state is trying to reduce the disruptive effects of the pandemic on tourism. For example, the Turkish government has taken many measures for this. We brought the health certificates. You will notice these in Istanbul hotels. These hotels were certified by independent companies during the pandemic process. When I say tourism, I have to mention that culture, tourism, and culture are intertwined. Therefore, I am curious about your views on these concrete issues. 160 STRATCOM PANEL - 1 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Eero Raun Definitely, in cultural tourism, we have the same fate; I should say that these sectors have to face restrictions in the longest run, dropping first out and getting lost in the everyday business. And yes, definitely, both tourism and culture are vital for your country and Estonia. I like this same example which brought us a very positive example of building trust in Istanbul. The hotel where I’m staying has a safe tourism certificate issued just for one month. So that means that there is a need a building trust regularly, again and again, to show the standard. And that’s a very positive example, which gave us a micro-level hint, which we have to do in the future. So, every family company and organization have to ensure safety and actually will have the same question, which we had for centuries, for a very long time. The first question for everyone is: “Are we safe enough?” So, culture and tourism are very vulnerable sectors, which depend strongly on the level of trust in society and between people. And also, the main task of strategic communication in that context is to restore and build trust between people, organizations, and nations. Because we all have gone through this hard period of lockdown, and we’re always facing some kind of elements of the restrictions, trust has to be kept up. Let’s say there are some trends. When it became clear that the pandemics would last longer than a year, many professionals, maybe about 1/3 part in the field of culture and also in tourism, at least in Estonia, began to search for other jobs and re-orientate themselves to other sectors. So, they are lost for these sectors. Not all of them, maybe, but a lot of them. Second: many young talents will not take the risk anymore to be part of those vulnerable sectors. They choose other professions and other schools. So maybe if they cannot follow the genuine passion for being in the midst of culture and tourism, we will lose their actual potential to create masterpieces of culture. And the third trend I will point out is a growing number of companies and institutions worldwide will close their activities. So indeed, this process has just begun naturally, and it will have a direct negative impact on our economy. So, can it be avoided? It seems that not anymore. But can we do anything? Yes, we can. We can help to keep in shape the existing connections between the people and create new ones. And this quantity of different kinds of human relations will turn into quality. So, more relations, more trust. And with a higher level of trust, we can overcome all these versions of the crisis we have faced during this 161 S T R A T C O M P A N E L challenging period first, the crisis of healthcare, the crisis of leadership, and also a crisis of communication. Murat Karagöz There was an informative, colorful and productive discussion. I hope you enjoyed it. We have seen how states communicate with their citizens in this challenging period. Best practices were mentioned, great difficulties were expressed. We can say that there is no single solution suitable for everyone, although there 162 STRATCOM PANEL - 1 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 are similarities, this situation may differ in the measures taken. We discussed different areas and sectors. For example, we discussed development strategies, misinformation, cultural contexts, social resilience, and data analysis. 163 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 2 Global Communication: Understanding Multiple Audiences 164 STRATCOM PANEL - 2 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Global Communication: Understanding Multiple Audiences 11 December 2021 • Robert Bole Managing Director of Signal Group DC - USA (Moderator) • Clay Schouest Global Communications Strategy Director at Reckitt- UK • Dr. Segun Alabi Head of Corporate Communications of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry - Nigeria • Jared Shurin Head of Planning at M&C Saatchi World Services - UK • Gabriel Borges Co-founder, Chief Strategy Officer at AMPFY - Brazil T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 165 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 02 How do we, as communicators, think about how to move forward engaging audiences and talking with them. Robert Bole This topic about multiple audiences is very frustrating. We have this opportunity to reach everyone to speak to everyone. But at the same time, we’re finding ourselves fractioning ourselves into smaller, smaller information communities, not listening to one another. At the same time, you can have discourses like this, which bring people worldwide together to talk to each other, thoughtful interchanges. On the other hand, you can also have bad actors who exploit those platforms to reach multiple audiences and pollute the atmosphere. And then, finally, we have a renaissance of great independent journalism happening, holding power to account. At the same time, we have individuals who can provide misinformation and, again, muddy the waters. So how do you as communicators? How do we, as communicators, think about how to move forward engaging audiences and talking with them. And so the panel today, we’re going to have people who have multiple different perspectives on this from numerous different experiences, of 166 STRATCOM PANEL - 2 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 which I’m proud. And so what I’m going to start off doing is asking each panelist one question, give me a short introduction, or we can get through that and just move right into the questions. And then, opening up to all of the panel, I have some questions. So, Clay, you are a Global Communications Director. You’ve worked in marketing and brands for a long time. You live in multiple places around the world. So, considering how you build brands across various markets and audiences, what is your approach to engaging audiences? Clay Schouest Firstly, can I just say: “Hello Türkiye, I am very happy to be here.” So, thanks for having you. I think to look, to give you some context. So, I work at a brand- building, right. So, that’s kind of the commercial side of things. And so, I work across 13 different brands, 60 different countries where we have operations, and 200 other types of countries where our brands are used. So, my ability to connect with people at scale is, you know, with billions of people every day, including, you know, some of the well-recognized brands in Türkiye. And I think, in terms of influencing at scale and connecting at scale, bringing it back to your question, I think, really, for me, it’s defining. It’s increasingly defining a value exchange, which is mutually beneficial because I think people now expect corporations and brands to build mutually beneficial relationships. And I increasingly believe that’s about brands having a greater sense of purpose beyond just a kind of product usage. So having a greater understanding of purpose. To do that requires a depth of insight to address and identify people’s real needs, as you said. And I think, for me, that the lifeblood of any communication strategies that I develop across those markets is the ability to leverage deep insights and sources of wisdom. Robert Bole Excellent, thank you. I’m going to turn to one of the panelists over my shoulder. Gabriel Borges is in Brazil right now. He’s one of the co-founders and the CSO of AMPFY, which is integrated marketing communications practice. Gabriel, Brazil is an intense user of social media in particular. It is one of the most intensive users of social media globally. But, you know, we know that no audience is monolithic. The Brazilian audience is not, and South American, not monolithic. So, and as I mentioned in the opening, studies show how we’re breaking ourselves into smaller and smaller information communities. So I’m wondering your view 167 S T R A T C O M P A N E L on how communication professionals can use social media to understand, engage and connect ideas and brands to multiple audiences? Gabriel Borges You might know that Brazil is such a continent country. So, we’re talking about 220 million people living together here. So, we should expect that we have a diverse population. And another quite exciting thing is that we are such a young country. We only have 500 years, something. So, it means that most of our population was created by different people from different parts of the world. I’m not sure if you are aware of that. But for example, we have the second biggest Japanese community in the world apart from Japan, of course. So, it means that migration is something fundamental to building the culture of Brazil. And as a result of that, we have such a national culture that’s a mix of different influences from different parts of the world. And as it’s expected, in the end, we have a multicultural society here. But there is this one thing you have already mentioned: how Brazilians have embraced social media for the last ten years. We are known nowadays as one We have the second biggest Japanese community in the world apart from Japan. 168 STRATCOM PANEL - 2 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 of the most intense users of social networks in the world, if you check any kind of ranks or any kinds of like the number of users, the number of networks that someone will be using, the number of friends, they would be connected to, the amount of time they stay connected to a specific social network. This is huge for any perspective you have here in Brazil. And I’m not talking only about one specific social platform, but most of them. We are huge in Facebook; we are huge in Twitter; we are huge in Instagram. We used to have the biggest community in Orkut, which used to be Google’s social network. Only Brazilians and Indians were operating in the world by seven, eight years ago. And of course, we saw last year and this year’s now-massive growth of TikTok globally. But that in common is an insight we had while trying to understand how we could use social networks as a way of talking to different communities and different people and targets. And we’ll seem that I think it kinds of changes and brings a significant challenge to communication because when you’re using social networks, you are close to your 169 S T R A T C O M P A N E L audience. And that’s a two-fold thing. First, it’s perfect because you have a lot of reactions, stances, and reactions from the audience. So, you can understand what you’re saying if it’s been understood and if it makes sense, and people are liking and engaging with your message. But on the other hand, sometimes we tend to be and give a lot of attention to that. And we create a cycle that we think; we start to think about what would be this reaction. And we begin to shape our message only considering this reaction, and only considering that we need to have this kind of engagement, etc. And I think that we become kind of vicious because we sometimes are just playing for the audience. And that’s something that’s sometimes not good. So, nowadays, I think that one of the biggest challenges we have is how we can find this balance in listening to the audience through social networks. But on the other hand, not being so reactive to the audience, because sometimes people know what they want so it’s good to listen to them, but sometimes they don’t. So, it’s vital to bring novelty and creativity if you only listen to your audience; probably, you won’t give space for some to get something new, to bring something novel to the table. So, I think that’s a massive paradox that we are leaving nowadays. So, I don’t have an answer to the question. But at least that’s something that we are experimenting with now. Robert Bole I have two notes on that. Here, you mentioned a point about the change in value. Now I want to move on to our third panelist, Segun Alabi. Dr. Alabi works in Lagos. He is Head of Corporate Communication, Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He offers communication support to companies in Africa. My question for you is this: Can you talk about the most critical dimensions in understanding the value and delivering it to different audiences? Dr. Segun Alabi Thank you very much. The first thing to understand is that talking about global communications it’s the idea; it’s all about crafting and telling a compelling story about a brand, the personal or corporate brand, to its public, that is, the audience. And the critical important success driver for me is stakeholder mapping. That has to be done. First, you need to understand who your audiences are. And in communications, or specifically, in public relations, which I practice, the most important thing is the categorization of audiences. The critical success driver to create value and understand global communication is stakeholder mapping. 170 STRATCOM PANEL - 2 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 In public relations, audiences are broadly categorized into five broad categories. First, we’re talking about communications, creating value, corporate communication, and government relations, dealing with government—the second dealing with shareholders. Third, you are dealing with the community in which you operate. Fourth, you are dealing with the media because the media is key and an essential part of that idea. And then the next we are talking about the employees. So for me, the critical success driver to create value and understand global communication is stakeholder mapping. And this can be achieved by what strategy I call “race to ace, run to success or to excellence,” which is an acronym. So the race, the first which is the R refers to research; you need to understand the culture, the demography, the language, and the way of life of the audience you are speaking to. Then the next one, which is the A is the action plan. So after the research has been carried out, you understand who the audience is, then you move on 171 S T R A T C O M P A N E L to the action plan, step after step, what you intend to do. And then you move to communicate the value. And value is about the exchange; value is exchanged for value. And, the last one, which is the evaluation aspect, is that after you’ve communicated, you have to do a measurement evaluation. And then to be able to maintain the success rate that you have achieved, you must understand that you first attract, the communication should be about your audience, what the audience stands to benefit, it’s all about them. And then you must understand that they must be converted to your point of view, your product, your brand, and what you’re trying to sell to them. And then the last one, after they’ve been converted, the next thing is to continuously and continually engage with the audience. And when this is done, we can get value across globally. Thank you. Robert Bole Perfect, thank you. I will ask our last panelist, Jared Shurin, who is the Head of Strategy at M&C Saatchi. Jared, one of the things that I was struck by actually as a quote that you had, was “Turning business problems into communication problems,” which I thought was just really, I’m going to definitely steal that one. And all of you should as well. Good for pitching. You have talked a lot about the importance of knowledge. That strategy and communications are about bringing many different perspectives into thinking about how to craft a successful communications campaign. But that data is essential but balanced. So maybe you can talk to us because I will say, I’ll go into it, I will say that data is becoming an almost overwhelming force in how we evaluate. And are you thinking that we’re losing a little bit of the creativity in art, in communications with that way? So, let me ask you the question of the limitations of data in guiding engagement with audiences? Jared Shurin Thank you very much. It’s an excellent question and a very flattering setup. Thank you all very much for having me here today, even virtually. This is an absolute honor. I’m not going to thank you for putting me on blast because it’s always difficult to follow for very clever people. And I’m striking out all the things I wish I had said. But I do think this question sort of builds on everything beforehand. We’ve already spoken about the need to be close to the audience, the need to create compelling stories, the need for a depth of insight. And world services, like everyone else in this room, and joining it online, we’re all addressing problems at scale. We’re all talking to many people about huge, very complex issues— 172 STRATCOM PANEL - 2 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 enormous challenges. And I think there’s a tendency to rely on data exclusively. And to do so because it is, it’s fast; it’s empirical, at scale, and straightforward to get. Especially nowadays to get scaled data and vast swathes of knowledge. However, and again, I’m sort of following in the path of the speakers before me that that’s not insight. That’s one path to understanding that’s a good platform for insight. But it can’t step in for that, that way of life, that creative inspiration, and the clever twist you might need to get into the audience’s lived experience. To bring this almost full circle back to something you said at the beginning, Rob, when you were talking about bad actors, was very good at exploiting people using the power of strategic communications. A lot of that is done, not with rational databased insight, but with excellent emotional understanding. And I think there’s almost nothing to learn from that, but in the power of an excellent emotional narrative and a compelling story rooted in someone’s life and the things around them, rather than what the numbers can tell us. So my plea is, especially as we all go forth from this to tackle substantial global issues, complex ones, and at scale, don’t just rely on the numbers, but try and look past them into the lived experience. The things that the audience might not even know about themselves, but are in their environment, but in the culture in the world around them, and use that as the inspiration and insight. Robert Bole Clay, I want to turn back to you. But I’m going to ask this of all the panel members, when you think about and developing a campaign or a marketing approach when you think about multiple audiences, what are some practical ways in which you start to define those audiences and try to understand who they are? Clay Schouest Good question. If we’re thinking about a kind of framework or an approach, which might be helpful. I think I think, yes, it’s covered off, and it’s been spoken about data is essential. But I guess Jared correctly said data is not the end, right? It’s the means to the end. And it’s the means to the end, which is insight, right? So I think insight is so critical and kind of all-rounded on that. I think that’s one of the themes that’s coming out here. Insight is essential to understanding how to engage with people and defining how to add value through communications. And so, the way that we look at insight, there isn’t one size fits all solution; by the way, I mean, there are multiple datasets that we think about. So, in our approaches, we kind of thing as something like an insight stack, if you could imagine, like 173 S T R A T C O M P A N E L different forms of data. So, we’ve got things like social listening, which can tell us some of the behavioral insight. We’ve also got things like search and search intent, which can be used to proxy people’s intentions, right if you’re searching for something. We’ve also got usage and attitude studies. So, we know what people perceive about the kind of our brands and the relationship that we’re trying to develop with brands. We’ve also got insights coming in from partners, some of whom speak today. So, I think Nielsen, IQ Nielsen, one of the speakers, is here. So, we have information around that. And that’s more kind of commercial information. And we also have consumer respondent insight. So, throughout the world, we’re able to understand the thoughts and feelings and attitudes and motivations about what people think and why they think that and that’s what we use to kind of, from a multi, I guess, viewpoint, perspective, to think about how do we use that data from insight and focus in on various aspects of sense. So, it’s not one size fits all solution. You have to use multiple inputs to get to something, which should be insight. And it requires, you know, understanding 174 STRATCOM PANEL - 2 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 just doesn’t come out of a platform; it requires interrogation. And you need to interrogate the information and constantly think about, why does that matter? Robert Bole So, let me open to the rest of any of the other panelists who want to take a shot at saying a bit about how they approach this problem. How do they get insight into audiences? And how do they discover value? So, I’ll open it to anyone who would want to bring that up. All right, I’ll call on you. Gabriel Borges Okay, so I’ll go first. And so first, I think it’s a good question. Because I think that one of the learnings I have in my career is that it’s really important to bring your 175 S T R A T C O M P A N E L experience and your perspective to the table when you’re trying to understand an audience. But on the other hand, it’s crucial to realize that you don’t belong to the audience most of the time. It’s not about what you think and what you may like. It’s about trying to understand someone different from you and understand a community that sometimes you don’t belong to. So how can you know the way they think. And most of the time, we believe that we would need to use expensive or profound understanding research tools, etc. But sometimes you don’t have access to these kinds of instruments or money to pay for all these things. And it doesn’t mean that you cannot understand and learn about your audience; it’s just about observing. If you want to talk to a specific community, or if you have a stakeholder in the process, why not take their shoes and try to understand what is in their head. And with a couple of conversations, you might have a different perspective from the one you used to have in the beginning, at the beginning of the project. So, I believe that it’s imperative to understand what your role is in the process, not trying to get inside from your head but trying to explore and talk and understand what the knowledge you have access to is. And from that, trying to create meaning. I like the idea that, in the end, understanding an audience is about listening to a lot of noise and trying to compose a song from that noise. Sometimes it starts roughly and strangely. But at the end, if you find the harmonics and the melody, you will have a charming song. So, I think, that’s probably is one of the things that inspires me nowadays to jump in this kind of challenge. Robert Bole Jared, would you like to answer? Jared Shurin I’d love to, although I can’t top that music metaphor. I apologize if this sounds very silly, especially after what Gabriel just said. The advice I often give to young strategists is what people are looking for that level of living, lived experience to build on, as Clay said, that sort of platform of data and that stack of insight. So I highly recommend shopping malls. And more importantly, find, I think this connects to what Gabriel said you’re not the audience. But think about yourself in your own lived life and experience. But think about the things that you know very well. Is it music? Is it books? Is it food? I like food. So for me, when I’m trying to learn about new audience and their lived experience, it’s a way for me to find the local If you want to talk to a specific community, or if you have a stakeholder in the process, why not take their shoes and try to understand what is in their head. 176 STRATCOM PANEL - 2 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 restaurants to talk about the local food and the local culture. And understand those parallels it builds there because I know what food means to me. And I know how cooking and dining and how that culture works. And so it’s effortless as a first stepping stone for me to understand another, another culture then. So I think, definitely remember that you are not the audience, precisely as Gabriel said, you know, you have to have that very intelligent remove. But also, don’t be afraid to bring all of you to the table, not just yourself as a market researcher, but yours, you as a well-rounded human being with your interests and insight into other cultures and living areas. Robert Bole Please. 177 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Dr. Segun Alabi Thank you. What is critical is to have an audience-centered approach because every communication starts with what you want to achieve. So, what is the intention? To be able to accomplish that, your communication must be intentional. And the question to ask is, what do these audiences, what do they need. So, when you answer that need, you center your communication around their condition. And when they identify with what you are passing across to them, they can now buy into what you’re trying to sell. So, it’s all about the audience. So, be audience- specific. And then you should be open-minded. You should be ready to learn, test new grounds and new waters, and then go all the way. Then the top thing which I’m going to say is that you also need to be collaborative. It would help if you looked at things from other perspectives. And the world is on a global stage. So, whatever you want to do, you have to understand that there are so many perspectives to whatever you are trying to do. And you must be open-minded, ready to accommodate other ideas. And with that, you’ll be able to pass across the value in your communication. Robert Bole My work is in Washington, DC, and is focused on government affairs. So, we represent companies, nonprofit organizations, and advocacy organizations as they engage in congress in the White House for paramount issues to foreign and domestic audiences. But it’s a battleground of ideas and perspectives. There are many different points of influence and what people think is right and wrong. So, I’m interested from the panel’s point of view. When you think about influence campaigns, whether it’s trying to get someone to think or vote a certain way or as someone to try to consume an object or a brand. But we think about influence and developing influence campaigns. I’m wondering if their approaches and how understanding these multiple perspectives mean that you have to have different ways of dealing with other parts segments of the audience. I would open it. Maybe, Clay, I’ll go back to you; you’ll be my go-to first guy. Clay Schouest That’s fine. I think it’s a great question. Historically, the kind of brand building has been centered around advertising or marketing in a very linear manner. So, you develop some assets, some advertising assets. And whom you broadcast to would be people. Two things have dismembered that or disrupted, I should What is critical is to have an audience-centered approach because every communication starts with what you want to achieve. 178 STRATCOM PANEL - 2 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 say that model. One is a technology, and we’re all on global platforms now. And actually, technology has democratized information. And with that, there’s an expectation from people that, for example, brands need to be open. And I think your point about openness is so gorgeous, very pointy. But brands need to be available for participation and understanding what people want. And that opens up a whole new spectrum in terms of how you communicate. So, it’s no longer just about disseminating an asset or a piece of advertising asset; we now need to think about the value exchange from a broader solutions-based approach. And it might not even be advertising. It could be a piece of technology developed to add value in some ways or improve people’s lives beyond traditional marketing. So, we thought of things, and it was interesting; the gentleman who came before us talked about the Red Crescent. He had a slide up there, which was around an ecosystem. And that’s precisely the way that we build brands. And we think about building brands now. So, it’s an ecosystem, and it has different components. Some of those components, so you know, could be traditional kinds of advertising assets. But increasingly, it’s more expensive than that. It involves partnerships. It involves technology. It involves own channels, so you know, own social media platforms and things like and broader kind of owned platforms. So, it’s about how you build out an ecosystem that is above and beyond the traditional marketing approach and connected up so that it’s all amplifying simultaneously. And that’s kind of, I guess, how I would answer that question in terms of influence; it’s the center of gravity of consequences changed, at least from my brand-building role. And it’s now centered on how do you create value with people. And that increasingly is about addressing people’s needs from a broader spectrum of solutions around the ecosystem. Robert Bole Gabriel, would you like to talk about influence and multiple perspectives and conflict, which I think Brazil probably has one or two issues on social media? Gabriel Borges Definitely, yes. Until not long ago, there was a specific formula to influence and to create a strategy for influence that would be right to find the key argument to convince someone about something. And it still makes a lot of sense. But when we use this kind of formula, we neglect that we have a multi-diverse audience most of the time. And what is a crucial argument for one person might not be the key 179 S T R A T C O M P A N E L argument for another. And I think that the beauty of the time that we are living in with all the digital platforms that we have access to is that we don’t; we no longer need to make that choice. We no longer need to choose that specific key argument. We can have many different, interesting critical opinions and use them to connect with diverse communities and audiences about a particular reaction that we are looking for. And I think that’s something that we are still learning. I think that’s powerful. But there is a dark side from it as well, because as I was mentioned earlier, sometimes we feel like that some people are just trying to understand what the audience wants to listen to, and using that specific argument to that specific audience, and even though they don’t believe in that argument. And as this is spread all over digital platforms, most people won’t even see those specific arguments. So, you can do that backstage. And it’s like, you don’t need to take your position on the matter, because you can have all the parts and you can convince everyone that you agree with them, although sometimes you agree with different people with paradox, so, ideas. And I think that nowadays we learn how to use the right and the duty side of the digital platforms. But we still don’t know how to avoid these kinds of situations. Then probably these will be one of the most, the biggest challenges in communications and strategy for the next few years for us to understand how we can engage with digital platforms more healthily. You are not forbidding them to exist, but you allow them to live more practically and reasonably or use only its good side. So, that’s what we are going to face in the next few years. Robert Bole If you’d like to. Dr. Segun Alabi Thank you very much. So much about what we do, The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry is trying to create a bridge and link between the government and various businesses in Nigeria. Most of the time, we have disagreements about government policies and the business community. Robert Bole So, at least there’s something universal in the world: government and business do not necessarily see eye to eye. 180 STRATCOM PANEL - 2 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Dr. Segun Alabi Okay. Robert Bole The universal train. Dr. Segun Alabi So, there is a universal train. And then, by the time you understand, the most important thing is engagement and willingness to shift grounds because you don’t win all the time. So, you lose some, and then you win some. So, for me, to make something robust, it has to be a collective gaining from various feeds, sectors, perspectives, and ideas and then makes it very successful. So, for me, conflict, disagreement, differences are welcome. But we need to engage and shift grounds. Robert Bole Jared, would you like to speak on this? And then I have one rapid level, a rapid round of questions. Jared Shurin Absolutely. I’m just going to do my best to echo everyone that came before me. I think there are fascinating points. I believe that we are in an ecosystem environment now is such a good point. And that really, it does have its strengths and weaknesses to be like. The threat is for us, for people who are building and sending out messages, that you can feel, as Gabriel said, you can try and strike every position for every person. You can; you can try to. You can try and win all the time. But you shouldn’t. You have to find what you stand for. And you have to have that decided core of what you are, what your brand is, what your identity is, what you stand for. I mean, at M&C Saatchi, our principle is brutal simplicity. You do have to find that one thing that makes that tough decision of, you know, what is it that you stand for and that you want to do. And absolutely, you can explore that throughout the ecosystem. And you should. And if your core idea is that you are a brand that stands for family, you know, the family will mean something different in Memphis than it is from Legos. But there’s still that core idea of family, and you should find a way to express that. And it would be best if you stayed true to who you are. So, I think there is that temptation to use that You have to find what you stand for. And you have to have that decided core of what you are, what your brand is, what your identity is, what you stand for. 181 S T R A T C O M P A N E L power of technology and that power of almost reactive messaging to try and win every argument to be all things to all people. But that’s where we step in. And I think this has been sort of one of the themes so far is that where everyone in this room has the professionals in the space. You know, our job is to provide that guidance to say: “No, you know, we need to find the one true thing that we stand for, and we need to stick to that and curate it and guard it going forwards.” Robert Bole Perfect. Thank you. Clay Schouest Before you wrap it around, I want to pick up on that point. And actually raised an exciting moment because a lot of the discussion here today is about how we, you know, connect our respective fields or brands or Chamber of Commerce to audiences. But actually, what you’ve raised is a fascinating point, which is, what is it we have to bring to the table to do that. So, what are the behaviors and the mindsets that, as practitioners communication strategists, we need to get? And to 182 STRATCOM PANEL - 2 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 your point, it’s the willingness to be open-minded about things and thinks about, you know, the broader expansiveness rather than going in with a single-minded view. So, I think that’s a significant point from a practitioner’s point of view. Robert Bole And I also agree that Jared was saying that go out into humanity start meeting as many people as possible, take what you think is valuable, include that in. I think, in terms of global communications, we have tended to try to put it into a set of tools, a set of data, a set of processes, feel a lot of the times that we sometimes miss the creativity and the humanity, a part of what we’re trying to do. And you know, there’s so much pressure from clients or your brand to be successful, affordable, and on point all the time. Sometimes, it puts us into these very narrow, constricted ways of communicating. Clay Schouest So true, curiosity, I guess this is really just being curious about the world. Yeah. Robert Bole I have one last question. It’s an optional question for the panel members. You can either take one or one or other of these but not both. What is a global trend that you think is important to keep your eyes on, that you’ve detected in your work, that it’s going to, that you believe will affect how we communicate with multiple audiences? Or what is an indispensable experience toolset that you feel is important for global communicators in the future? So, a trend or experienced toolset or experience or toolset? So, I’m going to go in reverse order. Dr. Segun Alabi Thank you very much. I think I will talk about the trends. And it is for me, to my mind, I think it’s about digital transformation. That will change the way we do things, and we need to follow the trends, things are coming out. And we need to catch up very fast. Robert Bole I will temper that and say, I think that is right; we have data science in our work. But I also believe that we need someone to understand what data science means 183 S T R A T C O M P A N E L to human beings sometimes. But I agree. So Gabriel, what is your trend or skillset, or experience? Gabriel Borges Great, I’m going to be practical. And I’m talking about a specific trend. We’ve been witnessing the rise of TikTok here in Brazil. And it’s crazy what it means nowadays, to any audience, not only for young teenagers. And behind that, not talking about TikTok as a trend. But one thing people are getting used to is consuming content in a nice, small piece of video as more information. And I think this is a trend that we’ve been witnessing from year to year that nowadays, because of the amount of data we are exposed to, the number of platforms, etc., we don’t have attention in a long period to anything. So, I think that the most challenging learning we learn we might have in the future is understanding how we can pass our message in a few words, in a few seconds of video, or any media we are using, but it’s about fast. And I think that what Jared said about trying to find simplicity might be even more critical shortly. Because if you want to pass through a message, if it’s not simple, and you don’t have time, probably the other side, on the other side, nobody will understand. So, it’s essential to have a clear message and try to say it in a phrase. Robert Bole Alright, Jared, what’s your thought? Jared Shurin I’m going to go with the tool on the insight side, and I think it’s one that’s overlooked a lot. And that’s the power of fashion. And again, that seems a little odd coming from all this. But fashion is brands that people choose to wear. I mean, it’s almost opting into a brand in a way that we don’t, we don’t see in many other industries. It’s how people, what people aspire to, within a culture and a community, and how they want to present themselves within an area. It shows what community they’re a part of. It links to what people are nostalgic for, what people are looking into the future for, how they relate to materials, sustainability, and comfort. I mean, into the committee. I mean, it’s an incredibly, incredibly powerful cultural tool. But it is a specialist one that I think we tend to ignore. But I would recommend that people look for insight, look for customers’ understanding, lean into fashion, and see what you can learn from what people are wearing and how they present themselves that way. The most challenging learning we learn we might have in the future is understanding how we can pass our message in a few words, in a few seconds of video, or any media we are using. 184 STRATCOM PANEL - 2 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Clay Schouest So, I’m going to say health and wellness. I mean, it’s a megatrend, which it had been trending for the last five, ten years even. But it’s been accelerated by COVID and type of anxiety around health and wellness and now front of our mind. But health and wellness drove by technology. As you know, we have wearable devices, biotechnology, and AI. I think the future of all brands is all kinds of entities, corporations, companies. They’re all going to be health-based companies because of all of the technology that’s going on with wearables and biotech. And I think this is interesting. If you forecast it a little farther out, it’s interesting that we may all be sitting here in 30 years as a kind of augmented humanity, right, parked by, you know, biology and technology. And that, I mean, I think that challenges the very fundamentals of society, and what it means to be human, and obviously, how you communicate in that space. So, for me, the future is squarely health and wellness. It’s big, and it’s only going to increase. Robert Bole Well, thank you. First of all, thank you to the hosts who brought us here today. It has been a fantastic experience already. We’ve met a lot of interesting people. Thank you all everyone here for attending. We appreciate it and for all those online. Have an excellent rest of your conference, and I look forward to meeting you. Thank you. 185 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 3 Digital Strategies Reloading 186 STRATCOM PANEL - 3 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Digital Strategies Reloading 11 December 2021 • Sümeyye Ceylan Presenter at TRT World - Türkiye (Moderator) • Sam Quan Krueger Head of Digital Communications at United Nations Development Program (UNDP) - USA • Miklos Gaspar Head of Digital Media at IAEA - Austria • Daria Santucci EU Official - Press and Communication Officer, European Training Foundation - Italy • Matthias Lüfkens CEO of @DigiTips - Switzerland • Nancy Groves Professor of Public Diplomacy at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies - Japan T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 187 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 03 Digitalization has become the new norm. And it is creating both challenges and opportunities. Sümeyye Ceylan Hello and welcome to the third STRATCOM panel titled Digital Strategies Reloading. As we all know, communication technologies are constantly evolving, changing, and renewing themselves. This has accelerated the globalization process, and as a result, our world has become smaller as distances have shrunk. Our speakers on this panel will discuss the digital strategies of states, international organizations, and corporations in the digital age. Miklos Gasper joins me. He’s the head of digital communications at the International Atomic Energy Agency based in Vienna. Miklos runs key strategic corporate projects at the International Trade Center and organizes the rolled export development forum ITCs flagship events in Rwanda. It was the largest such ever held. Third, Matthias Lüfkens, a social media architect at DigiTips, a boutique PR agency, advises corporations, UN agencies, and nonprofit organizations on the best use of social media. Matthias is best known for having created Twiplomacy, a study that looks at how governments 188 STRATCOM PANEL - 3 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 and international organizations use digital platforms. Finally, Nancy Groves, leads digital communications strategy for the United Nations Environment Program. Her units manage all web, social media, and internal communications activities and coordinate UNEP outreach and responses to journalists and media partnerships. Finally, Sam Quan Krueger has over 20 years of experience in digital marketing and strategic communications for large organizations and brands, such as UNICEF, E-Trade, and JPMorgan Chase. He’s currently the head of digital communications at the United Nations Development Program. And last but not least, Daria Santucci. Daria is an international communications strategist with extensive experience bringing innovation to corporate communication with a digital focus. She currently works for the European Training Foundation and EU Agency, where she’s in charge of strategic communications press services, social media management, and the coordination of thematic campaigns for outreach in the EU neighboring countries. Thank you all for joining us. Now, I’d like to start with Miklos, please. Miklos, the increasing impact of digitalization is undeniable, but what kind of challenges and opportunities are created by digitalization? Miklos Gaspar Thank you for that question. So indeed, digitalization has become the new norm. And it is creating both challenges and opportunities. And in some ways, they are the same. There are no limits; you can reach anybody, there is no topic, it’s niche enough for there not to be a community in the digital landscape. It also allows organizations like the ones I’ve worked for and my colleagues on this panel work for it to reach out directly to audiences that traditionally you could have only been able to reach via intermediaries like the press. But, at the same time, digitalization also creates bubbles; people talk to the people who only hear from people that think the same as themselves. So, you have more opportunities to change minds on the one hand; on the other hand, it’s sometimes harder to penetrate these bubbles. Because when all they had was a news channel on TV, well, that covered every point of view, now that they can pick from among many, many digital media, they will choose the one that only frequently broadcasts the opinions they agree with. Sümeyye Ceylan Interesting, is there anything you’d like to add to that question Matthias? 189 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Matthias Lüfkens I think about the opportunities and challenges, is that I remember when I put the World Economic Forum on social media back in 2006. I was told, “Matthias, why would we put our panels onto YouTube because the students watching YouTube are not our target audience?” That target audience has grown up; they are now the CEOs going to Davos to the annual meeting every year in Switzerland. So, you know, we have to be where the audience is. And the audience is on social media. To give you an idea, the two most significant countries globally are number one, Facebook with over 2 billion active monthly users, and number two is YouTube. So, it’s kind of evidence that we have to be there. And the other opportunity that I found out early is that we function like a newsroom. We have to be like a newsroom and work as a newsroom. Because that’s what media companies does. 190 STRATCOM PANEL - 3 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 I’m a former journalist. And by doing that, we kind of disintermediated the media. Now the media is following organizations on Twitter, Facebook, and, you know, all the other channels. Before, it was, you know, here’s the press release. But now, we’re producing the news all the time. Sümeyye Ceylan True. Sam, how would you like to answer that? What kind of challenges and opportunities are created by digitalization? Sam Quan Krueger For the longest time, technology has enabled collaboration. Still, I think the latest generation of tools shows more fantastic abilities to create more profound 191 S T R A T C O M P A N E L experiences when it comes to collaboration. In the right hands, that is. So, I can jump on a Zoom call, like we’re on now, I can present a file that I’m working on. Those in the meeting have access to that same file because it’s cloud-based. And we’re editing things as we’re talking but in different locations. And that’s just editing; for example, there are tools in communications for production, project management, for various ways in which we work today. And in today’s generation of devices, if they’re adequately integrated can be compelling. Now, I think the challenge with digitalization, and you said this early in the introduction, is that technology is constantly evolving and changing. And to keep at pace with that is very difficult; large companies large organizations have to think through a process of testing and decide what is the most suitable technology to fit into their environment. And they have to do this at pace with all the changes that are happening. And so how do they think through, “Okay, what is appropriate for my multinational company or my global organization? And how quickly do I introduce these adaptations to staff like, in the case of the UNDP? ” There are 70,000 people in the organization. So, it can be tricky. And that’s a massive challenge for them. Sümeyye Ceylan Interesting, Daria; anything you’d like to add? Daria Santucci Good afternoon. Thanks so much to the Director of Communications of the Presidency of Türkiye for the invite. One of my ideas is that I think, from the perspective of the organization for which I work, the European Training Foundation, which is helping countries in the EU neighborhood develop education and labor market systems. We’ve seen that digital communication could be used strategically, for example, during the pandemic, to help the learning community learn on being strategic through digital and beyond. I want to frame this point with an example. When the pandemic first hit, there were 1. 5 billion students in 160 countries who had been forced to study at home. And it’s an organization dealing with the learners’ community, we asked ourselves, how can we help them and is located in Italy, which is the first EU country to be in a lockdown, we reflected on how to transform, how to reload our digital strategies to the service of society. We have initiated an initiative which is called LearningConnects. It was a campaign to engage the learners’ community from anywhere, beyond the countries we operate indirectly. And that was precisely meant to create a connection across all those We’ve seen that digital communication could be used strategically, for example, during the pandemic, to help the learning community learn on being strategic through digital and beyond. 192 STRATCOM PANEL - 3 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 facing the consequences of the pandemic. This is to say that, in my opinion, digital communication in these pages, in this era, which we are exploring, still has value, and not necessarily because of the technicalities, which are connected to digital but because it is a means to connect societies. And the conclusions we draw from the experience we’ve been running are that this is a moment in which we need to explore way further the audiences with whom we try to connect because each of us is changing the context in which they leave. And this is necessary to understand better the personas to whom we are communicating and reach better results. Link to what colleague mentioned earlier, it’s true in the past and in the era in In the past, digital learning used to be the privilege of an inner circle of tech gurus, and now, erratically, it belongs to everyone. 193 S T R A T C O M P A N E L which we work, learning. In the past, digital learning used to be the privilege of an inner circle of tech gurus, and now, erratically, it belongs to everyone, by keeping in mind the point that some students and teachers do not have access to the internet nor have the means. So digital, to conclude, was relevant, yes. Is it relevant? Yes. It is sufficient, no. Sümeyye Ceylan Thank you so much, Daria. Nancy, how would you like to answer that? Nancy Groves Hello, everyone. I think, you know, in the case of where I work at the UN Environment Program, and also for the UN Secretariat as a whole, the major challenge is just acknowledging that there’s no one size fits all approach or audience. So, for example, for the UN Environment Program, a lot of our communications efforts are designed for audiences in developed countries, as populations there have an outsized impact on environmental crises, greenhouse gas emissions, producing all kinds of waste. But some developing countries are feeling the effects of droughts and unprecedented floods, both of which we have seen in Kenya, where I’m speaking to you today. So, this reality outstrips the capacity and expertise of our staff to create so many different pieces of content, which might resonate with all of these audiences. So, there’s also a massive problem of disinformation. Some studies show that climate disinformation, in particular, is relatively well funded and well organized, and we certainly cannot compete. So, what can be done? I don’t have the answer. But one way we have tried to address this is by working with the platforms themselves. No one knows more about how to maximize outreach than they do. For example, we at UNEP, along with several UN entities and organizations working on the climate crisis, have joined forces with Facebook on a project called the Climate Science Center; using their insights about their audiences and their unprecedented reach, we’ve gone through our products to identify, what needs to be prioritized for featuring on this platform where, like it or not, people are getting a considerable amount of their information. So, depending on where you are in the world, you will see something tailored to you. You might see a more data-heavy version of the app in certain countries that also highlights content about sustainable consumption. But if you’re in a part of the world, where data is expensive compared to your income, or Wi-Fi, or energy access is much more limited, you see a lighter version, but then also tailored 194 STRATCOM PANEL - 3 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 content. For example, if you don’t have options about what to buy or finances, our messaging on sustainable consumption makes no sense to you. So, it’s good for us to use our minimal internal resources to communicate. Sümeyye Ceylan Miklos, once again, starting with you. I want to ask all our guests this question, what effects does digitalization have on our social, political, and economic habits? Miklos Gaspar Let me give you this time and experience from my work. I work as the nuclear communications head of digital for the International Atomic Energy Agency. And, you know, one aspect of digitalization has is that people have easier access to all kinds of news, all types of information, including fake news and fake information, as our keynote speakers discussed this morning. So, this is very true about nuclear, that lots of incorrect assumptions data are present on the internet. And our job as communicators is to come back with scientific facts and correct information. And spread it through various channels that you can reach these people, social media, you know, search engine optimized websites, so that you can enter these bubbles and counter, do your best to counter the misinformation. And this trend is accurate, not just in my area, but in many other regions. And so, some of those political, economic, social changes are fueled by a lot of misinformation. So, you know, we all need to do our best to counter. Sümeyye Ceylan I’d like to ask the same question to you Matthias. What do you think? Matthias Lüfkens One of the aspects is that we don’t have much time. Our attention span has become so short, you know. Our attention span is as long as almost a Vine video; okay, Vine doesn’t exist anymore, but a 10 second TikTok. And this is really; I think, a crucial change if I look at my children; they’re on their devices, like, all the time constantly. I sometimes think, and how do we, how do we get that quality time back, because we’re not always connected, either to screens or to Alexa, and so on. So, I think this is one of the critical aspects of communicators. Our mission is 195 S T R A T C O M P A N E L to reach that audience; we have to get their attention. And how do we do that? I think that’s a challenge. So, you know, kind of. We cannot disconnect anymore, almost, on the other side as communicators. We want precisely to reach these audiences. And the younger, the better. We want to reach the 12-year-olds on Tik Tok to spread the messages for our organizations. Sümeyye Ceylan How can we use digitalization, as to benefit family, for example, family life? 196 STRATCOM PANEL - 3 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Matthias Lüfkens I think digital consumption has to be used; it has to be taught in schools. And, you know, I’m a big advocate that we have to teach our children what to post on Twitter, what to post on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, whatever, really teaching them. The problem is our teachers did not grow up with the digital channels; they were thrown into these digital channels. And often they say, oh, no, we don’t want to get involved, but helping users use these tools. What can you post, what pictures are you allowed to post? For example, they said what if we made a school newspaper on the Facebook page in a secondary school and the reaction of the parents was as follows; How dare you put my children on Facebook. But it was actually a chance for 12-13 year olds to manage and learn a Facebook page. Many businesses are trying to show a presence on Facebook and Google to attract their customers. You have a cafe, let’s say you have a bakery; you need to know how to conduct this communication in order to come and encourage people to drink coffee there. Communication should be part of the curriculum in schools. Full stop. Sümeyye Ceylan Totally. I agree. Sam, how would you like to answer that? What kind of challenges and opportunities are created by digitalization? Sam Quan Krueger I think a couple of the panelists have already mentioned this. Still, I want to restate this with more emphasis, that even though there’s so much promise and potential with digitalization, it’s pretty uneven. This potential exists for some people but not for others. There is higher technology, better infrastructure, more information in one segment, but the other segment that doesn’t have them is falling behind, and these inequalities are causing a digital divide. We also see this at the local, national, regional, and global levels. So, while there’s so much promise, we need to make sure that we share that promise and the potential of digitalization across the board. Sümeyye Ceylan Thank you, Sam. Daria. Is there anything you’d like to add? 197 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Daria Santucci While I was listening to the answers to this question, one more thing occurred to me. Considering the opportunities related to digitalization, for example, if I look at this based on the work of the European Training Foundation, sharing solutions and best practices between countries have become an important issue, especially during this pandemic period. But other aspects which we would like to and should put in the discussion are on one side like Sam just said, the lack of digitalization, which is having some countries or some specific groups of populations lagging. And as Mathias backs earlier on, access to digitalization is also an issue because of the reduced attention span and the difficulty, for example, in selecting what’s relevant and what’s not. And at last, an aspect, which is at the core of the action, again, of the European Training Foundation, because we work a lot on vocational education and training is what it is difficult by its nature to become digitalized, which is, for example, technical learning. So, I would say we have several challenges and opportunities. And I think communicators could contribute enormously to discussions and such, given their horizontal overview and their natural capability and skills for providing innovative eyes to the subject. What’s relevant and fundamentalist keeping very harnessed and horizontal discussion as it’s happening now. Sümeyye Ceylan Thank you, Daria. Nancy. Nancy Groves I already mentioned you know that the UN or UNEP is the UN’s lead scientific program when it comes to pulling together information on the triple planetary crises. But we also host the Secretariat of 14 multilateral environmental agreements, which are staffed with experts on international law. So internally, we are sitting on vast amounts of information and data that we need to figure out how to make accessible to every audience that needs it, whether researchers, journalists, students, policymakers, etc. These young people have been effective at raising their voices on the climate crisis. So, a significant challenge for us communicators in this digital landscape is critically pulling out the information from these experts who know much more about the prices than I do. So, we can get it into the conversations that make the most sense. And that can lead to lasting and impactful change, ideally better policy decisions by governments and Access to digitalization is also an issue because of the reduced attention span and the difficulty of selecting what’s relevant and what’s not. 198 STRATCOM PANEL - 3 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 businesses, based on really sound science. So, some of these internal experts put together these UN reports and resources; they don’t understand communications at all, maybe even not the best way to put information online in a digital context. So, we need to figure out how to speak their language first. So, then we can talk to people who need this information outside of our organization. On the other hand, you have others in love with communications. Then you have to temper their expectations because they may not understand why one specific piece of information is not going to go viral, no matter how good a communicator you are. So, there’s just a lot of this internal work that we need to do to make our external communications as effective as possible. So much savvy communications expertise to know when to join a conversation and when not to join it. But, of course, a mistake could set you back in incalculable ways. So that’s really, I think, one of our significant challenges. Sümeyye Ceylan Right. Thank you so much, Nancy. Miklos. Once again, starting with you, I’d like to take your final remarks on any subject that you’d like regarding this topic. Miklos Gaspar Well, thank you. So, I’d like to add to what Matthias started talking about, you know, it was about families. Indeed, one issue is this generational divide, that kids are either using digitalization too much, or as Sam has said, they don’t have access, and they don’t use it at all. And what I’d like to add to what Matthias said is to teach them how to use digital devices and digital communication responsibly. And that to educate them so that their lives don’t become just totally digital, but they still, you know, go out to play and that we as parents and teachers still take them to, you know, do other activities, so they grow up healthily. Sümeyye Ceylan I reckon that’s not too easy, though. Right? Miklos Gaspar Yes, that’s right. Trial and error. 199 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Sümeyye Ceylan Mathias. Matthias Lüfkens As communicators, let us do this more often; I am asking our audience, our target audience, to connect and ask what they want, not like whether you like this sharing, etc. I’m talking about something as simple as that. I don’t think we’re doing this enough. 200 STRATCOM PANEL - 3 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 201 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Yes, sometimes we do surveys and other studies, but there must be a mutual dialogue. We usually conduct unilateral communication; for example, we do something hoping that a hashtag will be viral. But what I see on TikTok is that it’s not just a platform where you share videos vertically; you need to tell an immersive story to make an excellent TikTok video. People can take this from here, move it even higher, and turn it into a video for their audience. This is a severe challenge for communicators, and I think there is excellent, more mutual bilateral communication. It is not only discourse for users but also mutual communication. Sümeyye Ceylan Do you think digitalization has killed creativity? For example? Matthias Lüfkens Absolutely not. Sümeyye Ceylan Is it dying out? Matthias Lüfkens No. I’m a big fan of digital channels, and the creativity i n digital media is fantastic. As a journalist, I would edit videos; for example, I would enter the editing room on the television channel to do this. Now I’m doing it on the phone. My 11-year- old daughter is not on social media yet, but she teaches me how to edit videos. So there’s creativity there, but the important thing here is, do we have the tools to be creative? On the other hand, it is vital whether our children go out and use their creativity outdoors. Yes, we live in a digital world, so our children are constantly connected, and so are we, but we should put these devices aside some time like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. At least that’s the rule in my family. Sümeyye Ceylan For sure. I agree. Sam, do you have any last remarks that you’d like to add? 202 STRATCOM PANEL - 3 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 We talked about the digital divide; I think policy, people need to have a strong tech background and digital background to address these challenges. Sam Quan Krueger Yes, digital communications, just that field alone is so broad. And we need to understand that particular knowledge experience training is required to work in this area, and even develop policies may be and think through how these tools apply to our work in our lives. So, it’s not maybe just something that you pick up and think, “Oh, I just published something on Facebook or tweeted something” It’s much more complicated than that today. TikTok, compared to Twitter, for example, it’s just a different approach to communications. And you can get specialists just for Twitter, or you can get specialists just for TikTok. And within that, you have to understand the algorithms. So, you can see the whole list of things required to be good and proficient at digital. We talked about the digital divide; I think policy, people need to have a strong tech background and digital background to address these challenges. We see hearings in Congress in the United States, for example, where congressional leaders try to catch up with the tech leaders in these congressional hearings. Still, they just don’t have the knowledge to be able to push back and design the right policies. But I see-what we’re seeing that this is changing. And I would suggest that investment in knowledge and skills in digital is essential. Sümeyye Ceylan Right, thank you, Sam. Nancy, can I please take your final remarks? Nancy Groves Sure, I would say it’s fascinating to be able to communicate and do this job. But, still, it’s also pretty hard on someone’s mental capacity, mainly if we’re working on topics that aren’t getting any better, whether it’s a climate crisis or any UN context, various concerns, famine, wars. So, I think a real challenge for us, in addition to just the work-life balance that has been mentioned, is also to figure out how to help one another as colleagues and to find some way to, if you’re a great communicator, you’re going to feel so strongly about the topic, so really help one another, keep some perspective, share lessons learned. And then I have found an event like this because I’m so busy typically producing content, analyzing content and moving on to the next thing. So, it’s a real treat to take some time out and have these kinds of conversations with our peers. So, thanks for organizing it. 203 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Sümeyye Ceylan Thank you, Nancy. And Daria, your final remarks, please. Daria Santucci I would fully endorse Nancy’s point. I fully agree about the fact that moments as such are very relevant for communicators, and I sometimes share the difficulty of dealing with and communicating about very relevant topics with significant impact on audiences that are spread all over the globe. So, my plea would be to have more of these exchanges and more particularly as strategic communicators working mainly on digital, have an eye on inclusion, and share how we are dealing 204 STRATCOM PANEL - 3 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 in the respective organizations with keeping an eye, so to leave no one behind, even when we use mainly digital communication tools. Sümeyye Ceylan Thank you so much Nancy. Miklos Gaspar, Matthias Lüfkens, Nancy Groves, Sam Quan Krueger and Daria Santucci. Thank you all for joining us. Well, that wraps our Digital Strategies Reloading panel. Thank you all. 205 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 4 Digital Newsmakers: Rediscovering Journalism 206 STRATCOM PANEL - 4 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Digital Newsmakers: Rediscovering Journalism 11 December 2021 • Halil İbrahim İzgi Advisor at Türk Kızılayı - Türkiye (Moderator) • İsmail Halis Founder of Mücerret - Türkiye • Yusuf Özhan Deputy Director General, Editor In Chief at Anadolu Agency - Türkiye • Doğukan Gezer Chief Editor at GZT - Türkiye • Bora Yıldırım Head of Digital at TRT News - Türkiye • Ersin Çelik Chief Editor at Yeni Şafak - Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 207 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 04 We are going into a new communication decade, and digital journalism in the Web 3.0 makes us try to practice as well as possible. Halil İbrahim İzgi Welcome, everyone. We are delighted to be here as well. We are going to be talking about digital journalism today. And I believe since I started studying communication, internet journalism had always been a debated issue. And it constantly changed, and it was always tackled from different perspectives. And we always found ourselves in a different realm of journalism; the actors changed. And digital is at a very new point in our life. I’m not even sure if it’s accurate to refer to it as digital because, you know, there’s one journalism, and it is mostly being done digitally, and we see its reflections in different areas as well. I would like to introduce our panelists to Yusuf Özhan, Deputy Director General from another Anadolu Agency, and Bora Yıldırım to you Head of Digital at TRT News. Mr. İsmail Halis. He has different titles, but I like to refer to him as a new media curator. And he also has significant experience on the TV and the new media sides. With 208 STRATCOM PANEL - 4 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 our ideas and his implementating them, he is undertaking some experimental activities. And he is bringing audiences together with these activities. And Mr. Doğukan Gezer. We can call him a representative of the digital natives. And he is leading GZT, and they are doing inspiring works. And Ersin Çelik from Yeni Şafak. He is on the internet side. And he is one of the people who adapted to digital very well. We will hear about his pioneering work in the digital journalism sphere. I would like to start with Mr. Yusuf Özhan. And he is running one of the greatest newsrooms of Türkiye. And many media institutions are your clients or your stakeholders, and you have teams on the field in many parts of the world. And you are hearing what’s going on in many parts of the world. What does the world we’re in look like in December 2021? Right now, where does digital journalism stand? Yusuf Özhan Thank you very much for your introduction. And I would like to thank you for being here. I’ll start with where you left off, especially focusing on Anadolu Agency, where I’m the editor in chief, and looking at it from a more global level, and creating a frame based on the summit. In the next decade between 2020 and 2030, I’d like to touch upon what will happen. Now, Anadolu Agency, as you stated, has been active in 81 provinces across Türkiye since 1920, and also, in very different countries and geographies, is carrying out journalism. And we have our correspondents who are always in contact with updates on the news. We are pursuing news every day, every second. And both in the public opinion, Anadolu Agency has a meaning and also through subscribers Anadolu Agency has an important point for publishers. Now, of course, new media’s impact is here, in terms of agency journalism, we see the impacts very much, and this is what we have experienced over the last decade. was quite exhausting. There were a lot of very transformative variables. And these major tech companies that we’re talking about evolved in practice, and we witnessed that. Let me put it this way, in the first stages of journalism; we were researching based on our curiosity. And I look at the resources we would utilize back then; for example, in 2008 and 2009, I remember some scenarios that took place across the world. And when we look at the discussions at the point, we were going from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. And Web 1.0 is, you know there’s a static page, you can fetch information from there. And basically, institutions had a representation in the digital world. But with Web 2.0. there was an interaction that was created where you know; you would create your Facebook accounts and start interacting. And it wasn’t just about finding your primary school friends, but you could also start to have some personal 209 S T R A T C O M P A N E L interpretations about various discussions. These various topics were burning across the world at the time. It was turned into a mass communication tool. And, of course, the way these tools were interpreted back then was very different than how they had embarked on their journeys. And some experts have stated this in various articles, we’ve had discussions around this, but basically, the first social media wars took place during Web 2.0. When you look back, you can’t find many of them. But during the serious civil war, for example, all the records were about the Civil War. All the images and videos were engraved into people’s minds through these tools. That’s how we were informed. But on YouTube, many images cannot be found, and most of them are almost considered to be evidence, but they’re not there anymore. So basically, it was the decade of Web 2.0. And many structures went through destruction. And we started to adopt a new approach to journalism during this transformative decade. And as the previous speaker mentioned, we are going into a new decade right now. And it was the 13th of November 2009 210 STRATCOM PANEL - 4 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 when I signed up for Twitter. You know, Twitter sends you something every year. Yes, it was my Twitter birthday. And my daughter was born that day, as well. So that’s why I don’t forget that specific date. So now, when I look back at the last 20 years I mean time flies when I look back at the last 13 years. But also, we just found out that Jack Dorsey stepped down as a CEO. And in November, we also heard Facebook change their names, and they went into a different sphere. And now I’m in the area of changed external news. And that’s why I have witnessed many developments in terms of foreign news since I focused on that. And we see that the actors and that scene are changing as well. And for example, the Afghanistan case was critical. It was like a fault line almost. And then we see Web 3.0, decentralization; then there’s a metaverse world that we are trying to be led towards. We are going into this new communication decade, and digital journalism in the version that we have right now is something we are trying to practice as well as we can, but we also need to focus on what awaits us in the next decade. And I’m pretty sure other panels have touched upon this issue. That’s why we need to ask these questions because, I mean, in this decentralized world. With VR technologies, you know, when you imagine it, both on the software side, and on both the software and the artificial intelligence side and the hardware side, I mean with Facebook, having the Oculus device. They are trying to increase their efficiency and other initiatives. When we combine all of these, there will be a decade that is nothing like the previous decade. No one remembers the beginning of Web 2.0. We are the Google world; we don’t even remember the Yahoo search engine. No one remembers Web 1.0 at all. And in 10 years, I believe, we are not going to recall the Instagram habits that we have today. And when you look at virtual reality, storytelling takes a very different shape. And that’s all I’m going to say for now. Maybe in the next round, we’ll talk more about it. Halil İbrahim İzgi Okay, maybe we’ll be part of journalism and the metaverse one. Yusuf Özhan Yes, definitely. In a case where, you know, spatial bending is more efficient, we may be able to observe watching various things with the storytelling approaches, for example, a traffic accident, instead of being broadcast on the news. You know, you could immerse into that traffic accident through these technologies. And you could directly experience what went on there. At least, that is the discussion 211 S T R A T C O M P A N E L for the near future. We don’t know it will be accepted. We don’t know if it will take place. But I mean, you know, the TV didn’t eliminate the football stadiums, did it? No. But at least in terms of communication, for example, we don’t use text messages the SMS services anymore; social media eliminated that. We still have the possibility; it’s still there. But we refrain from using it. I believe that in the next decade, we’ll also have some developments like this, and maybe with the speeding effect of Corona. I mean, remote working was a culture that was not accepted widely, but it had had to be adopted throughout this period. And the products that will be revealed in the next decade, I believe, will carry our world to a very different point. I mean, Jack Dorsey was trying to explain to the Congress that his platform does not pose any threats to democracy. When he was establishing it, he said he was creating for democracy. But he ended up having to explain that his platform was not damaging democracy. The way this last decade started and ended tells us how this decade may start an end. And we will try and discuss the matters further. Halil İbrahim İzgi Thank you. So, Mr. Bora, especially in terms of public journalism, I mean, information is becoming polluted day by day. And all consumers, all data consumers, or story consumers are looking for one thing: The truth. And, of course, at that point, people turn to the public institutions for that. And that was the case across the world. And we had an experience similar to that in Türkiye as well. And suddenly, the news became part of social media. So, in terms of public broadcasting and journalism, creating reliability and not lagging behind this rapidly changing world and making sure that your content is also attractive. What do you do? Bora Yıldırım Let me start by saying I’m the oldest person on the panel here. I am a digital migrant. When I first started, I used to use a typewriter. We didn’t even have a computer. I went through these transformation processes, and the world changed so rapidly. And I guess I am quite ready to accept the next phase. I’m okay with that if its Metaverse, too, you know. It’s like, you know, signing a document without reading the user conditions. I’m ready. I started working on the public side four years ago, and I always was on the private side. I was at Al-Jazeera before TRT, and for some times, you know, I used to work at TRT World for a while. When you contact with foreign people as you are working there, and when you witness the way they do things, you realize that there are new methods as well as the other 212 STRATCOM PANEL - 4 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 methods that you’re not familiar with. And you can open new doors. People’s perceptions about TRT were not very good. They see TRT as an institution that is really dominated by the state. And what we had to do was the we tried to use all mediums to change this perception. And since I’m not in the private sector, we didn’t have too much advertising pressure, either. We have advertisements, we try to make money as well, but it’s not as great pressure as it is in the private sector. Once that pressure is removed, you have the chance to put things in order more. Social media is as valuable as our website; our Facebook is equally important Weibo is equally important. We went into all social media platforms because we had to be in all of them as a public broadcasting institution. And we needed to inform people. We also needed to act in line with the requirements of that media. And research tells us that no one reads news by clicking on a link. It seems that if newspapers are disappearing day by day, it seems websites will probably be disappearing, as well. And we’ll be losing weight because people are on social 213 S T R A T C O M P A N E L media, and they want to receive information on social media. And that was the chance we had because we didn’t have to make people click and take them to the website to show them commercials; we were free of that pressure. So that’s why we were able to give them what they wanted on the social media platform. They don’t have to come to our website; they don’t have to turn on the TV. And we said let’s inform people on site. I mean, wherever they are, they don’t have to divert to another medium. That’s how we arrange things. And we started to use videos because people are using a lot of videos these days. They’re consuming a lot of videos because internet speeds are have increased, quotas are have increased. Everyone streams more video, and they like to stream video through social media.That was a strategy that we put forward. And that was the path we walked down. And our second strategy realized that the people on Instagram and Twitter are not the same; the person on Facebook is completely different. They’re all different characters. We reviewed the research around this. And we then created a social media broadcast strategy different for Twitter, different for Instagram, different for Facebook. In Türkiye, the age group using Facebook is higher. That’s not the case across the world. But basically, we had to optimize our content on Facebook according to the age group that was there. Through this method, we started to make progress much faster on Twitter, our followers increased on Instagram. I believe we are the news channel with the most followers in Türkiye, I believe. And on the others, we’re doing quite well as well. So, it’s you need to adapt to people’s consumption habits. And in this period, we worked towards achieving this and created unique content for those platforms. We didn’t just take the content from our TV and put it there. We worked as a news center. We have correspondents that go out; we have people who operate drones; our camera operators work specifically for these platforms. Content is the only thing that’s real, whatever platform you’re on. And with the content we created, we started to stand out among others. And that cold face that cold face with the heaviness coming from the title of being a public broadcaster started to disappear as well. Now we have followers from all groups, age groups, and all walks of life. And we are in contact with them; we are coming together with all different groups of society. And as I said, we are changing that cold face of a public broadcasting institution. What can we do from now on? Yes, with the platforms we have, we are already working on them intensely. But the next phase is critical because we need to make headway. As a public broadcasting institution, you take on a mission. And I mean, some private broadcasting companies may not find the capital, the time for taking place in this new world. But as a public broadcaster, you need to Everyone streams more video, and they like to stream video through social media. 214 STRATCOM PANEL - 4 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 pave the way. You have that responsibility; you have that mission. We need to work for the upcoming phase. I mean, the Metaverse, as the previous speaker also mentioned. And he gave an example from New York Times. New York Times is pioneering in this area, in terms of all sorts of interactive practices in the digital area; New York Times is a very successful institution. And we also feel the need to create similar activities. And soon, if everything turns outright, we will have a virtual correspondent. This virtual correspondent will be living online. It will have some social media accounts reporting the news. And in the future, if Metaverse comes to life - and it seems like it will - we will have a virtual correspondent at the new digital universe. We are already carrying out infrastructure activities about this. Being a public broadcaster, as you said, I mean, yes, it is a little challenging, you can’t take swift action, because you know, in the public sphere, there is a hierarchy that you need to overcome. And that’s not very easy, always. But these steps toward technological advancement and the faith in digitalization that our executives portray help us pave the way. If Metaverse comes to life - and it seems like it will - we will have a virtual correspondent at the new digital universe. 215 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Halil İbrahim İzgi Dear İsmail Halis, you are one of those people who learn, teach and apply wherever there is innovation, wherever there is something new. You have an endless curiosity to learn and the energy to implement. From this perspective, you define yourself as a new media curator. I find it valuable because now everyone is a content producer. What place journalism has in this, what being curator means and what kind of future waits for it, how these curators differ from the editors choosing news for us, what kind of benefits curation will provide, with your definition, in the new generation journalism, if you wish, let’s talk about these. İsmail Halis By the way, I can’t help but say because he is with me. Before, Mr. Bora expressed some of the risks and difficulties of being a public institution before. Since these are his own words, I use them in this way, too, with his permission. He mentioned that they would soon create a virtual reporter on the metaverse. GZT did that. I hope TRT will do it soon. Halil İbrahim İzgi I guess that Journalism is such fun by surviving the news and surviving the project. Previously, there was news, now project, what do you think? İsmail Halis It may be a technical information, but I heard Mr.Yusuf phrasing big tech companies in a few senteces as far as I could get from his speech. Let us say that only two advertising companies have taken over $260 billion of the $650 billion global advertising market, seized, created a massive monopoly, formed a ring, and its framework on top of everything we talk about. I think that whatever we talk about, whatever content we produce, this numerical barricade and this numerical wall will stand before us. Whether we are TRT, Yenisafak, GZT, Anadolu Agency, Mücerret, Brief, Yeni Medya House, no matter which civil or official institution we are, I think this reality should stand somewhere. Even huge companies and organizations are in such a brutal war. I believe there is also a financial dimension to this. Dear friends, when they asked me for a presentation title, I presented them the map title that adds movement to meaning new media. There were very valuable presentations; I took many notes; I will take notes from now on. Indeed, 216 STRATCOM PANEL - 4 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 in many aspects, I think of everything we talk about and what we will talk about as particles, inventories, and materials of a huge map. I attach great importance to every single word in the map that adds movement to meaning new media expression. But the thing that I care about the most, that I try to put my humble effort into and contribute to its production somehow, is meaning. What we call is the meaning is not something that can be produced after all. It is something that already exists layer by layer in every situation. Here, I consider content producers, journalists, reporters, managers, and every content producer interested in digital journalism as people responsible for noticing, producing, and sharing those layers of meaning and living and carrying that excitement. This is something fascinating, frankly. The exciting thing is: 12 thousand years ago, in Göbeklitepe, people did not just paint on stones; they told their issues with stories. This is an exciting situation. Especially our beloved moderator is a person who is closely interested in the matter of the story. I know personally and professionally that the New York Times is known, appreciated, followed, and emulated as the center of story journalism worldwide. But, if we look at it in that sense, there is nothing new. Twelve thousand years ago, before even the invention of writing, wewe, ancestors of humans, told a story and engraved it in stone. Maybe it will be a little typical, but let’s not exaggerate ourselves too much, so we are not doing the very first classwork. People performed the same thing on stone. Today, we are doing something with thousands of materials and possibilities. Halil İbrahim İzgi You say the rest is a story. İsmail Halis The rest is a story but a big story. Now, if we look a little bit between the lines, columns, walls, outside of the building of a massive story, while Dear Yusuf Özhan was talking, 2018 was the year if I remember correctly, Anadolu Agency has a journalism academy, thanks to them they invited me there, I came across a sentence I uttered there again while browsing Google. I made a sentence saying that the mother tongue of the new world is video. Please excuse me for citing my own words, but the mother tongue of the new world is video. Mr. Bora has just said, I am saying it for all social media and digital media platforms, especially I attach great importance to every single word in the map that adds movement to meaning new media expression. But the thing that I care about the most, that I try to put my humble effort into and contribute to its production somehow, is meaning. 217 S T R A T C O M P A N E L since the last five years, the mother tongue for all of them is undoubtedly video. No matter what language you belong to, the video has no language. You can mutely deliver your message to anyone in Nicaragua, Congo, Bosnia, Uskub. And fortunately, I’m really at peace with it. I have produced 1600 videos in the last five years. We have tried and are trying to do permanent work with a team that makes. Each of us is interested in the new media, we are all journalists, and Mr. Bora also said that he came from the conventional typewriter era. He gave the example of the New York Times, and he also gave the example of Al-Jazeera. We were together for a while in Al-Jazeera with my dear Bora. What excites me most about the New York Times is this: I think his previous CEO was Mark Thomson. He gave an interview to Emre Kızılkaya in Türkiye, which is a perfect example. He says we have a veteran journalist who covered the Kennedy assassination in 1963, but we also have podcast editors born in 2000 and 2001. I think that we, I 218 STRATCOM PANEL - 4 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 mean conventionalists new media people and digitalists, exaggerate where we stand. I believe that everyone makes their place a little divine and indispensable. I’m not saying that to find a middle ground. I’ve never been a supporter of this, but I think that’s the truth. I think every content producer goes through a bit of conventional innovation. I believe that the priority of people with such a curiosity and problem should be traditional innovation. People performed the best example of the conventional in Göbeklitepe 12 thousand years ago. For this reason, there is hardly anyone who reads a printed newspaper today. I think it’s still imperative. I believe that 80% of the information shared by new media and digital is still in print and conventional. If I explain that map expression, let’s imagine a video frame in the back, for two minutes, you can share personally until 2:20 on Twitter, and you can share until 9:59 from corporate accounts you know. Imagine in a video frame; this has never happened in human history; you can put together so much inventory material in one frame that this is the first time. Historical details about information, photos, extra memory, things that can happen in a single frame, graphics, infographics, audio, music, aesthetics, even ethics, it has to do with whether you blur an image or not; this is amazing, it didn’t exist 30 years ago, it didn’t exist even 20 years ago. Everything is in a single video frame; that’s why I’m using the map; that map is such a big map that it’s the first time its inventory has expanded this much, the first time it has grown this much. But whether we come from the conventional or define ourselves as digitalizes, we, content producers, digitalists, journalists; how aware are we of this, and how can we transform this awareness into something permanent? I think that the word permanent is a fundamental roof concept. This is controversial. Everyone will eventually make some definitions based on where they stand. Levent Erden wrote an article in Oksijen Gazetesi yesterday. It was an article on renewable energy. This renewable word is essential. After all, it was Robert Fulford, wasn’t it, Mr. Halil İbrahim? We talked about this for a while. He has a book on the story. For example, the origin of the concept of new journalism goes back to 1867. Then in the 1960s, it came into play again. When we use the concept of digital, I’m afraid I have to disagree with the opinion that the content we produce is digital journalism content; if we are not transferring something to that map from the printed matter that we call conventional, that is, from memory, how much journalism is the name of that thing, I think this is controversial. Halil İbrahim İzgi We wish to add new concepts to our meaning map constantly. Dear Doğukan Gezer, when we say GZT, it is known as a brand born on the internet. There are People performed the best example of the conventional in Göbeklitepe 12 thousand years ago. For this reason, there is hardly anyone who reads a printed newspaper today. 219 S T R A T C O M P A N E L screen faces, of course, but as a brand, a character has been built, and the promise of news consumption content consumption has been presented. A new field has opened up for a new generation of journalists. As someone who manages GZT’s newsroom, how would you describe the new generation of journalists and their future? Which skills need to be developed more today and in the future? Doğukan Gezer Let me tell you about the story of GZT. And so that people know what it is about. It was established five years ago. It’s a digital media brand and referred, in some cases, different from other media organizations; we’re digital and not connected to previous media outlets. It was established within Albayrak. And we are part of this new media space. And when you say new media and GZT, I’d like to talk about the fact that we live in an entirely different world, which cannot be defined yet. For example, like Metaverse. People cannot explain it very well; five years ago, when we said new media and new media journalism, we couldn’t define it quite yet. That’s why there was an uncertainty, a gap in the world we’re coming from, which was also disadvantageous for us as a news outlet. Because of the new media, we didn’t have an editorial catering for this new media organization. We had to come up with it, make it up. But we didn’t have any legal basis, coming from real journalism and TV. That’s why we embarked on an exploratory process and what we saw was this process that we need to discuss what we need to touch upon in our new media. Everyone is using social media. Everyone in the room is using social media for sure. In news reporting, while Instagram, when you look at Instagram or other social media, they don’t have news reflexes. And it’s not expected for them to have news reporting reflexes. But we wanted to approach this medium. How can we engage with this new social media? And then we’ve seen that people look at their screens throughout the day or check their social media accounts. And if they were curious about a news, piece of news or specific content and faced with a brand or a genre, they felt pulled toward it because there were no precedent or previous examples from the media. And we talked about the videos and first it was more graphical. You have to invest more in the video. It’s a technical investment. When you see TV outlets, they have big buildings and antennae, but we wanted to reach out to many people 24/7. We wanted to access all people, and well, you can go online and look at your phone and have access to all those. Infographics are very helpful; because of the tech space news reporting, the interest in tech space reporting is going down. People watch more videos. Infographics they’re You have a space to do your graphics; like a painter, you have an empty, vacant screen, and you fill it with your content without boring people. 220 STRATCOM PANEL - 4 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 helpful here. You have a space to do your graphics; like a painter, you have an empty, vacant screen, and you fill it with your content without boring people. An infographic is part of new media. And it’s also one element that we’re using very often. In our exploratory process, we’ve seen that the person who is consuming the content should also be the one generating it, we thought, in our new center in our news bureau. And maybe a person from a journalist, a news reporter, will prepare the content, but in the new media, everyone can generate content. That’s what we realized. We wanted to talk to people who can generate content that we wanted to focus on when it comes to news reports. So, they started to generate content and news reporting. Because when you consume the content you’ve created, you’ll have a good energy level between both sides parties. And it’s-- And because we live in the age of algorithms and social media and the engineers who write these algorithms, they don’t fully understand how they work. They don’t have much idea about this new world. But in a new media publication, we have seen things that are different than conventional news outlets. And so, we also have to fight this algorithm which sets your way, in social media newsmaking, how many people you will reach out to, which content needs to reach the highest 221 S T R A T C O M P A N E L amount of people, so you have to take all of these into account as a journalist in the new media. And let’s say you have good content in mind, and everyone will like it, you think. And Ümmügülsüm, the editor, went to Afghanistan during the turmoil. It’s not only for her to go there, to be in Afghanistan; she has also used this new media methodology to tell the story, for example, Story News, making Story News, what is that? Well, it’s different from basic journalism. In 15 seconds, you have to be able to give your message. You have to show the place that you want to show. You have to use a vertical screen. Video formats, video content generation goes agains that because squeezing everything in on the vertical screen is very difficult. And then, you have to share the content instantaneously, in real-time. Being present in the war zone in Afghanistan is unfortunately no longer enough. You have to do other things on top of it. The continent is the king, but its shape has changed. Yes, content is the king, but you can market it to the extent. Let’s say you generated content. And this content, well, maybe you can’t say everyone will consume it and be lenient. And as a new media journalist, you have to have good content, but you also need to market it well and think about how to market it. This is an important Tweet. Because your marketing universe is unlimited, infinite if you’re broadcasting on social media. In on social media, well, they have new rules and may announce new rules. And that’s why it may change your experience. We still have Facebook, but other social media platforms have overtaken it. Facebook was a good publishing platform for the new media journalists. But to a certain extent, they said, “I will show news content generated by outlets, draw newspapers less you can’t object to this decision.” You’re a journalist, you have to broadcast and report, but the algorithm is against you. That’s why you cannot broadcast or publish that on Facebook anymore as much as you want. YouTube is an important platform for video content generation, they decided. Well, “I want you to publish short and vertical videos; this is what we expect from broadcasters,” they said, but last decade, they recommended horizontal and long videos for good news reporting. It should take one minute at most. Vertical video generation, that’s what they transmit to the methodology. That’s what we had to do as well. This is a constant change and it is so difficult for them to first adapt to those. It’s like a training ground field for us. There’s another rule. We talked about Metaverse and the artificial intelligence presentation. This is a con on the metaverse universe; people cannot define it. This happened ten years ago to Facebook, but the gaming world is growing, and young people spend time playing games and getting on gaming. And, everyone can do it on the, I mean, cell phones and the Metaverse will be available on our cell phones as well. What can we do? Well, what can we 222 STRATCOM PANEL - 4 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 do in the metaverse universe? That’s one food for thought. So, for GZT, too. We focused on two things as GZT. One is related to the artificial intelligence issue that was presented. I mean, so you have this cost, and you have to step in front of the camera, and you have to prepare the space and then use a computer screen to explain the story, which is advantageous for the consumers. And we tried it and it had frightening aspects because news reporting is serious. The face of the person is supposed to be serious and, trustable, trustworthy. But artificial intelligence is not reliable yet. But it is real, well, maybe we can talk about the brand’s reputation creating artificial intelligence or Afghanistan. And then let’s say we went to Afghanistan, and we have data from the street. We stand in front of the camera and talk about this. And then we’re in Metaverse; we can add our reporting in the Metaverse to present news from Afghanistan in front of a building. People report news in front of the building, and they talk about the building, and we are used to that from the TV. But well, does the reporter has to be present in front of the building or not? Metaverse will open new doors for broadcasters in that regard as well. Maybe we’ll not come in 10 years, but we’ll need to tackle that issue in one to two years. Maybe in or two years, we’ll talk about outcomes from the metaverse world, which is also an advantage. I tried to summarize the new media phenomenon in these words. Halil İbrahim İzgi There are precious experiences and efficient perspectives. Some friends run a newsroom. Almost all of us fall under this definition, but there is also Ersin. Ersin has many different identities. He is interested in media, digital, and social media, three of these, and he has a journalistic journey that turns into a truly personal brand in three of these. We are all watching with excitement. Ersin also has experimental studies, but I especially want to ask what a journalist in print and digital media has faced in building up his digital personality and what is the future in this regard, both as an institutional transformation of journalism as a personal experience. Ersin Çelik In 2014, I wrote a column in Yeni Şafak’s online newspaper, and then we no longer had this on the online columns. And then he asked me to write a newspaper in the 15th year of my career. And then people congratulated me they called me or sent me flowers. But I did write online news for the same organization. You If we’re in Metaverse, we can add our reporting in the Metaverse to present news from Afghanistan in front of a building. 223 S T R A T C O M P A N E L were not reading my articles, my columns online. Now you want to read them because they’re printed. Conventional media is still powerful in Türkiye; they have a significant brand value because and because the strength from digital media comes from conventional media, and still. We’re not only journalists, but we also train journalists and educate them and it’s an issue in our industry: training someone, mentoring someone, transferring your chair to someone else, younger people, to open ways for younger people. All of my colleagues are trying to do something about mentoring young journalists, this qualified HR. We have very few this is qualified HR. Doğukan is a good example. He was the night editor of Yeni Şafak, yenisafak. com. And now he’s leading the GZT brand, and this happens in four-five years. Why am I telling you these stories? Bill Gates, in ‘96, as was mentioned by Doğukan, talked about the content being king. In 1996, he said opening a web page took 25 seconds or one minute. And people discovered the Internet in Internet cafes back then. And yes, content is king, but it’s king because of the power of the media it is published or broadcast. When you talk about Dünyanın dört bir yanından milyonlarca kişinin izlediği bu panellerde verilen ortak mesaj, hangi maskeyi takarsa taksın FETÖ’nün bir terör örgütü olduğunun 15 Temmuz 2016’dan sonra hiçbir şüpheye yer bırakmayacak şekilde 224 STRATCOM PANEL - 4 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 new journalism or rediscovering journalism, - well, journalism is exploring- it’s an exploratory profession. And as TV came while we had menus, journalism was broadcast on TV. Radio was very strong, still strong. But now we have podcasts. We have been discovering podcasts for the last five years, but since the 1990s, they have become, they’ve been a powerful communication tool. Nothing is ending; it is renewing itself; it is evolving itself. Everything is evolving in the industry. And this happens very quickly; we produce quickly, we consume quickly. When there is no consumer, nothing will be generated; nothing will be produced. This is the simplistic way of looking. Yeni Şafak, the Albayrak Group, decided to invest in digital media ten years ago. You have to set up a team, but there was no team. We had talked about this with Yusuf before, and we talked to İsmail Halis; we were sending CVs to one another. I can’t use that person. You can use him instead if you wish. We decided to mentor people to train and mentor people. Today we have Albayrak media handover academy. We have 50 newcomers that are being onboarded today. And we didn’t practice like an apprentice and master did, but now we had to invest in theory. Communication faculties in schools have trouble adapting to the contemporary media. I mean, you have youngsters studying communications, Radio TV today in the room but they are being taught based on the curriculum of 1964. Okay, they have this English prep school, and they study 5 years in total. When they come to us, they have a problem with the Turkish language; that’s a basic issue. We need to listen to Bora about his complaint. He is complaining about it. They have a (problem) using the Turkish language. And once, Doğukan wants a graduate from Communications Faculty to create a story. “What is the story?” No, he was not told about any stories. They were teaching him the history of printing for two years. But when they come to us, he will do something that has nothing to do with a story of printing houses, and maybe they should create a story out of the history of printing. We have a problem with HR. We have to train them from scratch, these graduates. And then we have this, and then we discover the person’s skills and talents. Journalism requires talent, needs talents. Five years ago, a reporter was asked to present news in 15 seconds. “You’re crazy. That’s not possible.” He would answer. I can’t tell you that news in 15 seconds. The stories take 15 seconds today. And we have to give the entire content in 15 seconds. We can accomplish that because when we can do that, it reaches millions of people. Bora talked about videos and Yusuf as well, and it’s my bit as well. 93% of small Everything is evolving in the industry. And this happens very quickly; we produce quickly, we consume quickly. When there is no consumer, nothing will be generated; nothing will be produced. This is the simplistic way of looking. 225 S T R A T C O M P A N E L social media users consume video, no texts but video. They’re consuming video. What’s the duration? It’s below 40 seconds, the average video content globally, yes. Because all communication takes place on the cell phone. In 2007 Steve Jobs said, “Today we will introduce evolution,” he introduced the first model of the iPhone. And since then, we’ve had a revolution in communication. In ‘94 and internet entered our lives, which is the first evolution; in 2007, smart cell phones smartphones came into life as the second revolution. In ‘92, we had a fixed-line at home, and people, the neighbors, came to us to congratulate us for it. I work in the conventional outlet. I’m an editor in chief of a newspaper. I am managing internet publications. And I’m generating stories, we have an Instagram account, and I create content on social media. The transformation “15 Temmuz 2016 tecrübemizden öğrendiğimiz ikinci ders, dayanışmanın önemiyle ve demokratik ortaklarımızın desteğiyle ilgilidir.” 226 STRATCOM PANEL - 4 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 is enormous. None of the traffics are an economic contribution, but they’re invaluable in brand value. If you don’t generate content for Instagram, you will not be able to communicate with this new generation. This is the equation. So how do I do it? I have to do it, first of all. I want to exist in this industry. I have to do all of those at the same time. Yusuf Özhan, what is he known in social media for his floods. And many news reporters, they’re feeding themselves from his chain of tweets. Yusuf Özhan is very busy now, and no longer does it. But he established a culture of journalism in social media. And, he establishes links with the news reports. And well, you have to use it accurately or you can go to Atatürk Library to carry out a research based on to help to get to the source of Yusuf Bey’s tweets. Talents, devotion, curiosity, excitement, they flow together. People should love doing this. And only people who love doing it can do. It’s not like a shift or work for that person. After 5pm I want to go home and do nothing. If you say that you’re not a journalist, you have to go and become a civil servant or do another profession. That’s what I tell all candidates, you have to love your job. If you love it will love you. And it is reciprocal after a while it will generate more content more fruitful content for both. Well, we have journalists that become stars in three years. They’re discovered, because they generate content. They exist through a generation of content on YouTube, on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook. There is a fight going on between these platforms and the content generators, they’re taking sides sometimes and everyone invents. It’s about revenue sharing. The platforms provide good income to users. We have a quickly changing transforming ecosystem and people are trying to adapt themselves to it maybe. We’re talking about the next decade of news reporting and journalists, but talking about it’s not right. Because we’re in an uncertain system, you can’t foresee what will happen in two years’ time. If I were to ask, do you have Messenger, some people will lift their hands but there is no messenger service today. 10 years ago, the entire world use Messenger to communicate. It was the social media platform, Messenger. Now we don’t have it. We have WhatsApp. Hotmail company, they couldn’t predict mobile apps. That’s why they, the brand of Messenger became extinct. Reading, seeing the future is important. Doğukan is an expert in that all the social media ecosystem is created by Chinese. They’ve changed, turned Instagram upside down; tweets and stories. Instagram would have gone down or they would have copied the TikTok content and that’s what they did. They copied the TikTok content. But it’s minus 28. So, I have no time left. 10 years ago, the entire world use Messenger to communicate. It was the social media platform, Messenger. Now we don’t have it. We have WhatsApp. Hotmail company, they couldn’t predict mobile apps. That’s why they, the brand of Messenger became extinct. 227 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Halil İbrahim İzgi I would like to thank all our panelists for their perspectives. Here are my notes: content, the power of the range continues, quality content changes shape, but the power of the content increases. Reliable content, original content, content suitable for different formats, and the enthusiasm of producing this power and content will continue to mark the future of journalism, just as it has done so far. İsmail Halis If a quote by Noah Harari is not cited in such panels, the legitimacy of that panel is questioned. He has a sentence meaning; In the world of 2050, if liberalism, Islam, nationalism, or any doctrine wants to shape the world of that day. It needs to introduce a new narrative set that includes artificial intelligence algorithms and bioengineering to people, with a new expression language. I think it’s maybe one of his few significant sentences. I was unworthy invited here, my dear friends, 228 STRATCOM PANEL - 4 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 as the founder of Mücerret. Perhaps the only difference I have from my friends and journalist friends is that I was asked here with the title of Mücerret, a civilian who does not belong to any institution; I would like to thank the communications department. We were established in 2017 July 2017. We were in December 2021, and precisely 565,974 people have gone there to study thought, culture, and international political analysis. I wanted to share it because I find it very remarkable to resist the Tiktokization of Twitter and social media. Halil İbrahim İzgi So, Mücerret was represented by İsmail Halis, and they stand for written press, and I would like to thank you very much. At the Strategic Communication Summit, we talked about the digital transformation of journalism about the digital journalism of today and the future. And I hope it was fruitful for all of you. It was for me. Thank you so much. Goodbye. 229 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 5 Strategic Communication and Information Warfare 230 STRATCOM PANEL - 5 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Strategic Communication and Information Warfare 11 December 2021 • Assoc. Prof. Enes Bayraklı Associate Professor at Turkish- German University - Türkiye (Moderator) • Assoc. Prof. Turgay Yerlikaya Associate Professor at Istanbul University - Türkiye • Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat SETA Washington DC Research Director - Türkiye • Assoc. Prof. Yusuf Özkır Associate Professor at Medipol University - Türkiye • Assoc. Prof. İsmail Çağlar Associate Professor at Istanbul University - Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 231 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 05 Tackling communication at a strategic level and in the national and international context is very important and creates a projection for the future. Assoc. Prof. Enes Bayraklı Welcome to our strategic communication panel. We have four esteemed academicians with us today, three of them are working on communication and media, and we also have an international relations professor with us. So, we will be handling the issue from various perspectives today. I want to start with associate professor Turgay Yerlikaya, if I may. Now about information warfare, how is the fight in this area? What goes on in the background? And what are the discussions and the literature looking like? Maybe we’ll hear about theoretical knowledge and a conceptual framework, and then we will tackle the issue with our other panelists. 232 STRATCOM PANEL - 5 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Assoc. Prof. Turgay Yerlikaya Hello, first of all, I would like to thank the Presidency’s Directorate of Communications for inviting us to such a panel, because tackling communication at a strategic level and in the national and international context is very important and creating a projection for the future. From this point, it is essential for Türkiye’s future and communication now. Information Warfare which is the title of our panel is a concept that when you look at it historically. However, it seems like it is an issue that came up through social media; it goes way back to when media was first created. It was discussed even before conventional and unconventional media existed. So, information was used as a strategic element and was used as a weapon for wars. So, when we talk about information warfare, we are talking about states or non-state groups or, sometimes, terrorist groups these days. They are using the information as a strategic element in their activities. Now, especially, my presentation will focus on digital technologies that are introduced to our lives through Web 2.0. and what we consider as new media today, shaping our daily realities, our social realities. That’s why I believe new media is critical in disinformation and fake news, and they contribute to information warfare in this sense. And the way this has been used as a tool is important. Now, social media, and before social media conventional media tools when you look at it from the point of media and modernization, the relationship between this, media was seen as leverage for modernization. And it was seen as an indispensable part of democracy. And when you look at it, where there’s media engagement, and where media can act freely and independently and where opinions can be revealed, media, ideally, was accepted as an important parameter for the development of democracy. When you look at international reports today, when you see the standards created to measure democracy, there are parameters about media. And this also shows us that the media democracy relationship is important. Especially in the past decade, this positive correlation built between media and democracy has been reversed a little, because especially since the beginning of the 2000s, with the Orange Revolution, and then in December 2010, starting in Tunisia, there were the social movements that became that spread across the Middle East, and media and social media were used to encourage democracy. And it was used by people living in autocratic regimes. And especially during the Arab Spring, for movements to be able to stand up against authoritarian regimes, social media was an important tool. And then with the occupy movements, again about the social unrest, it was Information Warfare is a concept that when you look at it historically. However, it seems like it is an issue that came up through social media; it goes way back to when media was first created. 233 S T R A T C O M P A N E L a place where the opposition could position itself and freely discuss their issues. That’s how it was in practice; however, especially with the 2016 USA elections and the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the behavior of voters; it turned out social media could influence that; there were a lot of discussions about this. And after that, social media started to look like something that influenced democracy that damaged democratic institutions; you know, terrorist propaganda, xenophobia, some state organs, some sub-state organs were carving the foundations of democracy through social media. And when you look at it in practice, Cambridge Analytica in 2016, right after Trump’s election for the office, was discussed in terms of Russia’s engagement in the elections. And then, when you look at it, the Cambridge analytical scandal was not just about the USA elections. Still, France, Brexit, Germany, basically, in the West and Non-West world over the social media platforms, voters’ behaviors were attempted to be influenced. And there were some policies carried out to create crises and polarization. And there were many examples added to the literature around such issues. So basically, information warfare is not something new. Still, with social media, it was further deepened, and it became more visible, and it had more of an impact on our daily lives. So, 234 STRATCOM PANEL - 5 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 what I’m trying to say is access to conventional media was something we did by being present at a venue, or we needed to have a venue. The TV was at home, or the newspaper would be in our hands. And it would be limited to the time we allocated to it. But digital media is with us constantly on our digital wearable watches to our phones. So, this also impacted the evolution of this media reality. For that reason, what we call information warfare became more visible. And as Prof. Dr. Fahrettin Altun stated in his speech this morning, it became more of an element that creates a threat for future democracies. The perspectives of states and the reviews of state policies and, you know, about regulations also show us that this reality is being felt intensely both in Türkiye and in the West. And states are adding cyber security to their national security policies Türkiye’s included in this. So basically, information warfare became further digitalized that became more visible. And it became more apparent to all of us. And basically, most references to hybrid warfare have been made in recent years with the interventions created through social media as well. So, when we talk about information warfare, we see various mediums that make it visible. One is fake news and disinformation that is spread over social media. And recently, if you recall, with Türkiye’s victory in Karabakh, Türkiye contributed to this information warfare. As it was stated this 235 S T R A T C O M P A N E L morning by the Deputy President and by Mr. Hajiyev, it was essential to stand against them to respond to misinformation and fake news. So basically, through internet channels through the accounts of various lobbies, the intranet platform can be exposed to disinformation policy. And also in information warfare, secondly, after Türkiye regulated digital platforms, especially foreign press bodies, and foreign press representatives in Türkiye, and international media institutions operating in Türkiye, were very important. So, this is another important context, which is part of information warfare. And we are discussing this issue from a perspective of basically having a fifth column activity. So basically, creating some psychological vulnerability in a country through various activities. When you look at it, foreign press representatives, foreign media institutions, and broadcasting policies should be evaluated within the frame of fifth column activities. And again, we see these as direct interventions done through media. And when we talk about cyber interventions, that is also very important. And in the digital area, and wherever the internet is widespread, we can see such examples, which directly impact humans’ lives and military capacities. And technological means of countries can be damaged by this, for example, Citigroup in 2011, Stuxnet, the Iran issue, and recently the Fakhrizadeh assassination. And also, as an early warning to such issues in 1982, the Siberia gas pipeline, again, through a cyber intervention, was eliminated by a US intervention. So again, these are some interventions that took place as part of cyber warfare. So, there is a lot of digitalization going on. There are a lot of issues that are being discussed as part of digitalization. But this is not new. When you look at the 1940s, for example, right before the Second World War, the American defense industry and as part of the Defense Department, an office of information warfare was created anyway. And also to eliminate the Soviet propaganda and makes sure the Soviet threat was not heard. Particularly the Voice of America and other media organs were used in information warfare. But as I said, digitalization is both in cyberspace and through social media platforms with robot accounts and fake news. And by creating agendas, we see that in practice, we see many, many more examples. And also, I’d like to talk about the reactions of governments or states to this. Now Türkiye recently raised awareness about this issue, and this year and the national security document, we saw that cyber security was also included. So, cybersecurity is deemed an important issue in Türkiye. And it is seen as a primary component of national security. And again, let’s refer to what Dr. Fahrettin said this morning. One of the greatest issues threatening the cyber sovereignty of states is this impact area issue. Now, as part of NATO, and when you look at STRATCOM, the name comes from the Strategic Türkiye recently raised awareness about this issue, and this year and in the national security document, we saw that cyber security was also included. 236 STRATCOM PANEL - 5 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Communication Center, and NATO similarly, and managing this information warfare is and especially in the non-West world, Russia and China’s impact on Eastern Europe are trying to be undermined through these activities. In Australia, for example, within the Ministry of Defense, there was a department like the Office of Information Division; I’m not sure whether this was the exact name. But basically, the main goal of this office was to prevent international information or information-related or cyber-attacks on Australia. And that’s their function, still. Information warfare is becoming visible in various formats, especially with social media platforms. And the fact that they are working without or beyond the bounds of any legislation. And then there’s also the radical right movements and xenophobia and terrorist organizations, which also find space for themselves on such platforms. And basically, they are acting free from any formal structure. And that’s what makes it more problematic. And the literature in this area on information warfare is moving forward quite vividly. And in the states, The Journal of democracy is used as a platform for these discussions. But basically, they aim to focus on Russia and China to fight against them through information warfare. And again, this literature is being followed quite actively in Türkiye as well. And awareness is being raised about this. And as was mentioned in this morning’s sessions, Türkiye is working towards establishing its cyber sovereignty. And, you know, as a state and as individuals, there are a lot of responsibilities. And Türkiye is working towards creating public awareness about this. So yes, it is a very vivid example. But, still, Türkiye, especially for the upcoming few years, Türkiye needs to focus on the digitalization of information warfare, and I believe it will be discussed much more over the years. Thank you. Assoc. Prof. Enes Bayraklı Thank you very much, Professor; you created the conceptual framework for this issue. So, when we look at the recent discussions, we see the data that social media companies have collected. And through the use of AI, there is a lot of disinformation that is being created. And you touched upon this very well, as well. And this is becoming one of the greatest threats against democracy; for the future, I mean, it is turning into a power that manipulates the voters’ will. And I remember 1984, a novel by George Orwell, and it was seen as a dystopia back then, but in the past 30 years, it has almost turned into reality for all of us. So, I would like to pass the floor to Professor İsmail at this point. When we look at the recent discussions worldwide, are we going towards a digital dictatorship globally? What do you think about that? Especially for the upcoming few years, Türkiye needs to focus on the digitalization of information warfare, and I believe it will be discussed much more over the years. 237 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Assoc. Prof. İsmail Çağlar Thank you very much. And I would like to thank everyone who organized this event and invited us here and, of course, the Directorate of Communications. Thank you, our dear audience, because if you weren’t listening to us, there would be no point in us speaking. So, I would like to thank you as well, specifically. Now the question directed by Professor Enes is things that are always on my mind. I mean, yes, we discuss these issues all the time. But before I came here, I was thinking about, you know, what my context should be, as I am trying to express my thoughts. And at the final stage, I was planning to tie my speech at that point, but you brought me to that point at the beginning of my speech. So, the answer to the question, I’ll put that out very clearly, and then I’ll elaborate more. Yes, we may go towards a digital dictatorship. But I don’t think that will be the case. I mean, let me put it more generally. The new media area, this ecosystem, since it was first introduced to our lives, it took a certain course, if it follows that same course, and together with the policymakers and the civil society representatives. Their actions, I mean, if they all continue their behavior the way they have until now, then yes, we will go towards a digital dictatorship. But I don’t think that will be the case. I believe there will be a change in approaches and policies. And we are seeing examples of this already. And I believe it will become dominant. These political changes and approaches will become the dominant paradigm in this area. And I believe that will be the way to stop this digital dictatorship. So that was my conclusion. But now I’ll go back and tell you about what made me reach this conclusion. So, I’m going to take you down a memory lane a little bit. But since we are talking about digital mediums, I’m not going to take you back too long. It will be about the past we have all witnessed. Now social media platforms create a space where public opinion is formed. So, there is a community that is there. And individuals, states, governments, or people like us in this area were all pleased about it when we formed this community. And basically, the common communication rules made us focus on one thing there; we saw that the communication there was interactive. And that is the term that is generally used for this, although I believe it’s not fulfilling anymore. But basically-- I’m not going to go into so much detail. But basically, it’s not like, you know, me speaking from stage and you listening to me, but it’s more like having an exchange of words of having a mutual conversation. So basically, new media platforms, people were turning into people who could speak, who were followed, and that was, you know, something very new in our lives. And we had started thinking about that phenomenon as something new. And it was a joyous occasion 238 STRATCOM PANEL - 5 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 to realize that such an opportunity existed. And both professionally and in terms of freedom and democracy, it was a nice phenomenon, and we all applauded. So, I won’t go into all those details. But Professor Turgay already talked about it. But let’s remember the revolution. Or I’ll give you a local example; in Türkiye, for example, in the first half of the 2000s, there was still a struggle against the military powers, and social media contributed to that. Now, we must accept it. We all witnessed that it also supported the struggle against military power. But that new excitement we had and, you know, that curiosity went away after a while. And then, when we started thinking deeper about this ecosystem, there were new question marks that were revealed, and one of them is. I always say this. I always have an economic, social, and political criticism about these. I mean, now, billions of dollars are in play here. There’s enormous economic size, and this area, when you look at it, you know, you’re talking about human rights democracy. Still, it is not possible to have such a wide area without some economic interests of, you know, global powers. So basically, that pie, is it just being shaped around freedom and democracy? I mean, are we really going to take such an optimistic approach to this, we said, and we asked ourselves this question, and then we found, we noticed that states started to come in because it was a space that couldn’t just be left to be on its own. And then countries started to put some regulations formally and informally. For example, look at the transparency reports of social media platforms. There are some demands that you will never see recorded there. I mean, if you are in a host country, the demands of that country are very different compared to a country that is not a host like Türkiye. The demands or administrative demands of host countries are responded to. But when you make such a demand as a country that is not a host, you need to have a court ruling to get what you want to be done. So, these companies themselves turned into transnational actors. And when we go to the beginning, I mean, why were we so excited about these platforms? And why did we think that they were exceptional or that they were a blessing? Well, we thought it would give us freedom. Yes, that’s true. I can turn on my mobile app and open the app and send out a tweet. So, in practice, yes, I am doing this but is my content authentic? Or am I repeating some popular discourses, some popular attitudes, and some popular approaches? And am I recreating what is already there? And again, going back to the beginning, am I communicating my thoughts to common I wasn’t able to before? Or am I repeating what used to be said in conventional media? So, have I been turned into an instrument for them? As soon as that positive vibe around these platforms disappeared, we began to question these issues. And now we have the post-truth concept as well. We’re 239 S T R A T C O M P A N E L talking about manipulations, disinformation, and perception operation. Now, in the end, this is all about twisting and tangling the existing truth, subtracting a part of it, leaving another part of it behind and taking specific dimensions of it, and delivering them to certain groups. So, we see this in conventional and new media, and we see it in interpersonal relations. But here we are at a very different point. I don’t want to go into the philosophical debate around this too much but think of truth with a capital “T” like the real truth. Now we have a non-capitalized reality taking over the place of the actual capitalized fact. So, we’re not just talking about deceiving an audience; we are talking about the recreation of information rather than its manipulation. And we are talking about the recreation of details as the exact opposite of its truth. So, we are killing truth and putting something else in its place, claiming that what we put in place is the truth. And for those mourning after the fact that we killed or those still defending it. So even what I say will not be accepted on these platforms because if we are talking about social media, we always need to say that it’s a very democratic right, and it’s very cool. And you know, we in our society have a love for technology anyway, and this is in line with that as well. So here we are, actually killing truth. We are not killing truth because of this platform, because post-truth is all over the place now. But basically, new media is very appropriate for the post-truth era. And what we call freedom, democracy, human rights, we are like emptying the meaning of all of these, and we are then filling them up We are killing truth, putting something else in its place, and claiming that what we put in place is the truth. 240 STRATCOM PANEL - 5 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 with new substances. And at the point we have reached, these transnational companies, these multinational companies are basically-- You may remember a commercial in Türkiye, they would say, “Oh, it’s just emotional, implying that it was more of an economic interest.” So basically, these companies have these so-called emotional interests at stake. The context and the boundaries of a discussion we may have around these issues would be set by these companies. What percent of their advertising-income is invested into data security, for example, or how much of your advertising-generated income is spent on preventing the truth from being buried in your platforms? So, you are doing all of this, and you are getting revenue from this. And as an individual, no matter how much I try to put up my defense mechanisms, I am still helping them do what they are doing. And if we move on this way, this will go towards a digital dictatorship just the way shut down Trump’s account, Cambridge Analytica. I mean, there are so many examples. I don’t want to repeat all of them because we don’t have that much time. At this point, we have reached. But, yes, we can see that this is the way these platforms are being used, and as such uses increase, states feel a need for regulation more than ever. So, when you look at it, that’s a different issue, and I won’t get into it, but, for all traditional media, these discussions took place back in time. So, the same debate is currently being 241 S T R A T C O M P A N E L done for these new media. First, states have to regulate these areas to protect the rights of their citizens. And secondly, to sustain their sovereignty, they probably will handle them. This regulation process has started worldwide, and all these mediums are being used as part of a regulation. For that reason, I believe this will not lead to a digital dictatorship and that there will be an intervention at the last exit before the bridge. And we will indeed be able to discuss the positive aspects and have a regulated, legislated space that will eliminate disinformation, manipulation and, threats against public peace and order, violation of personal rights in the social media regime. Thank you for listening to me. Assoc. Prof. Enes Bayraklı Thank you very much, professor and I was going to give the floor to professor Kılıç last, but I think this is his subject area. All these discussions take place in the USA a lot. And we always see in the media that various social media company representatives are constantly invited to committees and interrogated. So, the existing discussions in the USA, what are they like? What is the current state of legislation around this? What does the conversation look like? Because data is mostly stored in the USA, what are the discussions around this issue in the USA? I want to leave the floor to you. Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat Well, these discussions started in the USA in 2016. Before, the discussions mostly took place in the civil environment. But the politicization of the issue and discussions in Congress started with the 2016 elections. And as Turgay and Ismail mentioned, Cambridge Analytica, whether the Russians interfered with the elections, what was done on Facebook and Twitter about external operations, so information about all of this was revealed in 2016. Congress then started to prepare a report on this. But since 2016, the discussions have never come to an end. So, if you ask where the talks are heading towards now, well, currently, the debate is still ongoing. Because one side of the discussion was very political, between the Democrats and the Republicans about whether there was an intervention in the elections, but the other side of the debate, which is now considered to be more disturbing, is what I mainly want to focus on throughout my speech and it happened during COVID. Because between 2016 and 2020, we have had another discussion dealing with technical details, which methods and algorithms are used by Cambridge Analytica, and the algorithms. States have to regulate these areas to protect the rights of their citizens. And secondly, to sustain their sovereignty, they probably will control them. 242 STRATCOM PANEL - 5 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 How transparent the companies can be about the algorithms. What does the opening of social media companies when it comes to algorithms? Because many social media manipulation and a lack of prevention of social media of such manipulation were brought on the agenda, the social media apologized. “Sorry, we are carrying out an internal investigation about this issue. We will take some steps”, and that’s how it ended. But in three months, another finding came to the surface, a connection between Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, or what happened at Twitter during Election Day. Another discussion ensued, but this discussion was at the highest intellectual level. When did the public enter this sphere of a debate during COVID, because the election impacted society and the turnout rates at the ballots and the polarizing USA. Well, this discussion stopped somewhere. But during COVID, this disinformation on social media engaged the public more. During COVID, well, it directly impacted people’s lives, and some new media platforms engaged in speculations; they speculated if the virus exists or not, for example. Conspiracy theories ensued, and they would spread through social media “Shall we wear a mask or not?” And the debate around it. And then why did this crisis erupt? Who is responsible for this crisis? And then now, shall we vaccinate ourselves or not? So, this is the latest debate. And then, this vaccine-related information and conspiracy theory was spread on social media around it. Yes, it ensued in the acceptance that we have to do something about the internet, which closely affects American values. But now, it is even more touching people’s lives because we have to do something about the internet. After all, it may have serious results or impact on public health. So, this discussion started at the elite political level, and investigative journalists investigated it. But now that it changed its nature, the public is intervening. It’s part of the discussion, and this is one aspect of the latest disinformation both Facebook and Twitter, they’re issuing their transparency reports and the Congress. They have a committee on that, investigating it, and the CEOs of these companies are summoned to the US Congress for a hearing. So now they talk about public accountability, how being held accountable in front of the public. So, we don’t know where this discussion will lead us. And but in terms of transformation, what happened is, they talked about internet censorship. Obama was very sensitive about the internet during the Arab Spring and before the Arab Spring. He talked about internet regulation, and the matrix was a democratic demographic now. They are censoring their president, the US president, on Twitter or shutting down his accounts, which is significant. And we have been talking about this How transparent the companies can be about the algorithms. What does the opening of social media companies when it comes to algorithms? 243 S T R A T C O M P A N E L disinformation; we have to touch upon two or three points to wrap up. Professor Yusuf will speak about the Türkiye specific circumstances. Still, we have to keep in mind several aspects about disinformation, which are, the first one is when we say-- This information warfare is not a new development. It started with the development of modern media, and I look at the last century in the 1920s, we’ve seen that we noticed that they touched the public as well. But since the onset of the Cold War era, as the USA established its intelligence units, they started launching disinformation campaigns. Then people found then the Soviet Union learned how to do it better. Since the 1970s, they started, they staged other operations in the 1950s. West Berlin was the headquarters or the hub of these campaigns. By the 1970s, with the active measures of the US, they played the game of the Soviets, and Soviets entered the game and started playing it better, let’s say. And this was a significant turning point in information warfare. It’s like an extension of other warfare, and the fight we were staging after nuclear warfare has been used as a propaganda tool, the atomic warfare, and part of it is communication, and we have to be better at it now. In the 90s, it was the post-Cold War era, and the USA was the winner. We discussed the one unipolar world. This discussion has ebbed, but now in the last 10-15 years, we have reintroduced disinformation into our lives. It’s slightly different. It’s different. But as we are talking about information warfare, we have to think about reviewing the literature of the last five or seven decades. There may be technical differences, yes, from time to time, masses may differ, but the methodologies and goals are the same. And yes, there’s a difference. But what is this difference? And especially in internet-based information warfare, a more professional group staged the information warfare; the intelligence organizations staged it. This was quite professional, and they prepared for many years. It’s not a single stroke; it was a continuous, systematic long-term warfare. Now this one is more flexible. It’s quicker, it happens faster, and it’s more reactive when we say more immediate, more reactive, like the 2016 elections in the US. He shared some manipulative tweets in the morning, and they said-- take ownership of the ballot box. Hillary Clinton is corrupt, and she will win due to corruption. Troll accounts spread this news, and once Trump won the war, won the election, the same troll account said, “There was corruption in the election. Trump should not have won; go to the street”. It shows the flexibility of information warfare. It’s not like the Cold War era. The methodology in the Cold War era was different than that. It’s based on trial and The success of the operational tactics is defining the communication policies. Secondly, the elements used in this information in the 1970s and 1980s, the operations were more professional. 244 STRATCOM PANEL - 5 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 error, now. It starts somewhere; there may be changes depending on the result it will bring about. It’s not long-term strategic; it’s more operational, more tactical, now the information warfare. And the success of the operational tactics is defining the communication policies. Secondly, the elements used in this information in the 1980s and ‘70s, the operations, then they were more professional. They were done by experienced people who have been experienced that have been reflecting on it for a long time. We had more professional information warfare, and the soldiers of that warfare; were more experienced. Now they’re like people, someone from here and there. And they push various buttons at the same time. They have been recruited, and they’re trying to trigger the fault lines like the Black Lives Matter movement in America, the information warfare, then we witnessed that. Back then, also we’ve seen trolling and triggering the fault lines in the USA to agitate specific segments of US society through fake news and disinformation. So, in addition to all of this, they are elements of warfare. On one side, one hand, they’re trying to trigger the fault lines to make them move. But at the same time, they harm the trust in the state, hurting faith in the state. Disinformation is not all the time fake news. Successful disinformation campaigns bear parts of the truth. They carry information that can be proven empirically, but the rhetoric used and the language used or the headings, headlines used, and the pictures images may be different. Text and images, and headlines differ from one another. So, in victorious campaigns, if you do everything, you will not find any receivers of such news if everything is based on this information. It’s a more sophisticated method. And while it reduces trust in state bodies, if the government or state can’t take any measures against it, the one to blame is the state in the end, somehow. And two more points to go. I am running out of time, I know. Another debate around disinformation is essential. Yes, it does exist. We have disinformation, but we have to take into account that the word of disinformation has been frequently used now, and disinformation per say has become politicized, has been politicized. Maybe we should rethink or think more, reflect more on this. Yes, that’s a problem. Everyone knows and accepts that there is a problem. If this is a problem, maybe we can generate more concepts and separate and segregate things from one another. And because frequent use of concepts means that they become hollow in the long term. And this one point here that I would like to mention. In the issue around disinformation, we have to consider the foreign angle. In disinformation operations, we, as the public opinion, are exposed to disinformation, but we may not be the victims of it or victimized here or allow ourselves to be victims. In disinformation operations, the state or any institution 245 S T R A T C O M P A N E L is exposed to disinformation knows it is disinformation, knows who done it, who did it, but it’s difficult to prevent. And we have to take into account that you are an actor that can go against this information by way of media literacy or social media literacy and by way of training, public training. You can prevent disinformation from the public. So, if this is an operation, if some other states or terrorist organizations stage it, they will continue to use it against you. So, you have to understand that it is preventable. And last but not least, something about COVID. We have this quick, fast digitalization post-COVID 19. Mainly, this is what many institutions wanted to do but was not bold enough to do it. It started with the pandemic. Now schools are talking about digital education. Companies are trying to reduce trips; they’re trying to do it via digital means. And so, we’ll maybe see more digital news. We will be exposed to more digital information digital communication; sitting at our homes instead of just receiving that news at home will tell us more about this news at our homes. We have to start fighting against disinformation or fighting information warfare or operations online in this new area. So maybe we should mobilize our public more against it. And the state will assume its share of responsibility when it comes to social media platforms. If it affects public health or democratic institutions, if they are divisive or use hate speech, the state has to prevent those somehow. But social media companies and the society and international organizations as well, because information warfare may result in severe crisis now. And we have And the state will assume its share of responsibility when it comes to social media platforms. If it affects public health or democratic institutions, if they are divisive or use hate speech, the state has to prevent those somehow. 246 STRATCOM PANEL - 5 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 arrived at this point where they may result in crisis, and everyone should assume their share of responsibility. This, whatever its name, the new digital order, and-- It requires collective action. If you’re going to ensure safety and order and prevent anarchy, it requires collaborative or concerted effort. Thank you very much. Assoc. Prof. Enes Bayraklı A concept called infodemic was introduced during the corona pandemic process. It’s an epidemic of fake news. There are many different concepts, such as misformation fake news. Now we move on to the last part, in all this fake news and an epidemic of disinformation, Assoc. Dr. Professor Yusuf Özkır will tell us Türkiye’s humanitarian diplomacy its effect on Türkiye’s image s a positive example. As you know, Türkiye is one of the countries that donates the most humanitarian aid in proportion to its national income in the world. Sometimes it comes first. Of course, this has a severe effect outside of Türkiye. We will listen to the presentation on this subject from Professor Yusuf Özkır. Assoc. Dr. Yusuf Özkır Thank you very much. I’m the last panelist of the day. And I’ll finish on a positive note. That’s a good thing being the previous speaker ending on a positive note. So let me, well, rearrange the microphone. First, I’d like to thank the organizers of the event, the Directorate of Communications. Thank you for staying here and being here at this late hour. Well, I’ll talk about something else. But well, you touched upon disinformation. The previous speakers mentioned and discussed it. If you let me, I’d like to make a transition from there. So, the most crucial thing about disinformation is who is creating the impact? Who is creating the content, and which rhetoric is used in the content? And which rhetoric makes it more impactful, let’s say? This has been investigated globally since the 1970s and debated a lot. In the 1970s, UNESCO held several meetings, which resulted in the MacBride reports, and they talked about the generation of content is unfair unjust. It happens from the West. It mainly flows from the West to the East, and there is a lack of balance. And unless there is balance and justice and equity in this process, the flow of communication will feed more inequalities inequities, and the hierarchy between the active generator and the passive receiver will widen. And there are many recommendations followed this report for many years. But now we have-- there is no tangible outcome at the end. So, we have to discuss disinformation also from this angle. We have multiple polarized worlds. In recent years, various 247 S T R A T C O M P A N E L actors emerged. They have found ground for themselves. They tried to explain themselves by using their rhetoric, which resulted in mobility and dynamism. Anadolu Agency and TRT in Türkiye, they strived a lot. They spent efforts on these issues in recent years. While talking about information warfare and strategic communication, this is the panel’s heading; I will not take the disinformation angle. I’ll take the strategic communication angle in my presentation and talk about the positive image of Türkiye and how Türkiye is perceived positively through its aids, through its global international humanitarian aids. But before that, I had a presentation on that. Can you show it on screen? And the concept of strategic communication is frequently used. And for the youngsters, I prepared a framework and drew a framework covering the definition. Strategic communication management is done by an institution, a person, or organization to relay to communicate their mission, vision, and objectives. And they make use of all means available to them to share those. And Another concept used in connection with strategic communication is public diplomacy. And, well, these concepts are technically different from one another, but they use, nurture, feed each other, support each other, back each other up on many occasions in many spheres. So public diplomacy as a concept, well, when you look at it as a concept, public diplomacy, well, vis a vis the intellectuals, journalists of another society, a particular society or countries trying to spend efforts to be perceived in a specific way—but creating impact vis-a-vis another society or government. So, public diplomacy makes this in the long term, has a long-term perspective here. Accumulated impact theory can be mentioned here. The collected impact theory says that there is an order, but the impacts of some contents are not known; they accumulate over time, and the effect may ensue at some point in time, which needs to be measured. So, the effort of Türkiye’s humanitarian public diplomacy can be given as an example. So, what are the essential elements of a strategic communications plan? Message design is part of it. So regardless of what we’re doing as an institution or as a person, as an individual, or as a politician, or as a government, as a state, regardless of what we are doing, for sure, we need to have a plan telling us how to do it and work on the message that we need to communicate. And it is in a controlled process. The first component of strategic communication is message design. The second component is using the right platforms and media to communicate your message. Let’s say you prepare content or a message, and you’re going to provide aid or give a diplomatic statement. You have to use the suitable media or the right platform to do it. In this sense, for example, TRT news screens. Let’s say you will broadcast content, and if you use Erzurum radio to broadcast this news, it’s not rational. Or 248 STRATCOM PANEL - 5 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 during the Jamal Khashoggi murder, the Communication Directorate used a very successful tactic, which was debated a lot and came to the Khashoggi murder. I mean, the data that emerged, why were they shared with the international media and not with the local or Turkish media was the question then. A message with his criticizing the in a public opinion should be given there. But if there’s an international discussion, the data you collect there, and if you share it with the public or international public, it is wise to do. It’s strategic. Another element of strategic communication is timing. Well, let’s talk about TV ads and commercials. Let’s say a shampoo ad or commercial, a butter or margarine ad, a pajama ad, or a car commercial. They differ in terms of when you will broadcast those. I mean, you have to discuss when to broadcast these commercials. If you don’t count time well, all these ads and commercials, you may have trouble with the company that will advertise the product. So, the timing of the messages has to be accurate. It’s a classic example, but political parties use the primetime news to make statements so that people watch it more, more people tend it, get the message, and spread it to a broader audience. So, individually speaking, because we have knowledge on that, even if it is not dogma based when we are trying to send messages between 9 pm to 10 pm because people have their hand cell phones in their hands, they had dinner, they had their cup of tea. So, they have more free time. So, timing is a crucial element component of strategic communication. A selection of the audience and analysis of the audience. This is important for media outlets, but the audience is essential. If your work doesn’t have an audience, it will probably fail. So, when it comes to strategic communication and as a state, as an institution, as a person, as an individual, you have to analyze your audience well; it’s the top three. Who is the audience of your communication? The audience is an essential component of strategic communication. This is fundamental knowledge. I wanted to show it to draw a framework and make an introduction to the subject. But let’s talk about an entire thesis, the actual issue. President Erdoğan in September delivered speeches at the United Nations meeting. “The world is bigger than five.” He used the slogan. This claim has many subcomponents, which can be discussed on various occasions and formats. But what I will touch upon here is Mr. President Erdoğan put an emphasis on the press geographies, and Türkiye is not only providing support militarily in terms of foreign policy but also in a humanitarian way. So, a country that gives goodness is a claim or its thesis in the global arena of Türkiye. And this conscientious based approach to good to be a good country; how does Türkiye realize that? In recent years, when you look at Türkiye’s performance in that regard, which has been quite significant, the world also acknowledges it. And according to 249 S T R A T C O M P A N E L global humanitarian reports, in the last five years, Türkiye has provided the most humanitarian aid. But before that, some codes support backing up Turkish citizens that I want to touch upon. But how does Türkiye do it? I mean, a country, despite going through challenging times itself, how can Türkiye take these vital steps and not give up on this? This is also related to Turkish society. It’s also associated with us. Türkiye has different structures constructs that feed us, nurture us, feed the politics of our country, the policy of our government, and the approach of Mr. Erdoğan. These are cultural codes that encourage us, and the politics of the present are pretty profound. To reach out to people in trouble; it’s a culture, and those who do good will find it pleasing. Multiply the good. That’s another saying. Or it is with the people who are in need. And that’s another saying. And let’s say a person is a shoeshine boy or when you talk to that person, that person helps other people, other children. Although they live in a dire situation or have financial constraints, they’re still investing in human capital. In the future of Türkiye, where they attach importance to helping others. And whoever meets the needs of people in need, Allah will help, side with those, and help those as well. That’s another saying. So, this plays a vital role in-- Well, being a friend in bad times, it’s crucial for Türkiye. And Türkiye’s approach to goodness, well, happens through, of course, aid and assistance, but the soft power of Türkiye it’s also supported by media outlets. The soft power of Türkiye spreads in 13 different languages on TRT and Anadolu Agency. So, it also creates a positive impact. Now, who is helping out with this aid? The Presidency, Ministry of Health, TİKA, Turkish Red Crescent, AFAD, Yunus Emre Institute, Presidency of Religious Affairs, the Directorate of Turkish Diaspora and Relative Communities. Let’s look at figures and global humanitarian aid reports for 2017-2018-2019, Türkiye has been the most generous country three years after the others, so in 2015-2016 Türkiye was the second most generous country. And for the last five years, let’s look at the humanitarian aid provided by Türkiye. It amounts to 35 billion US dollars, which goes to various countries. So, let’s talk about the aid in COVID 19. Kılıç mentioned COVID 19 and in the spirit, in this era, which was a challenging time for the entire world. Türkiye underwent, experienced this challenge, and then helped close to 160 countries by sending them medical equipment, materials, and supplies. And the words from Rumi, “After hopelessness, there’s much hope. And light follows darkness.” So, these are famous words of Rumi that were written on the aid packages. And then which also had repercussions, it had a resounding effect on many countries. To have a long-term, permanent impact, you must have specific societal dynamics. A child in Italy, for example, talks about Türkiye sending medical equipment to Italy and making a video, creating content, and sending Türkiye has different structures constructs that feed us, nurture us, feed the politics of our country, the policy of our government, and the approach of Mr. Pesident Erdoğan. These are cultural codes that encourage us. 250 STRATCOM PANEL - 5 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 it to (YouTube) and Demirören news agency reporting on it. It’s imperative. I think we can watch this video now. The message is, in the end, don’t worry, Ok, so similarly, in Germany, a German citizen had a video that they recorded after the aid provided by Türkiye. And in Ireland, following Turkish help during COVID, a football team in Ireland referred to the aid provided by the Ottoman Empire 143 years ago and published a message. So, yes, I showed that one, Italy, Spain, and we also had a lot of official tweets of gratitude, and I took one ambassador of the UK in Ankara has a tweet shared after the COVID aid provided by Türkiye. So, in recent years, we can say is, Türkiye in terms of military capacity, defense industry, and the activity in foreign politics and economy has been on the agenda. But there is another issue related to Türkiye in the foreign issue, and that is the foreign aid it provides. And through this, foreign aid in different geographies that is being provided is winning the people’s hearts and creating long-term results, and it is not based on any interest or any pragmatism in any way. So, in terms of strategic communication and public diplomacy, this creates actual results, and the Turkish geography is being taken to the point that is equivalent to kindness. So, thank you for listening to me. Assoc. Prof. Enes Bayraklı Thank you very much, Professor. So, we have reached the end of our panel, I would like to thank you all for your participation, and I hope to see you in another panel. 251 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 6 New Trends In Nation Branding and Positioning 252 STRATCOM PANEL - 6 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 New Trends In Nation Branding and Positioning 11 December 2021 • Aaron Maniam Deputy Secretary at Ministry of Communications & Information of Singapore, Chief of the Global Positioning Strategy Office - Singapore • Todd Babiak CEO of Brand Tasmania - Australia • Jaffar Hasnain Anchor and Correspondent at TRT World - Türkiye (Moderator) • Simon Anholt Policy Advisor - UK • Constanza Cea S. CEO of Marca Chile - Chile T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 253 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 06 With the development of technology and the emergence of social media, the issue of nation branding increases its prominence day by day. Jaffar Hasnain There is a very important debate going on these days. With the development of technology and the emergence of social media, the issue of nation branding increases its importance day by day. Nations are also preparing to brand themselves in a new way. Simon Anholt is with me. Aaron Maniam is also attending from Singapore. Todd Babiak joins us again. Thanks again. Constanza is here, too. Welcome. We can start our panel. I would like to start with you first, Simon. I see many young faces here and some may be marketing students. What is nation branding? 254 STRATCOM PANEL - 6 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Simon Anholt Sometimes I am accused of being the person who created this concept. Yes, I published research in the 1990s that included nation branding, and that term was used for the first time then. It was the nation brand that I used, not the nation branding. You can ask, is there a difference? Yes, there is a difference. The nation brand was an observation; I observed that countries have an image. These are also essential images. We are now so global and interconnected that people know the government only through its image. Everything can be easy and cheap when you have a strong and positive image; you can attract investment, attract talent, and sell your products at better prices. Everything becomes difficult when you have a negative image; everything becomes expensive. Undoubtedly, nations have a brand. Can a nation be branded? Is it possible to change the image of a country? I think yes. Can we do this with just marketing communications? No. All the evidence shows that you can’t change people’s minds about a country just by sending a message. They are incredibly loyal to their ideas. People can’t change their minds just by seeing a press or a media campaign. They especially look at what countries are doing in the international arena. So it’s possible to play booty here. For example, if it has been doing the same thing for 52, 520, 5000 years for a very long time, if it can play booty, it is possible, but it is not very likely to play booty for that long. Jaffar Hasnain What are the biggest challenges nations face in branding? Constanza Cea S. One of the biggest challenges we face as a country in Chile is that we are regarded as a region. We want to separate from the region. We want to have our own identity. We are happy with our neighbors, but we think we have achieved different things. We want the world to know this too. We are a far country, so many people do not know anything about us. This is one of the challenges. We are not known to have a different identity from the rest of the region, and as Simon said, a strong country image creates opportunities for all people. We are trying to achieve this too. The third challenge is that our region is known for its beautiful landscape and geography. We want to introduce our people to what we do. We want to be It was the nation brand that I used, not the nation branding. So you can ask, is there a difference? Yes, there is a difference. 255 S T R A T C O M P A N E L known for our geography and the goals and purposes we value. What do we do as branding? I don’t know if this is a traditional branding method or not, but the way of marketing has changed these days. I don’t know if we do marketing, but people look at what you do, not what you say while generating their ideas or making choices. In this sense, campaign initiatives should be honest. Jaffar Hasnain Here I would like to ask Constanza whether it is possible to create an image or a perception with what is said? In other words, is it possible to create a perception not with what you do but with what you say? Constanza Cea S. It takes a long time. If you want to change perceptions, it is necessary to have a different reality from what is perceived. It is the same in Chile. We measured 256 STRATCOM PANEL - 6 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 what they thought about our target audience. We calculated what they knew about us. There was a large area that they did not know. It was also part of our identity. If something happens, if you shine a light on it, if every sector moves consistently with the same message, perception can change over time. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. Jaffar Hasnain Todd Babiak is with us today. He is joining from Singapore, and there is also Aaron Maniam. My question to you, Aaron, how has your country, Singapore, used nation branding and positioning? Can you explain a little? Aaron Maniam First of all, I would like to emphasize Simon’s point. The best branding comes from good performance. Public diplomacy also comes from good politics. The best thing to do is always have a powerful and good story in the country and back it up with evidence. We have worked in three areas. One is to create an integrated system, a system that performs well. The second is the people’s competencies, the commitment to excellence, there are studies to be reliable, and the third is intangible elements. We call it the spirit of Singapore. Being multinational, bringing different ideas together, when you put them together, it’s a system, skills, and spirit. These three points support all of what we do in telling the story of Singapore. This applies to everything; whether we adopt digital technology or have a smart nation initiative, for example, it includes this. The Singapore education model is also in this context. Our performances in tests such as PISA and TEAMS, our foreign policies, domestic policy, sustainability, and reliability. Much depends on trust, skill, efficiency, and system. The things I mentioned are based on these three areas. Jaffar Hasnain I want to give the floor to Todd. We live in a global village. Is social media usage on the rise? There is the emergence of new technologies with social media, and I think there are new methods for nation branding. What can you say when you compare these methods with traditional methods? 257 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Todd Babiak Now it is much easier to spread a message. But randomness is the enemy of a good strategy. To reach people, especially using a single combined strategy, can make that nation special. When there are thousands of different voices, everyone builds their brand. When we think of many public departments, companies create their brands, a lot of business jargon and clichés are used. It can get tough to understand here, and we know that in Tasmania, it’s not for everyone. And to do this, first of all, social media and traditional media turmoil come before you. Indeed, it is difficult for you to break out of the clichés. The problem is getting bigger. Jaffar Hasnain Simon. The argument is this. You said that the nation brand depends on the behaviors. Does that mean it also adheres to the policies? Simon Anholt It depends on it more than anything else. Of course, there are other items as well. Some behaviors have touched the culture for a long time, be it diaspora or think of celebrities or pop stars, think of footballers. All of these build up the image of a country over a long period, but it’s a prolonged process. We are talking about a phenomenon that has changed and developed over generations, over ten years. But politics is also highly essential. People with the most “brand power” in quotes come into play at this point. People are not very interested in the domestic politics of other countries. 80% of the world’s population does not look at international news. Countries that are very organized within their internal borders, countries that say they are, do not achieve great success. For example, consider someone living in Chile; he probably doesn’t care much if people living in Namibia have problems with corruption or education. So what does he care about? Namibia’s role in the international community, its relations with other countries, the things it does about the significant problems of our time. For example, the steps they take on climate change, their actions on inequality and poverty in the world, or their response to the pandemic. Ultimately, the nation brand does not mean countries that praise their existence and achievements. This will not achieve much success, but governments must do admirable things if they want to arouse admiration. They should take steps to earn people’s gratitude and appreciation in the international community. Randomness is the enemy of a good strategy. To reach people, especially using a single combined strategy, can make that nation special. 258 STRATCOM PANEL - 6 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Jaffar Hasnain But of course, you have to market it. So even if you have a very effective policy, you have to do it. So how will people know about these policies? Simon Anholt They will already talk. You won’t have to invest money in public relations for this. If there is a country that responds to the problems that people are concerned about, for example, global issues, they will not need to make much effort to announce it. What do they want on social media? People want to hear great stories about places they’ve never known. You only need to find the number of a single journalist, several bloggers. Think of countries that are genuinely inspiring, truly unique, truly helping humanity; they don’t have to market themselves. These actions are pretty self-explanatory. Think of Bhutan, a tiny country. It has a very small economy, a tiny footprint, but it said, “The foundation of a good society is not formed by wealth, but by happiness.” Here, the idea of domestic happiness products was introduced. Within 24 hours, this concept had a lot of repercussions 259 S T R A T C O M P A N E L all over the world. Over the past ten years, as much as half of the politicians have expressed how important happiness is. With this single idea, Bhutan came to play a crucial role. Okay, let’s consider an example. May the citizens of a country be pleased with its government, but this country’s reputation may be low in the international sense. Now, for example, what makes Bhutan famous? It wasn’t that the citizens of that nation were happy. The head of state stated that what is more important than the people’s wealth is happiness. This was a truly revolutionary idea. It was an expression that brought Bhutan to the world stage. Let’s take Chile, for example. A great idea was created in Chile in the business world. Startup Chile. Here, entrepreneurs are directed to open a business by receiving certain funds from the government. It’s not just for Chileans; it’s for foreigners as well. Many American entrepreneurs began to move to Santiago because they wanted to establish their businesses and companies there. So it attracted a lot of people to itself. Let’s say that word of mouth spread about Startup Chile. Currently, Chile is captivating the admiration of the whole world. Constanza Cea S. But abroad, people realized that there was such an ecosystem it aroused interest, and then it was automatically brought into the news. Jaffar Hasnain Constanza, I really like your opinions. How important are a nation’s policies when it comes to nation branding? Constanza Cea S. I think everything should be consistent. I think policies are critical. When we say nation branding, we emphasize the main characteristics of the country and the people. We highlight certain unknown features and share features that will impact the audiences you reach. For example, what are the characteristics of Chile, which does not exist in any other country? What would the world lose if Chile disappeared? Let’s ask this question. I think I heard this sentence; yes, I did. Astronomy. 70% of the world’s monitoring capacity is in Chile. This is something people don’t know either. Here you have to make an effort to enlighten people. For example, I did not know the essential aspects of Istanbul. The first time here, I could get lost. Maybe I’ll walk away without seeing the most critical parts. So it would help if you taught a little bit. You have to teach something genuine. 260 STRATCOM PANEL - 6 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Jaffar Hasnain So what’s the best way to teach others something? Constanza Cea S. I think there are many ways. Nation branding or what are we doing? We consider different points. We work with the government and the private sector and create an environment where we can all communicate. We say that we are creating the future in Chile. We call it our gateway to Antarctica. We can observe the universe. Because we have observatories, we have clean energy commitments. We say that we are developing many clean energy sources, emphasizing all of these. This is already getting into the issues that the world cares about. We do a lot of research. We collect a lot of data. We’re trying to find out what people, the world, are curious about. We take these points and create a story. Content is sought after globally, but this content must arouse people’s interest. That’s why you have to dig a little bit, research, research so that you know what the world is looking for. Answer these. You should not only praise yourself; you should be able to appeal to the masses. Simon Anholt I will quickly mention two points: one of them is this; if you have money, you will spend it on communication. It really won’t cause harm. So if you have a perfect message, if you have a message that will arouse people’s interest and surprise them, spend that money; it won’t cause harm so that you can have an immediate effect. But I also want to give this message to poorer countries. Of course, they don’t have the money to spare for this kind of business, but that doesn’t mean they can’t compete because it’s not about money competition. At this point, competition for creativity comes into play; innovation comes into play. Consider the country’s image. Individual sectors here also gain importance. Let’s take Istanbul, for example. Places to visit in Istanbul are related to tourism incentives. Tourism export, of course, is directly related to trading, so you produce and sell bottled water in Türkiye. If you want people to take a vacation in Anatolia, you create and sell this product, but this is not the same as managing the entire image. 261 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Jaffar Hasnain Well, isn’t tourism promotion already a part of nation branding? Simon Anholt Two-sided. If you have a good brand and a good image, tourism promotion will be comfortable, and people will want to come to that country. When people talk about you, they say they like it. But consider this, if you are very good at promoting tourism, it will improve the country’s image over time. So these two are very related. These two phenomena have a very complex relationship, but they are fundamentally very different. So your image is relevant to your policy and projects. Jaffar Hasnain Todd and Aaron, Let’s ask the audience before I give the floor to you. Have any questions? 262 STRATCOM PANEL - 6 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Audience I want to ask the following about nation branding; which one is more important; the technological development of a nation or a nation’s position and reputation in international relations? Simon Anholt Technological developments of a country are not very important in general terms. Research shows that people may prefer technologically advanced countries, but this alone does not make them love a country more or less. The most important thing is this, which will be the subject of my speech after this panel. A country’s contribution to the international community, its perception. This may be a policy, probably already a policy in international relations. A nation’s level of technological development is an internal matter, and other countries don’t care too much about it. What they are interested in is the question of whether this country affects the world I live in. I hope I have made it clear. Jaffar Hasnain You work for the Singapore Department of Information and Communications. My question will be, to what extent does the media affect the brand and image? Aaron Maniam This is an excellent question. We can agree on Constanza and Simon’s points so far in this panel. First of all, we will need a solid and full-blown policy. We can build marketing on it. We can nurture this with media campaigns and public relations actions, but our foundation must be rock-solid. Of course, the media will also be dependent on a specific basis. In other words, the media will market what a country offers. This is a slide where I show how permeable international and domestic communication is. See the second point here—a headline from the Guardian. Singapore is speeding up the Covid vaccination process by turning to a disco. Artists come in. The support of these artists took place both in the local media and attracted the attention of other international media organizations such as CNN and the Guardian. It wasn’t a message just to Singaporeans. We are talking about the early stages of the pandemic. It gave the message that there is a strong and well-founded health system. A message was sent to different people. We see this based on the vaccine and the pandemic, but it also shows that our 263 S T R A T C O M P A N E L government is adopting innovative and experimental methods. I agree with Simon; we need a solid policy foundation. If your core policy is stable, public relations or marketing campaigns will help this process. We can also benefit from such spontaneous events, so for example, this was an effort that started domestically. Afterward, it echoed in the international community. It has benefited us as well. Why is that? Because there has been an awareness of what Singapore’s system, or at least the healthcare system, looks like. My second point is that you can also tell a story for specific industries and segments and reasonable marketing efforts. You may want to reach a particular audience. For example, it could be the business world, the culture industry, or sectors where security issues are discussed. You start with a general story that makes sense for the relevant industry, and you present evidence. Targeted approaches will be critical here. In other words, if you focus on these points first, you can then move on to marketing. Consider, for example, the Covid vaccines; we had no intention of marketing what we did with this vaccination campaign. Still, this campaign managed to attract attention in the international community because it had solid foundations. Jaffar Hasnain So, first of all, a sound policy is indispensable. Aaron talked about domestic and international communication. So what’s the difference between these two, Todd? Todd Babiak I can say that we do not perform international communication at all. We have very little tourism campaign work. We focus entirely on Tasmania. We focus on telling the story of Tasmania and the university. We focus on telling our story about business, about tourism. Stories that are about ourselves, but we do not communicate internationally. I agree with Simon about this area where there is not much return on investment. However, there may be studies on journalists. For example, there was a structure based on 100% renewable energy in Tasmania when I came here. Renewable electricity, and they didn’t talk much about it. It was so embedded in the culture. They said it already expresses our identity. And then, we looked at Glasgow and developed a new project there. We’re making it carbon-neutral transportation soon, and we’ve built our transportation on renewable energy in a cyclical fashion in Tasmania. Such a small project increased the power to 200%, and a story that appealed to journalists was formed there. But here again, we used Tasmania’s identity and voice. Tasmania is in an isolated area but is associated with Australia, and Australia is said to be a bit behind in If your core policy is solid, public relations or marketing campaigns will help this process. 264 STRATCOM PANEL - 6 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 terms of climate. Despite this, we have progressed as much as possible; we try to be as experimental as possible in this area. All we do is invite journalists to make them notice. Jaffar Hasnain Simon, there is something I am wondering about. Can a country’s image and brand be sabotaged? Simon Anholt The first point I can say on this subject is crucial. Many people say this. They say it takes a long time to build a country’s image, but it can be destroyed overnight. This is not true. Country images are as stable as possible, and it is a fact that it is challenging to destroy even if you try. For this reason, many countries can protect their image. Even if you make mistakes, people continue to focus on what you are good at after a while. Well, a question like this can be asked. Could you be deliberately harmed? For example, it is asked whether the USA can cause negative image damage to other countries. The USA can be influential because it controls the entertainment media and cultural platforms. So if the USA has a bad dream, we can all be affected in the morning. Jaffar Hasnain Well, you say that soft power comes into play here. Simon Anholt Yes true. There is a term here. Professor Joseph Nye, from Harvard, introduced a term. He distinguished between gravitational force, namely soft power and hard power. With soft power, you make countries do what you want willingly, and you force them to do so with hard power. Fortunately, today we are in a period where soft power is more common, although not 100%. America generally has a habit of making the world think of certain countries in specific ways. Look how American culture has added an image to Mexico over the centuries. What the popular culture in America tells about Mexico maybe creates a much worse perception than it deserves. Compared to its rhetoric about Brazil, which is like a distant, slightly less threatening country, Brazil is portrayed as a beautiful, developed They say it takes a long time to build a country’s image, but it can be destroyed overnight. Actually, this is not true. 265 S T R A T C O M P A N E L country with a good economy. But Mexico is described as the land of gangsters. The truth is far from that. Unfortunately, America’s leaders characterize a nation, the Mexican nation, as specifically deviant in this way. Jaffar Hasnain Well, accidentally or knowingly, the US can sabotage country images. Countries can take countermeasures against this, right? Simon Anholt Yes, that’s true. Jaffar Hasnain So do these work? Considering that America is a superpower, do the measures taken by countries work? 266 STRATCOM PANEL - 6 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Simon Anholt Yes, but it requires more endurance, perseverance, and creativity. If such an image sticks to the rest of the world, such as the US portraying Iran as dangerous, it can be very difficult to change this. Jaffar Hasnain I will ask a very important question. So if you’re branded as a hostile country by America or you’re labeled as such, there’s nothing you can do to improve your image, is that it? Simon Anholt No, I’m not saying that, but it takes a long time. Jaffar Hasnain But you say it’s possible. Simon Anholt Yes, it is possible. Especially since America is in a constant equation, of course, their credibility has decreased due to the Trump presidency; for this reason, its ability to negatively label other countries is somewhat reduced. For the countries that America has spoken badly of or wanted to mark badly in the past, people say, ah, I knew this country badly because America labeled it that way. Still, America itself has become a lousy country now. So people experience a change of mind at this point. Jaffar Hasnain So, Constanza, what are your thoughts on the same issue? Constanza Cea S. I agree; perceptions and images don’t change very quickly. Some time ago, 33 young miners who had been buried for two months were unearthed; they had 267 S T R A T C O M P A N E L been there for two months, which caught everyone’s attention. It was shared in every broadcast that this happened in the desert. No campaign could have achieved this access and did not change this perception. Or there was a social upheaval in a country like Chile two years ago, and no one expected it. We carried out a perception measurement regarding this. Few people knew this. Once you build an image and attach feelings to it, it’s tough to change it. When you want to change perceptions, you first need to work on those feelings. Another issue is, do you work with the truth? For example, there was a lot of tension; we created a website containing objective information. We made sure that people with doubts accessed official and reliable information there. This also reduced the uncertainty. Some initiatives help change perceptions, but the whole country needs to be involved. All citizens must believe this. It is also something that increases a country’s self-confidence as a counterparty. When the world appreciates you for something you do and sees something desirable, the country’s branding work impacts both the international audience and the country’s people. Jaffar Hasnaın Well, we have a young audience here. I’m sure many or all of them use social media. Simon, what role does social media play in nation branding? Simon Anholt Yes, as I said before, it potentially provides free marketing. If your message is exciting, if it is of interest to people worldwide, it creates this effect. This is a massive revolution. It made the whole process, interestingly, fairer than before. Before social media, countries had to invest tens of thousands and thousands of resources into media investments. They had to invest money. Only visitor tourists knew of other countries. But when you do something extraordinary today, you have the potential to become famous worldwide. For example, you mentioned the rescue of miners in Chile. That example is genuinely remarkable. But you also said that it didn’t have much of an impact on Chile’s image. Because there is nothing that will have much effect on Chile. Yes, we saw the miners being rescued. It was a positive story. People want to hear good stories or good news. It wasn’t a topic very much related to Chile, so it’s not a culture that has anything to do with the country itself; it wouldn’t matter if it were in another country. If you want to change the image of a country, you have to change direction. You need to have a strategic vision of where the country is going, and people need to follow it for a If you really want to change the image of a country, you have to change direction. 268 STRATCOM PANEL - 6 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 long time. Often the messages from governments are uninteresting. For example, we have made this much of financing investments. Things like development or work can be boring for these people. Few countries are prosperous in changing their self-image because governments don’t have the courage to do something interesting, extraordinary, dramatic. Jaffar Hasnaın So how do you do this? How do you catch it? Simon Anholt Something personal. Look at New Zealand, a country that is frequently spoken and set as an example, a country that has been highly successful in such speeches and attracting the world’s attention. It is a very small and remote country, but 269 S T R A T C O M P A N E L despite this, it has a relatively young leader, Jacinda Ardern, and is observed to be motivated by values. In other words, it attracted the world’s attention because it acted for its values, not for political purposes. Although his policies are not very interesting, they are talked about, discussed, and attracted attention. So what the world is looking for today is very clear. They are looking for leaders with actual values. People are looking at it; you can’t fake it. Either it is, or it isn’t. Jaffar Hasnain So, Aaron how important are values? Aaron Maniam I would say highly critical. That’s why I mentioned three things earlier. I mentioned systems, competencies, and spirit as the basis of our approach. We can regard systems and competencies as more tangible issues. These form the basis. Simon and Todd also mentioned these. But when I say soul, values come under it. The people-oriented design produces results for people; when these things happen, the world can be addressed more broadly. There are already values; they create outstanding durability in the country’s public image. Your previous question was, for example, can an image be sabotaged? Yes, but it becomes challenging if these values are vital in a story. I want to share one more aspect about values. In our work with Singapore, we want to make policies with many others. It’s not just the government’s own national branding and positioning that matters here. We get together with people, sometimes face to face, sometimes via zoom. When we come together with the public and private sectors, we also include the academia side in these three areas, and sometimes even tiny groups when we include the media. For example, small companies in the food sector, but we can also include big companies. When these come together, the spokespersons of the nation are not only the state, but everyone becomes the spokesperson in the nation branding. Each company again plays a role in the branding of the nation. Our politicians contribute to this in every visit abroad. A much more resilient, much stronger image is formed. Thus, it becomes more protected against potential sabotage from outside or inside. This is especially important when creating the overall image. Simon talked about the soft power term that Joe Nye introduced. There is another term. Like a triathlon athlete moving in a triple field, people who can move effectively and transit in public and private sectors. It is a good combination when we bring together these three 270 STRATCOM PANEL - 6 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 fields, which combine the speed and creativity of the private sector with the public sector behind it, involve society and bring ideas into action. We are moving towards this goal, at least in the Singapore system. I can’t say that we always do it right, but it becomes more durable when we bring these three sectors together. Jaffar Hasnain Todd, from what I understand from what Aaron said, good communication should not be selective; it should involve people from all industries, right? How do you do this, how do you achieve it? Todd Babiak For us, the word brand is a tricky word. There isn’t an exact definition for it. It’s like something good to have. When the Tasmanian brand is mentioned, it may not be fully understood. But for us, that means customer service. We work together with Tasmania and communities of foreigners to create our brand and try to bring it to life. I’ve mentioned it before; other people have mentioned it too. Leaders are really important here. Tasmanian people tell us they want to understand people. We get feedback from them, and I think if we can use the values, we get from them to unify our actions and put forth the tools to tell those stories. I think we’ll catch up on this development. As Simon said, this takes an extremely long process. We live in a democracy, it’s not easy for everyone to agree, but this’s our goal. Jaffar Hasnain Todd, Aaron, Simon, Constanza thank you very much and thank you all. 271 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 7 From Refugees to Entrepreneurs: Building Success Stories 272 STRATCOM PANEL - 7 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 From Refugees to Entrepreneurs: Building Success Stories 11 December 2021 • Marwa Bouka Deputy Managing Director of RMTeam International - Syria • Mustafa Barodi Vice President of Syrian International Business Association in Türkiye - Syria • Fadi Hilli Founder of FADI Art Space - Syria • Tarek Cherkaoui Manager of TRT World Research Center (Moderator) - Türkiye • Reem Masri Fashion Designer - Syria • Besim Hatipoğlu CEO of 2P Public Relations and Digital Marketing - Syria T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 273 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 07 After the war that broke out in Syria, due to the Syrians fleeing the war and a cruel regime, 6 million Syrians left their country, and some of them settled in Türkiye. Tarek Cherkaoui First of all, I’d like to thank everyone. Second, I want to thank the Directorate of Communications for organizing this summit. As you know, the subject of refugees, even the subject of immigration, is a subject that affects the whole world and has been a subject that has occupied the media for a very long time. Let me talk about asylum first. Especially after the war that broke out in Syria, due to the Syrians fleeing the war and a cruel regime, 6 million Syrians left their country, and some of them settled in Türkiye. Some of them took refuge in different countries of the world. Türkiye is leading the way in this regard, and it is necessary to thank Türkiye for its mission and hosting refugees. Now let’s talk about the characteristics of refugees. Syrian refugees have great success stories. They are very talented, successful both professionally and educationally 274 STRATCOM PANEL - 7 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 people. Today’s session topic is we have a few friends who created success stories from asylum and refugees. To my left, I have Reem Masri, a Syrian fashion designer. She’s been living in Türkiye since 2012. She has been involved in both decoration and design. She’s incredibly successful, very talented. And what she does is that she sells her designs. She promotes her designs in Europe. To her left is Besim Hatipoğlu. He is involved in digital marketing. He is the CEO of 2P and Public Relations and Digital Marketing, that team which is renowned worldwide. And it also has been playing a vital role in international relations. Marwa Bouka is sitting next to him. She’s the Deputy Managing Director of RMTeam International. So, while she works in international aid, focusing on Africa and she’s also working at this company. It’s very important that it has significant work in R&D. Next to her is Mustafa Baroda. He’s the Vice President of the Syrian International Business Association in Türkiye (SIBA TURK), and he is also a columnist. Lastly, we have Fadi Hilli, the founder of FADI Art Space. Actually, this is not a company. It’s like an exhibition. It brings together Turkish and international painters and producers and showcases their work. First of all, I’d like to give the floor to Reem. Would you like to talk about your projects a little bit? Reem Masri Thank you. First of all, thank you for this excellent introduction. Before I begin to introduce myself, I’d like to point out something crucial before sharing my story. I started from scratch as a refugee in a foreign country, as you know. Maybe I am just one of many success stories of women. I’m just going to talk about myself. But I wish those other women also had a chance to speak about themselves. I just wanted to mention how I’m not alone. There are hundreds of successful women refugees who are entrepreneurs. I have been living in Türkiye for nearly ten years. I’m a refugee in Gaziantep, originally from Aleppo studied fine arts at Aleppo University. And I specialized in fashion designing. First, I started to work in Syria. While studying at university, I did internships in some local brands. I worked both in decoration and also in fashion design. Especially local oriental hand weaving was my main field of activity. Unfortunately, right after I graduated from university, I had to leave my country just like millions of refugees, Syrians, because I had an eight-month-old baby. I consider that baby in life danger, and I had to leave, as you know. I have been living in Türkiye for nearly ten years. I’m a refugee in Gaziantep. I’m originally from Aleppo. I studied fine arts at Aleppo University, specializing in fashion designing. 275 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Gaziantep is like a twin of Aleppo. They’re very similar to each other. That’s why our family from Aleppo felt like going to Gaziantep; we thought it would do us good. Choosing that city made me feel confident and gave my child confidence because I felt like I was already being uprooted from my culture. But obviously, everyone had to start from scratch. And just like everyone else, I did till. And first, I started working at an event company. Specific plans were going on at the time. For example, considering the scheduling of an event, I was doing the planning of the event. We were not doing events only for Syrians. We had events for Arabs Turkish people, and we also hosted international events. We did all of that planning. We were considering ways to host different events in Gaziantep. And that made me improve so many different skills. I had a chance to get to know Türkiye and Turkish people way better, and I also improved my possibilities. And later, I wanted to focus on my profession, my specialty area. That’s why I wanted to go back to fashion design. So, as a sidekick, I went back to fashion design in 2020. Waad 276 STRATCOM PANEL - 7 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Al-Kateab is a Syrian director; I wore her dress that she wore to the Oscars. And I designed a dress for her and owned that dress. There was handwriting. It was a handwritten sentence that was very nice. “We’re not going to regret freedom” was what the sentence said. So, I designed that dress; I gave it to her. And that director wore that dress to the Oscars. And then the morning after, we found that the entire world was talking about that dress because it gave out a wonderful message. And that encouraged me a lot. I felt like I would be able to do other things. But then, with the beginning of COVID-19, everything felt like collapsing. I went through so many challenges, and many people went through them as well. Maybe I can go into a little bit more detail soon. Well, I have two daughters. I’m a single mother. I’m not a divorced person. In Arabic, we don’t have a difference between divorced and single. But I live as a single mother with two daughters. I’m trying to be a powerful mother, a strong mother. Thank you so much. 277 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Tarek Cherkaoui Thank you for your contributions. Now. I would like to pass the floor to Besim. Besim Hatipoğlu I decided to found a company in 2010. And it would be a huge responsibility, a very challenging responsibility in Syria, then the war began. And just like many Syrians, I wanted to leave the mortality, the war. So, I tried to find a safe space for myself. And the choices included Türkiye. Why did I choose that it was not an obligation? It was not a compulsion. I decided it myself. Because this country was one of the closest cultures to me, there were other options too. But there was one challenge that I had to face. In Türkiye, I spoke English, but no Turkish but I could hang out well in the border cities. I was pretty newly married at the time. And we were highly challenged because my wife had to leave university. And we are not talking about a new city; we’re talking about a completely new country. So, it was difficult for us, just like many Syrians that faced hard days. Adapting to a new culture, learning the language, and finding a paying job was very demanding. So, I believed that my most significant source would be to have confidence in myself, and I held on to it. And I always said: “We have no other choice, but to win, but to battle on, but to strive, and the victories will be ours. Unless we achieve victory, we cannot pass a safe future on to our children.” So, I immediately wanted my wife to begin studying again, and she not only completed her undergraduate, but she also did master of them. In the meantime, I want to get to know the Turkish market; I wanted to see the different entrepreneurship; I wanted to see what made money in this country. And my dream was to be a successful business person. So, I started from scratch like everybody else. When I first started in an office, it was just me. There was another employee, so there were only two of us. And when they asked me how many are you in the company, I would say, well, I have a business partner and a rat. We wanted to kill that rat with poison, but we didn’t. And whenever they asked me how many of you are there in the company, I always said, a colleague and a rat. So, we started producing little by little. We created services, served companies, worked with Turkish NGOs and corporate associations. So, we engage in communication with them. That’s how we started our job. This could be read as a success story. But at the end of the day, it turns into a success story, but you have to see what it began in the beginning. We were so challenged; we suffered a lot. We are one of the biggest companies in the Arab market. We are renowned both internationally and in the Middle East. We have highly developed international relations with We are not talking about a new city; we’re talking about a completely new country. It was difficult for us, just like many Syrians that faced hard days. 278 STRATCOM PANEL - 7 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 companies across the globe. We have highly developed international relations with the different sectors. Just like every other success story, this begins with difficulties. Tarek Cherkaoui I’d now like to leave the floor to Marwa Bouka. Marwa Bouka Initially, I started working in the field of humanitarian aid. Long ago, I volunteered with the Palestinian Red Crescent back in Damascus. After graduation, I joined the United Nations, one of the humanitarian agencies working in Damascus. I was involved in many crises. I never thought my country would be one of them. I was involved in many crises. I never thought my country would be one of them. 279 S T R A T C O M P A N E L I started with the response to the war in Iraq. After I got involved in the war in Lebanon, my second mission was in East Timor, where I was interested in school feeding activities for disadvantaged children. Upon my return, I came back to Damascus as well. And then, I started doing my master’s degree in the UK. I received a generous scholarship from Riverside Foundation to do my master’s degree. When I came back, I also was involved in response to the Iraqi refugees in Syria. And then after this in, the different crisis happening in the region, in Libya, in Egypt, in Tunisia. My last duty station was in South Sudan in Juba. I left in 2013. And we came to Türkiye. The objective was to contribute to the increased humanitarian assistance going inside our country. Slowly, we set up RMTeam. We started, basically two laptops, me and my husband. We got involved in doing humanitarian needs assessment inside Syria. And then, we started getting involved in refugees’ issues in Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan. And recently in Yemen. We focus primarily on talking to the beneficiaries, speaking to the disadvantaged communities, and bringing their points of view, their feedback on their needs, and how things could have been done better. We get on board also the voices of the actual implementers of international assistance, the views of the government, the hosting governments, the local authorities, and the international community. Currently, we’re around 35 experts globally and a team of 600 to 700 very young researchers in the region. We pride ourselves on being a very reliable source of information about this situation. Thank you very much. Tarek Cherkaoui Thank you for this introduction. Let’s move to Mustafa Barodi. Mustafa Barodi First of all, I’d like to thank everyone. I want to thank the Turkish Presidency and the Directorate of Communications very much, and again I would like to thank Mr. Tarek for leading this session. I want to thank our audience, our viewers, for listening to us. I migrated from the world’s oldest city in 2014. I migrated from the city with the world’s largest commercial market. I migrated from the city with the oldest castle. I was the director of a marketing company in this city, and it was a company that marketed world-renowned brands. It was a family business, a company owned by my father. One of the branches of this company is still in Aleppo. I’m talking about Aleppo. We’ve been trying to sustain this company for 50 years. I came to Istanbul, I left 280 STRATCOM PANEL - 7 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 everything and started from scratch. There’s a chamber of commerce in Aleppo called the Aleppo chamber of commerce. It was a chamber that was opened in 1881. I’ve been a member of this chamber since 1998. Despite that, I gave up everything and started from scratch in Istanbul. We’re talking about a house, a brand new house with no furniture, a brand new life, a life where kids start school from scratch, and a new life where I have no income. We were all on a quest. Firstly, the search for a safe house, then the search for a safe school, then we struggled to survive without anyone’s support. After securing my life first and finding a safe roof, I sought to start a company. I initially sought something in my area of expertise, to be honest. Unfortunately, it is only a minority of the Syrian refugees who can work in their areas of expertise. Many people had to do different things than their specializations to find bread money. Ultimately outside their professional skills, entirely outside their university departments, I wanted to continue in my area of expertise by entering this minority. And with the help and success granted by God, I had the chance to start a project in a region where 7-8% of the people were Syrians. Then I had to put the little children in schools where they had no friends and unfortunately struggled alone. Although the children were brilliant, they were very lonely because they did not speak the language and did not have friends. I remember this very well. My child was the only stranger in a class of 18 students. But thankfully, right now, one of my kids is in college, one’s in high school, and one’s in middle school. I can say that after the Turkish society accepted us after the support of the Turkish government, our work started to get a little easier. I’d say our adaptation was a little easier. I’ll tell you why; I’m in a tiny minority and not saying I’m successful. Indeed, all Syrians are successful in trying to survive here. I am just in a minority who can continue in their profession. Thank you so much for listening to me. Tarek Cherkaoui Thank you very much. We started with art, we started with design. Now we’ll turn back to Fadi Hilli Fadi Hilli I’m Fadi Hilli; I’m from Syria. I came to Türkiye in 2013. I began to live in Afyon and work there. The reason was that Afyon is quite productive in marble manufacturing. I guess in about 2014 it was, I used my budget my savings to start a new company home office. And then, I started my commercial activities from that home office. In 281 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 2017, my sales grew to a reasonable extent. And I was able to start offices in more than 15 countries. That was more about the idea of an exhibition. I first started in Syria. But everyone knows what happened there. I’m just one of many that left Syria. I wanted to work near a lake. Then, I started an art gallery in Afyon where many artists from around the globe brought in their work to be showcased. So, that was 2017 and 2018. Then after that, we achieved considerable momentum. But when the COVID 19 pandemic hit, we stagnated to a certain extent. And over last year, we started an art gallery in Isparta. Again, it was called encounters on a lake. So, we had 15 artists who hosted, whose works we hosted. Then in Afyon, we had another exhibition, following the one in Isparta in the art gallery. This particular exhibition brought together Turkish producers and artists with professionals that could make use of their work. So, in January 2022, on the 15th, we’re going to have another exhibition. I want to invite everyone as a result of this. I just wanted to tell you about that. Thank you so much. That was more about the idea of an exhibition. I first started in Syria. But everyone knows what happened there. 282 STRATCOM PANEL - 7 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Tarek Cherkaoui That was the great news actually. One question to you: How did people in Afyon welcome this idea or not? Fadi Hilli Everyone liked it, but they were shocked a little bit because the art in Afyon was a bit odd. Maybe history reminded them, but Ahmed Karahisari is a very important calligraphist and everyone knows him. So if you’re interested in calligraphy, you would know that person. So, one way or another, we were accepted. But I guess we were pretty courageous. The people in Afyon were surprised, but then they were rather welcoming. Tarek Cherkaoui Now I’d like to turn back to Reem. Can you tell us about the dresses, the clothes themselves? How did you integrate Arabic design into your work, and how has your work been received in Türkiye, Antep, and the rest of the world? Reem Masri I believe in this very much. Some messages can come out during the war, and I believe in these messages. Poets write more poems; writers write more books; for example, those working for an association provide more humanitarian aid. As a designer, I thought my designs were more; I wanted my dresses to give a message. A month ago in Washington, I was in an event, again, a sentence was written on a dress, which said: “We left Aleppo at the corner of our hearts.” A film was screened in a festival, which talked about four successful women from Türkiye. It was a documentary, and people asked me in Washington, why did you write this sentence? And I said: “Well, I left Aleppo in five days. And I thought I was going to come back. But we left Aleppo without taking anything from us. Palestinian refugees, at least, took their keys when they left homes, but we could not take anything from Aleppo. So, millions of people left their country who thought they were going to come back in a couple of days, but they have been refugees in the other parts of the world for years.” And my mom before she fell a martyr, three days before she fell martyr, she sent me a sentence similar to this. My mom died under the bombardment of the brutal Syrian regime. And I received the death news of my mother in a foreign country. 283 S T R A T C O M P A N E L I could not meet her; I could not hug her. And she fell a martyr like that. And I feel that as a huge wound. Tarek Cherkaoui I’m sorry for your loss; this is a critical issue. Our success stories usually contain pain, difficulties, tears. My condolences to you. It’s a difficult situation. We’re all successful; you’re all very successful. I’ll go back to Mr. Besim now. You specialize in digital marketing and public relations; your company includes these topics. What have you done, what reactions have you received, and what have you learned from your experience in Türkiye? Can you compare Syria with Türkiye, for example? Besim Hatipoğlu It’s not comparable to these two countries because when I think of corruption, lying and theft, that’s what my Syrian country is, what Syria looks like. But in Türkiye, I see something different. After my research, I wanted to start my project, and I felt that it was easy to set up a business in Türkiye; it was not complicated. Again, there are so many supporting mechanisms organizations. I, as a refugee, have a temporary protection status. And I faced ease of work. Of course, bureaucracy exists; it slows things down in the country. Even though it makes decision-making quite a bit difficult, it’s better than having a corrupt regime. I wanted to, for example, I had to take a tax number, and at the tax office, they said: “You have a temporary refugee status, protection status, you need to go somewhere else.” So, I went to the migration office, I received a paper, and I said: “Well, here is, here is the paper, the document that shows you that I have a right to start a business here.” I said that to the Tax Office. So, that was how I did it. And I got my tax number. Laws exist in Türkiye. Bureaucracy exists here, but it does everywhere. But it’s not difficult; it’s not complicated. There are laws and all you have to abide by, and if you do, your work will be done. When I think of my work, we have e-Commerce and e-Marketing; we have e-Sales. So, this is very easy actually, because Türkiye is a very developed country. And on “turkiye.gov.tr” you can follow everything, apply to everything, and work smoothly. As long as you know the law, the state supports you anyway as long as you act by the law. Right now, the Turkish Government, like the Ministry of Trade, Ministry of Industry, Trade Chambers, supports us so much. And not only Syrians, please don’t misunderstand me. They support Turkish people out as well. I now have Turkish citizenship, and I believe that I have embellished; I ground my experience with my citizenship. But 284 STRATCOM PANEL - 7 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Turkish people also face a lot of ease of opportunities in Türkiye. And I believe that Türkiye is a country that is a model where entrepreneurship is supported, digital entrepreneurship is supported. Tarek Cherkaoui Now I would like to pass the floor to Marwa. In her background, we see a lot of humanitarian aid. She worked with the UN, with the World Bank. So, you represented different things. But now let’s talk about the present. What is the message that refugee women or the lesson that refugee women should take from you? Marwa Bouka Thank you very much, Tarek; this is a fundamental question. Regarding women’s participation in the workforce, specifically for refugee women, there are 2-3 issues Türkiye is a country that is a model where entrepreneurship is supported; digital entrepreneurship is supported. 285 S T R A T C O M P A N E L that are key for the success of this equal participation between women and men. The first of them would be access to education, access to education is essential for men and women actually to participate, but for refugee women, it’s much more. Formal education, informal education or vocational training, or language skills will enable them to seek opportunities and try to gain an income, giving them some economic independence. The other issue, which I see very important, is for businesses to create this enabling environment for women to be encouraged to be in the workplace. We have all suffered a lot during the Covid 19 crisis, but there are also opportunities created. A shift towards a much more flexible working setup, where we move from the traditional big offices, working in very fixed working hours and the need to commute to your workplace. This creates many opportunities for more women to be encouraged as long as they’re capable of doing their job from a place where they choose to be. They should be given the opportunity, and I’m sure they will push for this. And I think having quality daycare, even within the environments they were working, is important. This is what we do actually at RMTeam and also the critical role of media in bringing this, breaking the stereotype of the ideal family where the woman is fully dressed up, preparing salad at home, and the husband is finishing his business deal. We need to have a better-balanced image of women and men sharing roles and responsibilities at home or work. So, these three issues are essential to encourage more women to be in the workplace and seek leadership positions, which is a preeminent issue we face these days. Thank you. Tarek Cherkaoui Thank you for these insights. Mustafa Barodi When Syrians came to Türkiye, perhaps they worked in areas they were not trained for. And there’s a saying that goes: “You produce when there’s a demand.” And because there was a need, we started associations; we took a step to create associations, an association that will be working in the area of consultation. I act as the head of two companies. And in terms of NGOs, I also serve as representatives in the NGOs and take roles in associations that vote for profits. I am Deputy Head of the Syrian International Business Association. And in July 2018, we set up this association, focused on business people and members of this association, our people in business and commercial people. And each association has an objective. 286 STRATCOM PANEL - 7 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 And our association’s most important purpose is to enable communication between people, both in terms of communication between the members of this association, who are Syrian businessmen, and communicating with Turkish businesspeople and contributing to Türkiye. Our objective is to engage with the government’s bodies and public institutions. And if he hadn’t put these efforts into these initiatives, we wouldn’t be able to solve the issues of Syrian entrepreneurs. In general, problems are related to lack of language, knowing the local language also, in terms of challenges Syrian entrepreneurs have within the business world. If they apply as an individual, perhaps they may not be taken so seriously, but if an association represents them and uses them on these individuals’ behalf, they can reach their objectives easier; it’s easier for them to achieve their goals. And this enabled success for us in two different ways. One is businessmen who are members within the association and outside the association. Let me give you an example; we usually have individual members and businessmen. We also became 287 S T R A T C O M P A N E L a partner and members in IPF. And this enabled us to contact other associations. So, when we became a member of another federation as an association, it helped us engage with those members. So, we can contact people from Azerbaijan, Egypt, Jordan, many other countries. Last month, the summit took place in Azerbaijan. And I’m sure you know of this. Tarek Cherkaoui Fantastic. This is a great initiative. Let me ask you a question about development. How many Syrian companies are your members? And how many Syrian or Turkish citizens do these companies employ? Mustafa Barodi There are 15,000 Syrian companies set up in Türkiye, and 65 are successful. Tarek Cherkaoui And how many people employees do these companies have? Mustafa Barodi Well, on average, these companies have 70,000 employees. And these are not only Syrians but also Turkish people or other citizens. So, these companies, 15,000 companies, created 70,000 employment opportunities for many citizens, Turkish and otherwise Syrians. Tarek Cherkaoui Well, it’s a significant number. I hope it will increase. Let me move on to Fadi. Why did you choose Afyon? How did it occur to you to start an art gallery in Afyon? Fadi Hilli Well, there are two reasons behind why I chose Afyon. First, my business was on marble. And Afyon has the most prominent marble reserves. So, anyone would have a thriving place in marble production in the region and internationally. And the second reason is that if you look at the cultural map and Afyon, there are 288 STRATCOM PANEL - 7 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 five top art cities in Türkiye, İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Antalya, and a few galleries in Bodrum. These five cities had exhibitions, and Afyon did not have any. And I’m talking about private sector exhibitions, not public ones. So, I wanted to be a pioneer in that area; I wanted to take that opportunity and create an opportunity for myself. And also another reason is that Afyon is a place that embraced me, people have embraced me, and I wanted to give back a gift to the city. Tarek Cherkaoui It is a great idea. I support you in this, and I congratulate you. It shouldn’t always be financial; it shouldn’t always be, perhaps, production. In this way, culture should be given importance and should include art. But, of course, these success stories are minor examples. The Turkish government, Turkish society, and Syrians who contributed to these examples were all factors that could quickly adapt in this country. This is a tremendous example for us. Syrians are not a burden. Despite the difficulties, they pushed themselves to success, focused on success, and provided success both for themselves and their country. 289 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 8 The Future and Content Strategy of Video 290 STRATCOM PANEL - 8 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 The Future and Content Strategy of Video 11 December 2021 • Hilmi Aydın Industry Leader at Google’s İstanbul Office - Türkiye • Timur Altop Head of YouTube Partnerships - Türkiye • Bora Başman Türkiye Content Partnership Manager at YouTube - Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 291 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 08 The fastest trend we’ve seen at the beginning of the pandemic is that the number of videos viewed by people, including “home office” words, increased by 200%. Hilmi Aydın My name is Hilmi Aydın. I will be with Timur and Bora. I will start first. We will talk about several topics today as a YouTube team. I will begin by talking about the future of the video, especially as the pandemic has brought us changes. I will reflect on our learnings of what this means for our audience and the brands. Before talking about the overall trends, at the beginning of the pandemic, when people started to stay home, if we take the 15th of March 2020 as the starting point, I’d like to talk about the first changes once the presentation is on the screen. There are some numbers, and I will try to speak as much as I remember. The fastest trend we saw at the beginning of the pandemic comes from a home where people more stayed. The number of videos viewed by people who had home in it increased by 200%. And the next thing we saw that after the closure 292 STRATCOM PANEL - 8 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 of gyms and as people spent home without moving too much, wellness-related and fitness-related content has increased. Now, I’m trying to remember my slide—how to and handstand, a yoga pose, video views increased by 200%. And home workout-related content increased by 700%. And sometimes because out of boredom, and sometimes because of necessity, people wanted to learn new skills from YouTube. And as of the 15th of March, learning-related content videos increased in a very speedy way. And one of the striking ones is that views of videos making bread rise by 500%. Especially sourdough bread. And also, cutting your hair at home was a type of content that increased tremendously. The pandemic was something that affected our physical bodies. Still, we also saw that the content related to mental health increased, primarily, for example, guided meditation videos. Uploads of self-care-related videos increased by 300%, if I remember correctly. These are only some of the changes we observed within the few weeks following the pandemic’s start. So, the last year and a half have been a challenging time for all of us. And our behaviors changed; this was reflected on YouTube. And to monitor the trends, it was an exciting time. People’s behaviors and attitudes towards technology have changed. In terms of adapting to the new technology, video has become crucial. Our video analysts have tried to understand the trends that we saw during this time, and we think about what will happen in the future. So, they looked at Google. This is a home-office video. There are also videos about staying at home, and this as of 15th of March, you can see that cutting your hair videos, wellness, fitness videos, as I already mentioned. I’m saying our analysts have drawn a consistent outcome. Video has become an integral part of people’s lives increasingly with changing requirements, and people’s need to connect with the world has become more critical than ever. And I will dwell on that further. Now, people have been watching more digital videos than ever, especially at the pandemic after the 15th of March, both on television and other screens. So watching YouTube videos has increased. But what people are saying is that how they define good content as personalized and related to them. And so, with the increased watch in YouTube videos, it became an indispensable part of people’s lives. And there are several reasons. One of them is that YouTube is a platform based on community and sharing. Community means people who share common interests, who like a specific type of similar content.. The second reason is that YouTube is not only a passive platform; it’s a platform where people develop their skills. 90% of users said they learned something, a new skill, developed their skills. And finally, it’s a platform that makes people happy. When we asked users, 80% said YouTube makes them happy. Now, the importance of making connections, as I already mentioned, is 293 S T R A T C O M P A N E L three things: One is the sense of community, the second is relatability, presenting relatable content, and finally, participation, being part of something. Then, we go onto the details of it. One of them is creating a community, being part of a community. Now, with the lockdowns and as people started to stay home, they could not make those connections that they used to make in the past. For example, at a wedding of your friend, you might have, you might meet someone that you don’t know. The lack of such connection was filled with platforms like YouTube, which is expectable. People watching videos together have strengthened their relationships. And one of the ways to enhance these connections is the live streams that we saw in the events, an example of which you see on your screens. More than 2 million people viewed weddings that are broadcast live and perseverance landing on Mars. This event is from the 16th of October, a livestream of Minecraft in 2021. You may not be able to read the letters, but 650,000 people watched this video simultaneously. I have a young son, and he was waiting to watch this video from days ahead of its broadcasts. Although it was not relatable to me, he felt like part of this community of 650,000 people. And when the character he picked was chosen, there was a festivity within our home. People watching videos together have strengthened their connections. 294 STRATCOM PANEL - 8 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Artists performed and reached larger audiences. An excellent example is that Marília Mendonça, a Brazilian artist broke YouTube’s music live stream record by reaching a vast audience. And in Türkiye, likewise, we see our artists broadcasting concepts from their homes, reaching millions of people. Now, to create a sense of community, this sense of community doesn’t have to be watched live. There is also content that gives the sense of being watched simultaneously. For instance, “with me” videos, study with me, decorate with me, or do the cleaning with me; these types of videos received more than 2 million views. Another change is that users have started to watch YouTube on their television screens more than ever. 67% of the users say that they watch YouTube on a TV while others are in the room. And also say that when they have other people when they watch the videos, they have a higher sense of connection. Similar studies have been made in Türkiye. More than 73 people in Türkiye say that watching a video in real-time with others helps them create connections. With the videos I just mentioned there, there’s an exciting trend. And there are some music videos 295 S T R A T C O M P A N E L as well. This is an example of this “lofi girl”. Here it says 960 million, but this was a few days ago. Now, it reached view of more than 1 million; it has become so popular that similar types of content are being broadcast together with artwork. This is an example from Türkiye in the background, there is an excellent selection of artwork, and the music was also really, really good. Now, these are all examples that make the real-time experiences more community-related, so we can reach these communities, understand their changing needs and create content accordingly. This makes people happy and makes them feel that they are part of a community. In Türkiye, 92% of the users saif that they watched live streams on YouTube in the last year. They attended an event on a digital platform at least once a month. The second question is on relatability. We have all been home for a period now; this is the second event I have joined in real life for the last two years. So, our social and private lives now have minimal boundaries left, if any. So, people feel less pressure to show off about their social life. Actually, that pressure was lowered in content creators as well. So, many daily shows of programmers start to act like YouTubers in the US. And in 2020, there was a 45% growth in daytime show viewing in the US. An interesting trend, Samay Raina, a comedian, started creating video content about chess. Chess was previously quite unpopular, but he made it very popular. It reached 330 million views related to chess in India in less than nine months. That also rose chess-related video content viewing by 100%. So, video creators increased in number. And to bond with people with your art, you can do that in the way you present yourself. So, MrBeast had 1 billion viewers in a month only. So, he has quite a positive attitude; he has an original frame of social communication. So, when the boundaries between our personal and social life eroded, people started to speak the same language with others, becoming winners. So, how about being a part of the content? Digital videos convey sound and image, but they also offer experiments. With more catchy experiences, a new rush of trends is now with us. So, different perspectives come to the fore. First-person, what does that mean? That takes us to games and games. One of the best examples here is Minecraft Dream SMP. So, it was set up by an amateur gamers game server. We have just a role-playing fictional story. But it’s so complicated; it’s as complex as Game of Thrones; I have to listen to just an overview of it for 20 minutes to understand what was going on. Just since May 2020, they have garnered 2 billion views. And it became one of the biggest entertainment trends at the time. Joining video memes and challenges have also become instances of happiness sharing among people. For example, Jerusalem’s challenge started in South 296 STRATCOM PANEL - 8 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Africa, spread to healthcare workers in Sweden, and earned 600 million views across the globe. A small local group, The Longest Johns, brought together amateur and professional singers in England. In that joint project, they made a video, a collective video. The second video received more than 6500 artists, which was very, very beautiful. So, all of these trends encourage participation in the digital sphere. Of course, we needed such communicative devices during lockdowns, but I guess some of these trends are here to stay. When we explain YouTube, we say YouTube is the video for everyone. YouTube produces and enables content where people who need something to join people who provide them with that need. So, we have both traditional, familiar ranges. So, it’s vibrant as an array, and it also covers a critical condition because users want options. They also want to have the freedom to play whatever they want, wherever they want. And based on our research, when I asked our users what platform would make them sad if they decided to close today, they said YouTube. And we also have fundamental trends and changes. So, YouTube is increasingly being watched on television. So, people consume short-form content both for entertainment and learning things. And also, as the role of digital tools becomes more critical for sales, that means something for YouTube. But what does all of that mean for content makers? So, technology is growing more personal. So, users share a comment on specific posts, and they interact with brands and for brands and content creators. They have to be a part of that conversation. It allows them to be a part of the users’ conversation; it is all about the user. That’s the second thing I want to say. I want to use this word because they want brands to inform, entertain, and provide, and they want it when, where, and how they want. So, when you think of a specific group, generation Z has the highest expectation. And Timur will talk about generation Z and storytelling. So, thank you so much for listening to me. Timur Altop I want to introduce myself. I have spent the last 25 years in the media sector, from digital publishing to news and magazine publishing music distribution. I was even a TV producer at one point. I want to know what it’s like to be born in the media first world. How will it affect them? Will this be a positive development or negative development? What’s going to inspire them to be creative? Of course, these two monkeys want to be 297 S T R A T C O M P A N E L YouTubers or gamers. I keep secretly trying to get them to become accountants, but it’s a little safer job, maybe. So, we see this picture, and we think, you know, it’s the game-changing here, the father is watching a football game, the son or the daughter may be looking at the iPad. What’s going on here? As adults, we still tend to watch television so much, our kids forming new habits. What’s happening with them? And you know, what’s happened to television is maybe not on television, but what’s happening to television? Is television fading away? We see this chart; this is a marketer chart; we see them all the time. They said the great thing about my job is I get to dive deeper into what’s happening in this realm. And I love to see how media consumption is evolving. So, the thing here is everyone understands that millennials are changing their behaviors, right? So, you see this chart here, and baby boomers, you know, the numbers are still influential. But what’s happening to millennials, right? So, the numbers are kind of fading. It’s looking smaller and smaller. Cord-nevers and cord-cutters are now surpassing cord-subscribers for the first time. What does it tell the true story? Are millennials watching less television? Or is the definition of television changing? 298 STRATCOM PANEL - 8 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 See, if this works here, okay? So, surprisingly, content consumption is up, shifting from analog to digital. The number of millennials is watching 9% more digital television than other generations. Gen Z, in particular, is watching four hours of content a day. And they’re spending 37% of their time on YouTube versus traditional cable. And 65% of Gen Z is using YouTube and Instagram daily. This is how I grew up; this is my television; there was no remote control, we had to go and turn the television by hand. So, you know, is this black, black box changing? As you know, television is with this tube. For baby boomers, it was not like now; I’ll just put through these, so we’re seeing how the definition of this box is changing. Baby boomers knew the personal computer, and for Gen Z, it was a worldwide web. And for millennials is the mobile technology explosion. And each of these generations saw their lives transformed by new technology. For generation Z, seemingly, it was with a smartphone in their hands. And there’s a twist. Instead of a critical technology defining a generation, this first generation of actual digital natives is redefining the technology. What’s Gen Z doing on digital video? How was Gen Z redefining the definition of the video? How many of the centennials in the world are under 25? I’ll tell you it’s 50%. So, 50% of the world’s population is under 25. This means a lot, right? This means a lot for a TV, this means a lot for advertisers, this means a lot for brands, 299 S T R A T C O M P A N E L this means a lot for YouTube. And so, what is their emotional makeup? It’s a DNA. They’re the most diverse generation in history. They are the first generation to have 24/7 access to internet devices and social media at birth. And they see the space between the physical world and the digital world meshing. So, there’s an attraction between Millennials and Centennials; what’s happening between them, right? Millennials seek freedom, they question authority, whereas centennials are self-educated, they’re hard workers, they’re very loyal, they want financial security, they’re the most demanding working generation, you’ll see. Millennials are about simplifying content from 60 seconds to 10 seconds to 140-character tweets, whereas centennials are looking for meaning in everything they do. And they’re putting more care into their decisions. Here are some more things that I found out about centennials. They are the masters of multitasking. And please don’t ever call a Gen Z person lazy, right? They just have a powerful filter to what’s important to them. I call this the strong bullshit filter, right? They’re constantly that connecting, consciously disconnecting. They don’t want media or tech to run their lives; they also want a limited digital footprint. And they respect companies that value their privacy. And they appreciate brands as a concept; they want purpose and meaning in their lives. And of course, this is what stood out in my mind: a Gen X person had a telephone at the age of 20, and a Gen Z person had a phone at the age of 12. So, what does it mean for you? Centennials want to know the real story; they want to build a relationship with those communicating with them; you have to make storytelling a crucial part of your message that keeps on engaging with them. So, how does this translate to YouTube? How do you tell your story? And how does YouTube fit into this overall narrative? So, we have this kind of timeline here; we see television on one end of the scope, where there’s tons of repetition, a mass audience, expensive, not shareable, it’s a bit hard it’s time-consuming. On the opposite side, you have social media. It’s snackable; it’s targeted, it’s shareable, it’s easy, it’s quick, it’s measurable. You have this platform, a dedicated broadcasting platform, right? It’s a storytelling platform. It’s short-form and long- form. It’s targeted, and it has an audience, or it has an audience, right? It’s practical; it’s shareable. It’s not hard, but it’s also not easy. It’s not time-consuming, but it’s also not quick, right? It’s also very measurable. So, I’ll give two short stories here. I’m not sure if this is going to work. I have two videos on how brands use storytelling to tell their target to their audiences. It’s a documentary about clean water. This is a production by NatGeo, but Procter and Gamble produced it. The next one reminds you of love. Enza for the best love. 300 STRATCOM PANEL - 8 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 We need to embrace how younger audiences define this new norm, redefine the narrative, and embrace storytelling that will give a more authentic experience and relationship with your audience. And please don’t ever underestimate them because I ultimately think that they’re going to be better at this than we are. So, that’s my presentation. And with that, we head over to Bora. Bora Başman Good afternoon, welcome once again. Hilmi and Timur talked about the trends, who will watch, how the business will be, and I will speak of the more exciting aspect, as being discovered is pretty essential in YouTube. When we talk to Youtubers and companies, they say: “We want to try new things, but we are afraid of failing.” And we tell them it’s not possible to fail on YouTube because if they can’t find you, it doesn’t mean you have failed. My name is Bora Başman. I have tried to position YouTube to find its place in the past couple of years. If you watch the past 40 years of Turkish television, a traditional, we have had some partnerships with the Turkish cinema sector, and we enable them to be produced in different languages. Now, I’d like to talk about discoverability. How does search and discoverability work in YouTube? Although it may look simple, there is a complex pattern behind it; it requires effort as much as managing a television channel. Before moving on, let me ask you a question. Have you ever watched any YouTube video up to this hour today? Can you raise your hand if you’ve watched a YouTube video? Therefore, the central philosophical questions are: How do we grow our audience? How do we share our topic with more people? So, there are four questions related to this. One is how do you get discovered? Second, how do you keep your audience engaged to stay more with you and come back to form a habit? The third one is how do you keep your audience watching more content more than once? And the fourth one is we keep saying, don’t forget to subscribe to my channel. So, this is a widespread catchphrase in our day-to-day lives. And how do you gain subscribers? How, how do you convince people to subscribe? Before that, I’d like to talk a bit about algorithms. As part of my job, I speak to YouTubers often, and they don’t have a sense of working hours, 95 working hours, so they work at night or different times. So, they keep telling me one thing, the algorithm doesn’t like me, the algorithm doesn’t When we talk to talents and companies, they say: “We want to try new things, but we are afraid of failing.” And we tell them it’s not possible to fail in YouTube. 301 S T R A T C O M P A N E L work, or the algorithm isn’t talking to me. When this happens, I show them the slides. There’s no such thing as an algorithm; there are people and choices that people make. And these have reflections repercussions on YouTube. A minute ago, I asked the question, how do you get discovered on YouTube? So how? When people search you or search the topic you talk about, one is that you talk about. Secondly, what we call trending, when some videos are watched highly, and the trend, you can become part of this trend. And the third is suggested videos; once you watch a video, you can get another video suggested, or another video suggested. And this can keep going on. The fourth is that subscriptions, videos referred from your subscriptions. The fifth is home. Once you enter the homepage in YouTube, it automatically recommends some pages you may be interested in. And finally, notifications. We try to recommend our users through notifications, videos, or content. In terms of how the algorithm works, let me give you an example. Everybody who hears me, who are watching me today, now, they have all different YouTube home pages because we are trying to personalize as much as we can so that you reach 302 STRATCOM PANEL - 8 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 the content as fast as possible. You may ask this question. There are billions and billions of videos. And out of all these videos, what drives their ranking when you search for videos? So, this is an existential question in terms of YouTube. We look at 9000 different signals regarding what people like and what people share in WhatsApp. And they may share this through various social platforms. But at the end of the day, what makes people work is that we look at a “Watch time” metric. One person uploading a video of one hour and someone watching for one hour creates a watch time of one hour. However, if I upload a video of one hour, and it gets watched 10 seconds, the watch time is 10 seconds. So, one of the most critical metrics driving this video discoverability is the watch time. How do you understand? How can you tell if a video is a good quality video? It depends on whether the user watches it and shares it with others or interacts with this. So, we look at 9000 different factors similar to this one. And this is what drives the discoverability on the homepage. Before coming here, I looked up Turkish cuisine on YouTube. And I saw that there is more than one video, which may change over time; you can see Turkish content with English headings, and you might have even watched some of these. In an environment where there are so many videos, but we have only seven days and 24 hours, the videos compete with each other. So, to enable engagement, you need to have watch time. And when I look at this video or this image, you know, I get attracted, I want to click on it. So, it would help if you were attractive. Technology has many benefits to our lives, but at the same time, it pushes us to think more practically, when we are making choices. So, by just looking at these small images, I developed my ability to choose by looking at these small pictures. How to be found on YouTube, I think this is a million-dollar question. The algorithm that I just mentioned isn’t magic. And it doesn’t work like magic. I want to give you three tips in terms of this, how to be found. One is “title.” Imagine a title like you are writing for the newspaper, why they should watch this content. Then, in the description, you should explain the scope of what topics you talk about in the video. For instance, if you talk about five issues, write them in the description. So, YouTube says this video has this title, this short picture, this description so that the users will watch, but first, you need to explain your content to YouTube. And finally, in the tags, you can make some optimization on what search words to use. So, I mentioned thumbnails, small pictures, or thumbnails. This is usually underestimated because they are so small, but people choose by just looking at thumbnails. The examples on the left-hand side are being watched more than those on the right-hand side. And I’d like to give you eight reasons here of why. How do you understand? How can you tell if a video is a good quality video? It depends on whether the user watches it and shares it with others or interacts with this. 303 S T R A T C O M P A N E L One is that when you look at the thumbnail, I can understand what it’s all about. Sometimes this is thanks to high-resolution photos or sometimes more closely captioned photos. And then you get to sometimes a sense that you must watch it, to see what’s in it. In contrast, high contrast works well in the thumbnails. If there’s a visual depth, that’s important. Also, whichever screen you view it from should be legible at all sizes of screens, and it needs to describe accurately. If you put a title that’s not aligned with the content, it may be punished as a breach of our community rules. So, usually, you can tell from the titles the content of the video, and if you look at the timings of the video, you would understand that the left-hand side ones are more meaningful than the right-hand side ones. YouTube is one of the largest mass video streaming platforms, and we added some new features. One of them is the “community tab.” We had such an insight from content creators that they could only engage with their subscribers through the comments sections. And if they wanted to interact in other ways, they had to move to other social platforms. So, as a result, through the community tab, we 304 STRATCOM PANEL - 8 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 enabled question and answers or polls, or the content creator to ask the views of their subscription, of their audience. So, we created this in 2017, as far as I remember, correctly. Mobile live streaming. As connection and live streaming are becoming more assertive, mobile live streaming helps people to tell experiences firsthand, and it’s a tool that enables a different communication method. Perhaps you might be watching live streaming on YouTube, but live streaming from mobile is also possible without making any technology investments. YouTube stories, they are active for seven days. And it’s one of the products we developed to give creators another touchpoint with their subscribers. This will increase the connections and sincerity, which contributes to creators by adding more than about 10% more subscribers. And the final product is YouTube shorts, which we added. We try to achieve with it that yes, there is some long content, Turkish TV series also have a long-range, but they’re also people who prefer verticals content. People may not have time; they may be rushing to catch a bus, they have 10 minutes to use. And as we created YouTube shorts as an answer to that, we see a demand from Türkiye for this type of content. Now, we talked about the masses, audiences’ trends, and how to develop a winning strategy. And I’ll talk about this a bit further. I’ll give you a framework of what it’s like. So, a couple of strategies apply simultaneously. So, the first one is called “hero.” So, you might want to use your resources, make your investments, and maybe just put in money to create specific videos, or it could be joint projects. So, these require vast amount of effort, and you can only create two of such videos per year. You might not have enough time or resources to do that. But when you do that, once, it makes this massive butterfly effect, and you see the results. But think of a YouTube channel where videos are uploaded only twice a year; it doesn’t sound reasonable. Why would anyone follow it? Why would anyone make a habit of visiting that channel? On top of that, we have hubs with episodic content. So, your followers will be curious about certain things. But what do they want to know about you? You might want to create a particular brand, and you might want to come up with some training content; you might want to produce certain videos for specific periods, for the summertime, for Ramadan. And you can produce sports-related content, education-related to the content, economy-related content. So, that’s a formula that you can use to provide content for your users, for your followers over a certain period. But that is not enough, either. So, you might want to produce 305 S T R A T C O M P A N E L four videos on the hub side, but what else should you do? “Always on” is a term that one of the previous panelists used. Managing a YouTube channel is no different from managing a TV channel. What you do is create an expectation, and you have to deliver, and you have to do it in such a way that you will be using your resources, but you will have to do it regularly. Success on YouTube comes with regular strategy. You try, test, fail and try again. You can create regular content by doing the following. So, try to find out what people search for. They might want to find things that you are about to tell. So, for example, there are people who solve math problems, and there are people who reach out to tens of thousands of millions of people; there are so many teachers in Türkiye that are trying to share their knowledge across the country. And we as a platform want to facilitate that sharing for them. So, in a nutshell, these three strategies run simultaneously, will give you a plan for a whole year, and at the end of the day, you can have optimum return from YouTube. When 306 STRATCOM PANEL - 8 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 you put all those three strategies throughout the year, you will see what it can look like over a year. There is no formula set in stone for success; you just try and fail and learn from it. Easier said than done. And there are specific examples that I can share with you. So, there are examples both in Türkiye and abroad. So, how did Nusret become internationally famous? Do you remember that here, 2017? I think everyone will remember because the entire world started to talk about him all of a sudden. Do you remember James? Do you know James Corden? The man on the left. If you don’t know him, he’s one of the most popular late-night show hosts in the US. He’s one of the most renowned TV personalities in the US. So, James Corden has certain team members or partner managers, their teams that strategically manage their content. So, they said James Corden, apparently said: “Well, we don’t know how many people watch our shows, we check the internet.” And when they say internet, they mean YouTube. And I’ll tell you why. So, James Corden mentioned Nusret and shared Nusret’s YouTube videos, so it created this added value to go viral. It had a massive effect in real life as well. So, James Corden has his carpool karaoke; it’s very, very entertaining as a form. So, what does it with this? In that late-night show, they have guests, and he makes it look as though they share a car. He picks them up, and they go to the office together. Sometimes they just chit-chat, and sometimes they play music and sing along. So, it’s not content that you might be very familiar with on television, but why am I just talking about this? Because carpool karaoke is just one of the many formats, he’s involved in. You might know it, but you might not know “Emoji news” or other ones like “Talking Mentalist” because they tried one or two parts and they quit after a certain period. So, YouTube offers you a vast playground. When you have something to say, when you have something to share, YouTube is an excellent global platform for you. This is one of my best examples, and actually, this is my last slide. Why do I use YouTube most? To learn? If I have something that I don’t know about, if I feel inadequate in certain areas, like if I want to learn a new thing, and I can see that there are types of content in various languages on the platform. “Kurz Gesagt” is a channel with more than 17 million subscribers. So, just like I’ve said, small attractive thumbnails and information that will attract people’s curiosity, coupled with storytelling, will give you these kinds of videos. It’s exciting. They have fascinating videos. So, that’s the end of my presentation. Thank you so much for making time to join us on Saturday. And thank you on behalf of my team as well. Thank you. 307 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 9 Data Is The Message 308 STRATCOM PANEL - 9 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Data Is The Message 11 December 2021 • Sümeyye Ceylan Presenter at TRT World - Türkiye • Dr. Tayfun Çataltepe CEO at Tazi AI - Türkiye • Aslan Doğan Founding Partner and CEO of Etiya - Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 309 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 09 When we say data, we’re talking about something huge because we have data collected on digital platforms, and we also have data on our mobile phones. Sümeyye Ceylan Welcome to our panel called “Data is the message.” Tayfun Çataltepe, Board Member at TAZI AI Systems. Tayfun, how do the technology giants perform in data security? Dr. Tayfun Çataltepe When we say data, we’re talking about something huge because we have data collected on digital platforms, and we also have data on our mobile phones. So, when you do a business, you collect data for your business. It can be financial data; it can be customer data. They’re all a part of it. If you’re managing a factory, you have data about the status of the devices. So, data is a vast, massive concept. But when it comes to personal data and the increasing possibility of collecting personal data, we face data security as a challenge from the perspective of 310 STRATCOM PANEL - 9 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 individuals involved. So, ensuring data security was problematic both in the past before digitalization, but it’s also problematic today. Because data is increasing, our safety concerns are also growing. When we think of data increase, of course, it has emerged with technology. Data security will be enabled by the technology as well. So, the answer should be sought within technology itself. Sümeyye Ceylan Aslan Doğan, Founding Partner and CEO of Etiya. Mr. Aslan, how would you respond to the same question? So, how do we trust technology giants about data security? Aslan Doğan We are facing a dilemma here. So, we produce data, but as we have data, then new questions arise, and security is a part of it. There are so many elements to security, such as saving data, processing data, and access to data, one of its essential parts. So, who has access to the information? And Tayfun gave an excellent overview of the question here. So, technology produces data, but at the same time, the security of data and potential prevention of abuse of data will also come from technology. So, when you think of data security, we’ve had that as an issue from the get-go. And when we think of the whole journey of human civilization, we first had information, and data was collected in audio form, and then samples were collected. At the stage we are in today, we’re not only talking about a single source of data here, but we’re also not talking about audio records or TXT records; we have video, video content, and machine-produced data. So, data sources are so diversified that all of these different sources have issues. But all of them are tied to technology. So, when we think of data security, and because this is a strategy event, we’re talking about something very critical for national security for so many different countries. Obviously, corporations make considerable investments in that area. As you know, we had an argument shared across the country for a long time, Türkiye’s data should remain in Türkiye. Mainly we’re talking about big data. A couple of weeks ago, Amazon’s CEO said, “Yes, nations data should remain in those nations.” Well, data security, above everything, is too important to be left to data companies and other stakeholders because when you think of data producers and the people who are affected by these data, how do we act in terms of awareness? How aware are we of potential effects? How do we ensure more secure data? We need to have 311 S T R A T C O M P A N E L more regulations by governments to prevent possible manipulations. So, there is a two-part system. So, what will most shape data security, NGOs, and individuals should develop specific demands for regulators to regulate the whole sphere. Sümeyye Ceylan Tayfun, lets turn back to you. Why are we talking about data-centered strategies? And how does that affect ways of doing business in corporations? Dr. Tayfun Çataltepe I love the term “data-driven economy.” I like this because, in every country, this should be a slogan. What do we mean by a data-driven economy? Just like you said, when you do business, you have data creation in so many different ways. And with digital tools, we collect these data. So, where did the first problem emerge? How We need to have more regulations by governments to prevent potential manipulations. 312 STRATCOM PANEL - 9 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 do we manage all of this data when we consider just the business-related data? So, there are so many technological possibilities we have; data companies help with data management. So, many solutions have been shared in the last decade, for instance. So, when we go to the root of the whole issue, we see collectible data, and that collectible data turned digital. So, why are we discussing this now? First, it’s because this data turned digital. Secondly, we have increasing means of managing such collected data. And how do we do that? We use software and, in the past, we had hardware. And these both areas developed. So, we now have smaller devices, faster devices, and they become more efficient. But maybe most importantly, all of these are combined into a possibility where data can be helpful. So, we have AI and other technologies. If you want to survive in a data-driven economy, you have to be on top of your data. You have to derive There are so many technological possibilities we have; there are data companies that help with data management. So, many solutions have been shared in the last decade, for instance. 313 S T R A T C O M P A N E L usable information. So, you need to derive specific messages by using AI or other technologies to move forward. So, this is now being possible. Right now, we are nearing the middle of this revolution. There is a long way to go. But data is not something that you can leave to only tech-savvy people. Whoever is doing any job should use the data that they have. And they have to make sure it’s a part of the decision-making process. Why now? Because we’re now hearing off success stories. Sümeyye Ceylan Thank you so much. I want to pose the same question to Aslan. Aslan Doğan So, why are we discussing data? Why are strategies now based on data? Well, let’s begin this way. It’s about a journey of data. When do we think of agrarian societies? Who was the most important person at the time? The oldest person in that tribe was choosen because wisdom and knowledge stayed with them; they knew when to do farming, when to plant certain seeds, and when to harvest specific crops. Then, a massive transformation with the internet, technology, and mobility, and people started to have access to digital devices and machines became interconnected, and data processing and storage became more advanced. So, it was all of that data that earned a considerable dimension. Data storage now turned into something valuable. For example, data is the new oil; data is power; data is economy. So, all of these terms are being coined, and data is something we use at every turn. Why is data becoming so precious? Two things. So, let’s say you have a specific plan, a particular project, you can check the date the status of that project in real-time. So, you don’t have to call people and gather data from them; you can see that in real-time. And with machine learning and AI developing, you have a new chance. You come up with forward-facing strategies. So, you have prediction capabilities, which validate your approach. When you diversify and enrich data and feed yourself with interacting data, you build your strategy on more robust grounds. So, data interaction is a very, very important pillar here. So, you have a holistic view of data coming in from different sources, and you harmonize this data, you analyze the effects with AI. When you think of nations or companies that make a difference with data, they focus on these areas. When you think of institutions and corporations, today, all organizations refer to themselves as speaking, like in a manner of speaking, data Data storage now turned into something valuable. For example, data is the new oil; data is power; data is economy. 314 STRATCOM PANEL - 9 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 companies. So, in a company, the most wisdom-bearing person, the wisest person, is the data person. And, of course, making sense of data becomes very cardinal. And you also have to take actions in real-time, and you also have to manage certain impediments in real-time; that’s why data people become the brain in a company. Sümeyye Ceylan That’s something I’m curious about. So, you have big technology companies like Facebook, are they actively involved in supervision? Like, for example, they are collecting our data. Dr. Tayfun Çataltepe As a result of digitalization, these kinds of big companies are the places where we submit ourselves in a certain way. So, they collect a lot of data about us, based on what they do. And these data are processed. That does come with a possibility of grading problems. Throughout history, when you think of how technology developed, technology led the way, and after that, regulations came. But today, the only difference is that these things are done fast. In the past, when technology changed, supervisory actions, regulations, and implementation all of that had ample time. But things changed so quickly, right now, where the danger lies. So, a technological revolution takes place quickly, and the necessary inspection capabilities are formed quite slowly. That would be meaningful only if they’re valid globally. So, naturally, the companies that you talk about become global before regulations, regulations come later, and they don’t turn global. So, for example, today, there is GDPR at the EU level, it’s a regulation related to personal data, and it took years to be enacted. I was involved in it as well. It took so many years. So, think of the level technology reached, and information about your actions and behaviors is collected somewhere. But rules as to how big companies can use that data came about throughout a considerable amount of time. So, that is about an EU-level development, and international acceptance takes an even longer time. But I can say one thing about recent developments, and this is something that everyone is familiar with. The global common understanding is also something that is underway. So, there is a search towards a worldwide experience; specific work is being done, and it is a problem. Yes. But when you work fast, I believe that it can be solved. The most important actors are different types of states across the globe. In the past, when technology changed, supervisory actions, regulations, and implementation all of that had ample time. But things changed so fast, right now, where the danger lies. 315 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Sümeyye Ceylan Aslan, what would you like to say about that? Aslan Doğan Well, I would like to add one thing. So, when we think of conventional industries, conventional structures and nation-states, those huge bureaucracies, when we think of the agility, and the speed of technological companies, all of those big structures are lagging behind the agility and the speed of technology companies because when we think of the way it looks, we see how the inspecting bodies lack knowledge about the companies that they want to regulate. So, Cambridge Analytica comes up, and then we realize that certain things have been there, but we didn’t know. When you pre-regulate something, it is a massive punishment for innovation; it poses a considerable barrier. I believe that they need to have people that can understand the mindset of digital natives. They have to be agile; they have to follow the same logic, the nations have to follow that. I believe that it could lead to success. But at the end of the day, maybe what matters most is we’re talking data here. I’m just going to repeat what I have said; it comes with demand. So, it would help if you had individual awareness, and that awareness has to reach the top; only then will success come. Secondly, this advancement is civilizational. We should not ignore this. Sometimes we think of technology as dystopian, and we see it on the dystopian side. But obviously, there is a fact; bad news spreads six times faster than good news. Of course, we have algorithms and algorithms safe security with AI. What algorithms do, these are fundamental questions. So, for example, when you buy a drug, you see the contents and the specific potential effects it might have on your body. When you think of algorithms in the way they’re used and areas of their use, all of that should be clarified. People are afraid because they see a vagueness, see ambiguity in front of them, and don’t know how data is used. Sümeyye Ceylan My last question is quite similar. So, we see data polls being more prominent and more significant every day. So, we have more powerful companies like Facebook, and what are the ways to solve problems between companies like Facebook and nation-states themselves? 316 STRATCOM PANEL - 9 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Dr. Tayfun Çataltepe Just like I’ve said, this is a global issue. So, we have World Trade Organization, as you know, it’s an international body. How did it come about? It created rules which apply to all states. So, they developed a module where a breach of rules will result in an economic consequence. And these companies that were talking, like YouTube or other companies, have globalized faster than these large international organizations. I don’t want the regulations to be something to prevent innovation. But they should shape the use of technology. So, globally, the countries, not just the countries that produce these technologies, but the countries that consume the technologies, should have a say. And this started with tax-related international decisions if you’ve noticed, but that’s an easy side or an easy aspect of this. But there are more important aspects, like data security, avoiding breaching or misuse of data. These are the more critical issues that need to be agreed upon internationally. As Mr. Aslan mentioned, those topics are important as well. Technology is developing something, but we don’t know how they are doing what; we only suffer the consequences. And the answer to this is not to prevent the technology. As an engineer, I can tell you that if something is possible, it will be made; you cannot control that. But in terms of how it will be used, we must work on creating platforms to agree on their use and how they will be used. Sümeyye Ceylan Thank you very much. And Mr. Aslan. Aslan Doğan On the philosophical side of things, in terms of questioning, ethics are the most discussed parts, especially with AI. One of the things I’m glad about is that Europe is at the center of this transformation. But we quickly started to talk about the ethics of AI. This has been a process where all of us have learned. During this process, there will be some road accidents on the road; there will be some threads. But this shouldn’t be based on fears. We should be focusing on avoiding these roadblocks and accidents but focus on how to, how do we clarify the use of technology to make our lives easier. Now, I’d like to segue into the importance of data. We need to go back. We are now talking about the introduction of 5G. And if you look at the trade wars between 317 S T R A T C O M P A N E L US and China, the 5G is one of the important topics here. And why? Because with smartphones, the world has changed from social media, data that’s been produced, to the issues regarding data security. There’s also huge potential; companies that use data are disrupting the economic model in the world. They are putting a gap that’s too large to cover. Research says that when countries adopt 5G at an early stage,the contribution of 5G to the country economy will be 12% to the country’s economy. So, all the production processes will become bright. Now, we’re talking about smartphone security. But, still, when you consider a whole city, a smart city or smart manufacturing factories, smart agriculture, just imagine all of these becoming smart and digital. So, when I go to the manufacturing factory, I usually look at the inspection physically. But before going that, I have the opportunity to check the data and see the data. And because everything is connected, data flows, and the systems keeping the data becomes more critical. So, as Mr. Tayfun mentioned, the economy will be shaped based on this infrastructure. If you look at the trade wars between US and China, the 5G is one of the critical topics. 318 STRATCOM PANEL - 9 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 I may say that data, yes, we like to talk about the risks, but there’s a massive potential as entrepreneurs. Like our country, we should focus on creating initiatives that can become a global player; how can we become a global leader? Otherwise, we will only discuss what Facebook is doing, whether that’s harmful to us or not? Should we be more fearful? We watched the presentation on YouTube previously. So, we don’t want to just stay on the sideline. But both Tayfun and I have an engineering background. So, we should talk more about how we can do this, how we can achieve this. And putting data at the center of our strategy, I don’t see any obstacle as to why we shouldn’t achieve it. Sümeyye Ceylan Thank you very much. This has been your closing talk. Mr. Tayfun, please share your final remarks with us. 319 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Dr. Tayfun Çataltepe Having the availability of collecting so much data and availability of these to all educated people enables excellent opportunity, we must never forget that. Maybe building an engine of an aircraft requires technology that takes longer, but in these types of technologies that we’re talking about, developing and becoming independent is easier. We can do this through the right policies; we shouldn’t be afraid of the technologies. We need to establish guidelines on the technologies already being done in Türkiye and other countries. We shouldn’t be scared of artificial intelligence and machine learning. AI technologies, perhaps, are only at the hands of the experts today, so we might see it as a threat because we are not able to reach it, but soon, they will become available for everyone to use. Within an economy based on data, the ones that will be able to process this data using the latest technology will be at the forefront. We must be ready for this as well. We must plan on how to shape the decision mechanisms. I’d like to end with the motto, with the slogan that I like so much: “Our future depends on building an economy based on data.” Sümeyye Ceylan Thank you, Mr. Tayfun and Mr. Aslan. Thank you very much. And we conclude our panel titled “Data is the message.” Thank you. We need to develop policies on the technologies that are already being done in Türkiye and other countries. For example, we shouldn’t be afraid of artificial intelligence and machine learning. 320 STRATCOM PANEL - 9 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 321 S T R A T C O M P A N E L DAY TWO 12 December 2021 322 STRATCOM PANEL - 9 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 323 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 10 How Algorithms Shape Human Life? 324 STRATCOM PANEL - 10 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 How Algorithms Shape Human Life? 12 December 2021 • Ömer Kablan Presenter and Executive Producer at TRT (Moderator) - Türkiye • Assoc. Prof. David Carroll Associate Professor at Parsons - USA T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 325 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 10 It’s a critical topic for all of us because algorithms are everywhere. They’re always at work. Ömer Kablan Now, welcome once more to the International Strategic Communications Summit. This Sunday morning’s discussion is entitled “How Algorithms Shape Human Life?”. It’s a crucial topic for all of us because algorithms are everywhere. They’re always at work. And you may not be aware of this, but they’re shaping the world we live in and even our decisions. So, to talk more about how these invisible pieces of code influence us, we have a great guest, David Carroll, an Associate Professor of Media Design at Parsons School of Design at the new school. He is starring in The Great Hack on Netflix and is known for legally challenging Cambridge Analytica. So, thanks for joining us, David. So, to kick it off, let’s start with what are algorithms? 326 STRATCOM PANEL - 10 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Algorithms cannot be an exit from governance. But they will be if we do nothing. Assoc. Prof. David Carroll Glad to be here, remotely, and to talk about this vital topic: Algorithms. What are they? The simplest way to describe them is the sub-computer programs that turn data into functionality. The way that they work is they make decisions based on inputs and produce outputs. They can be simple or incredibly complex. They are increasingly driven by data models, so they are trained with machine learning so that these algorithms are increasingly automated and make decisions in ways that we increasingly do not understand. Ömer Kablan Now, David, I recently read a survey that asked 100 people what they think about algorithms, and about a quarter of them said they believe algorithms are evil. What do you have to say about this? Assoc. Prof. David Carroll Maybe people understand the effects of these machines on societies and the civic order. So, they are attributing some downstream impacts to them. But because they’re not well understood, it’s easy to misplace some of these sentiments. They are programs written by people and are driven by human decisions. So, while they are not intended to express morality or ethics, they do because humans make them. Ömer Kablan So, do you think there’s a way for us to reassure ourselves that algorithms won’t abuse us? Assoc. Prof. David Carroll There is no assurance that the case unless we develop a mechanism to assure a concept that we could call this algorithmic justice or algorithmic accountability. If these machines are increasingly going to determine the civic order, then what is the regime that holds algorithms accountable? When is an algorithm responsible for violence or destruction? Who is responsible? Is the company that owns the algorithm? Is the engineer who wrote the algorithm? These are essential questions because algorithms cannot be an exit from governance. But they will be if we do nothing. 327 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Ömer Kablan So, that’s a good point you raise. But, who is responsible if things do turn sour? Can anyone be held accountable? Assoc. Prof. David Carroll We need to figure out whether we can, as humans, understand algorithms as they increasingly take on the attributes and are like alien brains of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Do they have to be made more regulatable? That is, they have to explain their own decisions. They have to be more transparent and abide by disclosure regulations. So, ultimately, my Cambridge Analytica data quest was about disclosure and testing the data protection regulatory regime. Can it do what it says it can do and provide an answer to human rights? And unfortunately, I don’t feel that it succeeded. And so, we do not yet have a mechanism of just 328 STRATCOM PANEL - 10 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 simple transparency, simple disclosure, simple explanation. That is the first building block toward algorithmic accountability. If we can’t recover our data, we certainly can’t recover how algorithms interfere with our freewill expression. Ömer Kablan So, do you think the future is bleak when you talk about how this is violating our human rights? 329 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Assoc. Prof. David Carroll I went into the Cambridge Analytica fiasco with optimism that it would be a chance for the basis that undergirds the notion of human rights expressed through international governance. And it would be a place to find resolution and answers and truth. But unfortunately, the investigation was stymied and obstructed and never resulted in a conclusion. And the regulators never really succeeded in delivering a satisfactory result. And so, it leaves me personally feeling disappointed. Ultimately, it took journalists, whistleblowers, leakers, the free press to hold accountable those who are supposed to held responsible. So, we’re still relying on the last resort of free press and whistleblowing. And I feel like that’s the sign of a broken system. Ömer Kablan Now, David, everyone in this room, myself, and you, all use social media applications like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. And we don’t pay for these applications. And over the last few years, there’s this idea that if you’re not paying for those products, you are the product. So what do you have to say about this? Assoc. Prof. David Carroll This is the business model that was developed almost 20 years ago, the advent of Silicon Valley, and at the same time that the concept of the internet was developed. So, it took a long time to create a business model. But ultimately, our data is collected, monetized, and harvested to draw more attention. And so, really, it is an attention economy or at least tries to be. That is the relationship between our data and the information we consume. There’s a direct link between those two elements now. But indeed, the actual customers of the platforms are not us. The legions of advertisers increasingly rely on these platforms to acquire and maintain relationships with their customers. So, we’ve seen attempts by advertisers to boycott these platforms for misconduct. But these boycotts don’t work because there aren’t other alternatives in the market to reach customers. So, we could say we are the product. But we could also say that the actual customers don’t have much choice, either. 330 STRATCOM PANEL - 10 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Ömer Kablan Do you think we’re becoming more and more heavily reliant on these algorithms? Assoc. Prof. David Carroll There are so many market incentives to deploy them for efficiencies, cost savings, labor reduction, automation, or, as we said before, shifting liabilities to entities and actors that will ultimately escape and exit from liability. So, I’ll list too long to account for the incentives and motivations to deploy algorithms in various ways. 331 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Ömer Kablan Do you think such proliferation of algorithms is eroding our creativity, the idea that we can consider for ourselves? Assoc. Prof. David Carroll Indeed, I worry about curiosity, particularly that we have surrendered to algorithms, the recommendations for what to look at next. We have potentially the atrophy of our ability to continue to seek answers when they are constantly delivered to us with increasing ease. So, in terms of curiosity, I worry about that. And then what’s interesting is that machine learning is starting to create works, texts, images, and other things that we would typically think that contained in the domain of esthetics. And so, we are entering a new phase of the relationship between creativity and human augmentation. And there will be effects; some will be positive, some will be negative, it’s unclear. We’re in the early days of automated creativity. Ömer Kablan And just a follow-up on that. Of course, there’s also talk of an artificial intelligence arms race between superpowers. So, how does that fit into the power of algorithms? Assoc. Prof. David Carroll It relates to the overarching question of authoritarianism or human rights. That, if a political regime governs with adequate human rights as expressed through data rights and digital protections, then you could see individual liberty and human rights, and democracy thriving as an antidote to a system that would not provide for that because the algorithms become an engine of social control, as opposed to social freedoms. To express that more differently, the filmmakers of The Great Hack recently made two films. The first film was The Square, the story about the Egyptian Revolution, and expressing a feeling that social media would topple regimes and spread democracy. Then their follow-up film, The Great Hack, was reconsidering that. 332 STRATCOM PANEL - 10 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Ömer Kablan And, David, of course, we hear this term often “fake news.” We listen to it on the news itself; we listen to politicians using this. We listen to people using it in day- to-day conversation; it’s become quite widespread. Do you think the dissemination of fake news happened due to the way algorithms have been abused? Assoc. Prof. David Carroll I believe that the emergence of what we understand fake news to be in it is defined differently by whom you talk to. But algorithms and the incentives, which they perpetuate, undoubtedly contribute to this. That is the ability to customize micro-target content to people that only small segments of the population see and target those based on a response feedback loop to tailor messages to people that prove their receptivity to them. But there are also some sorts of financial incentives that you produce content that the algorithm optimizes for. And so false information and information that agitates our emotions perform better to our stimulus. And so, the algorithm rewards it through attention, but most importantly, money. And so, there are tremendous business models in producing, basically, information pollution at the minimum, that it is the most profitable way to make money on the internet is to create toxic garbage. And so, there are plenty of actors who are sort of non-political but have been able to exploit the system because it is highly lucrative to produce junk news on the internet. And companies like Facebook and Google allow monetization and targeting at scale. Some of the Facebook papers that Frances Haugen released show internal employees describing how the best way to use Facebook is to create a content click farm and be a troll. And Facebook algorithms advantage troll farms, and they know this internally. Ömer Kablan So, personally speaking, I think we all feel this, but to bring this back to layman’s terms, for example, sometimes on Twitter or my Instagram, I get an ad about something I’ve been thinking about. Maybe it’s a holiday ad. If I’m thinking about buying a new table for my house, I get a table ad popping up there. And it speaks me out a little bit. Because I don’t remember searching for it, I sometimes feel like it’s reading my thoughts. And it follows me around from social media application to social media application. Should those types of things scare us? 333 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Assoc. Prof. David Carroll This is wonderful. This is a part of the opening scenes of The Great Hack. So, thanks for the reference. The most beautiful, strange, bizarre conspiracy theory to me is the conspiracy theory that people think their microphone is listening to their conversations to target them for ads. But of course, that’s not happening, and there’s no need for that because the industry has collected enough data about us and is constantly doing so. It can target us for ads, and it seems like it is reading our minds. But it’s just the targeting being effective. It’s just the mass amounts of data being recombined, reattached to our identity, used in effective targeting schemes. But most importantly, it’s showing us the affinity engine is working. There are other people who are like us, who are thinking like us, and who exhibit the same patterns as us. And we don’t like to admit that there are people just like us. We want to think that we’re unique individuals, and no one else can have our ideas. But when you’re a consumer, you’re just a segmentation. And unfortunately, lots of consumers behave the same way. And it’s easy to predict our behaviors. Ömer Kablan David, can you briefly explain, you took Cambridge Analytica to court. What type of institution are they? And what were you asking for? Assoc. Prof. David Carroll They’re technically a defunct institution now that was able to use insolvency law in the UK and bankruptcy law in the United States to evade absolute accountability essentially because the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK had jurisdiction over the company, being a UK entity that collected data and processed it in the United Kingdom in connection with the presidential election of 2016. And in so doing, it became a jurisdiction in the UK. So, the UK authorities investigated the data profiles of US voters in the most significant digital forensics investigation by a data protection regulator in history. And they did determine that the company, SEL group, which was an outgrowth of the UK defense industry, later got into political campaigning and was intentionally trying to modify information operations, techniques, and strategies for commercial and political activities. And in so doing, they violated UK Data Protection Act by unlawfully creating political profiles of 334 STRATCOM PANEL - 10 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Americans without their knowledge or consent. But because they went out of business, nothing could be done. It could not be prosecuted in any meaningful way. Furthermore, the ICO could not cooperate with US authorities, namely the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Federal Election Commission that we know of, and they were not able to share anything they discovered on the server seized under a criminal warrant. So, those investigations were inconclusive. They were not able to conclude as to the matter of Cambridge Analytica. They did not have cooperation from witnesses or the UK Government. Ömer Kablan Okay. Now, speaking of Google and Facebook once more, do you think when the tech engineers are creating these algorithms, these patterns, are they aware precisely of the ramifications? Do they know exactly how those algorithms are going to react? Is that something precise? Assoc. Prof. David Carroll No, many algorithm designers do not precisely understand how they work and cannot explain the outputs. What’s interesting is that the human brain can think in three dimensions, maybe four, but no more than four. Computers can believe in any number of measurements required to solve a problem or develop a prediction or a model. And so, it defies our human ability to comprehend. And yet, they can arrive at the outputs that seem to make sense to us. They can draw pictures that we can recognize. They can make human faces that seem like they’re real. But they have arrived at these outputs in a manner that our brain cannot comprehend. And so, we need mechanisms and tools to translate it for our feeble brains. And so, this is an essential part of the transparency that we have a lot of work to do. Ömer Kablan Now, in my circle, and then the generation after me, people, everywhere you go on the street, when you go to a touristic location, when you go to a restaurant, we’re all taking photos of our food, of monuments of ourselves, selfies, we’re exposing ourselves to the world. We’re leaving a digital footprint; we want to be seen voluntarily. So in the future, do you think there’ll be a lash back of this? Do you think it’ll hit back at us? 335 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Assoc. Prof. David Carroll Well, I think the critical thing that I learned is to appreciate the fundamental difference between the approach of the European Union and the United States as to this question. The European Union believes fundamentally that this information still belongs to us, even though it’s out there. And then we still maintain rights to it. If it’s attached to our identity, it is an expression of our dignity. Therefore, we must exert control over it. Whereas in the United States, it’s a different philosophy. And it’s almost like, once you leave your home, all bets are off. It’s finders keepers, losers weepers. Once you put your data out there, you lose control of it. And I think that the European Union has a much more enlightened vision for this, that’s much more compatible with the 21st century and beyond. The United States’ philosophy of it is wholly outdated and dangerously so and is slowly being updated. We see a couple of states in the US passing laws. It’s starting to move in the other direction, namely California and Virginia, but maybe others. So, this is the main difference. European model, I think, would allow a more responsible way to share and put information out there, knowing that we still maintain its rights, even as it circulates. We can exert those rights as necessary. Some regimes allow us to do so and support us in so. So, that’s the balance between individual rights, liberty and dignity, the machine, the government, and the corporation. Ömer Kablan David, can you explain big data and its relationship with algorithms? Assoc. Prof. David Carroll Big data are the data sets that algorithms use to create their models. So, to use the Cambridge Analytica story as a basis, the data sets included the voter registrations of every US voter, the data broker offerings available in the commercial market, from political and commercial to data brokers attached to the voter profile. And in their case, they also collected Facebook accounts of a subset of those, created a model, and then applied that to everyone else. And then that model allowed a prediction to be created of every US voter. So, every US voter had a sort of a dossier connected to them, including a personality profile of every single voter created from the model. So, the data set is the big data. It trains the model to make predictions, and then the model outputs predictions with various confidence levels associated with each prognosis. The quality of the confidence is based on the quality of the data and the algorithm’s quality. And indeed, we should even The data set is the big data. So, first, it trains the model to make predictions, and then the model outputs predictions with various levels of confidence associated with each prognosis. 336 STRATCOM PANEL - 10 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 have disclosure of those confidence values. That would be one of the things that I fought for, under the law and the law said I was entitled to. It just couldn’t get it disclosed. Ömer Kablan David, something I’m also curious about, again, something personal, just trying to keep it more relatable to all of us, perhaps even if we’re not interested so much in technology. For example, when I get to the supermarket or when I go to buy a pair of jeans, we’re faced with the paradox of choice. There are so many options; maybe there are 15 pairs of jeans, 15 styles. I go to a supermarket, there are ten types of soup and ten types of pasta, and we’re confused. And we eventually choose one. Do you think that choice I’m making is my reaction to everything I’ve been exposed to, including our algorithms? Assoc. Prof. David Carroll Indeed, consumer choices are one of the primary behaviors that the entire system is trying to influence. It’s not necessarily a rational choice, either, that we make. We set up these loyalties based on many irrational qualities. And then, of course, many times in the store, we’re choosing amongst brands that all one company owns. So, the choice is an illusion for many different levels. Ömer Kablan Now, this is a Strategic Communication Summit, David. So, when we talk about communication strategies, how do algorithms play a role? How important are they? Assoc. Prof. David Carroll Algorithms are being used in many different sectors for many other purposes and are open source and off the shelf. Anyone can use them and will increasingly be like just a screwdriver or a hammer, just an essential tool that is available, usable, general-purpose, and specialized. But the thing about algorithms is then they create behavioral incentives. People are not necessarily conscious of the incentives that algorithms impose upon us. Anyone who has used social media, with any degree of self-consciousness, can feel the emotional effects of the algorithms on you. You’ve ever had a tweet go viral; it bombards you with a Consumer choices are one of the primary behaviors that the entire system is trying to influence. But, of course, it’s not necessarily a rational choice that we make. 337 S T R A T C O M P A N E L stimulus that can become addictive. And many people, I do believe, become sort of addicted to the feelings that the algorithms are imposing on them. And then, their behavior, consciously and subconsciously, adjusts to achieve the desired goals that the algorithm is optimizing for. And so, there’s a reason when you go on YouTube, and all of the YouTube thumbnail frames all look the same. They’re all at being optimized for the YouTube algorithm. And people are imitating each other, realizing that how you play the algorithm. So, when the Creator Economy starts to examine itself, it’s increasingly working for the algorithm. And we’re seeing scary stories of young creators experiencing burnout because they can’t keep up with the demands of the machine. The machine is putting unrealistic expectations on people. And it’s a wholly computerized labor market. So, it’s survival of the fittest to the extreme. Ömer Kablan David, I have one last question for you. But before I get to that, I just want to look at the audience. So if there are any questions in the audience for David, I can take them up. We have one over here. The Audience Mr. David. I wonder your talks on algorithmic literacy. Thank you Assoc. Prof. David Carroll Thank you. I think the first step towards literacy is transparency. So, the right of access. Can you request your data? The outputs, have they been explained adequately as legally mandated? Probably not. Can that be challenged and then an adequate answer delivered? If we get to that point, we could get to algorithmic literacy. We would have the tools to create such a thing. But I don’t know if we have even the tools to develop algorithmic literacy if we cannot get our data and get the explanations for the algorithmic processing associated with it. We have that; then maybe we can start to develop algorithmic literacy. 338 STRATCOM PANEL - 10 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Algorithms are necessary to the advancement of digital technology. Ömer Kablan If we don’t have any other questions from the audience, I’ll ask my final question, David. David, so just to conclude, concluding remarks now, at the end of the day, when we talk about algorithms, do you think they solve more problems for us than the problems they create? Assoc. Prof. David Carroll Algorithms are necessary to the advancement of digital technology. The amount of data produced is so vast that there’s an absolute need to create mechanisms to sift, organize, and sort through it. So, algorithms are necessary. They need to be developed with human rights and civic order in mind. Ömer Kablan David Carroll, thank you very much for joining me in this discussion. 339 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 11 Strategic Insights And Data Analytics 340 STRATCOM PANEL - 11 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Strategic Insights And Data Analytics 12 December 2021 • Assoc. Prof. Yener Girişken Founder and CEO of ThinkNeuro (Moderator) - Türkiye • Didem Şekerel Erdoğan Türkiye General Manager & Middle East Africa Analytics Leader at NielsenIQ - Türkiye • Sider Gedik CEO of Ipsos in Türkiye - Türkiye • Hande Beceren CEO of Kantar Insights Division - Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 341 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 11 Trying to harmonize both before setting strategies, big data, and thick data. They are two concepts that are very crucial for us. They need to be integrated before we develop strategies. Assoc. Prof. Yener Girişken Well, the topic of this panel is strategic communication. So, we’ll talk about the role of research. We have doyens from the field of study here in the room. They are pioneers in their field, the companies. They have the most significant share in the market research work, and they’ll talk about the importance of research, how it is conducted, and how it contributes to strategies. First, I want to make an introduction. Before that, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Associate Professor Assoc. Prof. Yener Girişken; I am head of the TUAD; I also am the founder and CEO of ThinkNeuro. So, 50-60 years ago, think of MRI equipment was not discovered yet. Brains and you have a relative to go for brain surgery. And the doctor says, “We’ll do the 342 STRATCOM PANEL - 11 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 brain surgery, but we don’t know where the problem in the brain is exactly. So, we’ll open the brain and have a look. And then if there is a tumor, or unless, if there’s no tumor mass, we’ll close it. Then, we’ll open someplace else and have a look again. And if that’s not the issue, we’ll open somewhere else in your brain.” And you will be concerned and anxious about your acquaintance, especially once you know the technological advancement in the 21st century. So, this isn’t very comforting regarding political, public, and commercial spheres. When you’re going to develop strategies in those spheres, it’s like doing an MRI. Carrying out research, making research to feel, to understand the sentiment, feelings of stakeholders that will be part of this research and what kind of background they’re coming from. And without knowing this, carrying out this operation, doing brain surgery without MRI, it’s similar to that, I mean, making surgery without an MRI. So, this is the metaphor that I would like to use. Could you keep that in our minds? Then we’ll talk about public research, public opinion or opinion polls, and the difference between those and brain surgery and MRI. As the previous speaker before us said, there are things people can do very well, well, and things that they can’t do well. The human brain is mighty in terms of survival that it’s pretty intense. We are the best example of survival. We have overpopulation, so we are proficient in survival. And so, the human brain is programmed to survive, but in terms of rational decision-making, it is facing several issues. They have trouble choosing between two water brands, car brands, and two jeans. So, we have a brain that can’t make rational decisions, although evolution-wise, you’re influential in surviving. So, the human brain is affected, influenced by perceptions a lot. We, market research investigators, set a specific framework, and we can filter some perceptions and infiltrate those perceptions. When we develop strategies, research is necessary, market research is essential. I will talk about the importance of market research, and all of the panelists will talk about their perspective, why it is necessary, and the goal. And then this is how we’ll go on our discussion. Didem, I’d like to leave the floor to you. Didem Şekerel Erdoğan I am Didem Şekerel Erdoğan. NielsenIQ Türkiye general manager and Middle East Africa analytics leader. I’m thrilled to be here with you today. Yesterday, I followed the speeches, and they were very inspiring. Well, the fact that the Stratcom summit takes place in Türkiye under the auspices of the Directorate of Communications So, the human brain is affected, influenced by perceptions a lot. We, market research investigators, set a specific framework, and we can filter some perceptions and infiltrate those perceptions. 343 S T R A T C O M P A N E L makes us proud. We have been listening to inspiringly good speeches today. We are going through a severe transformation phase. And there is an exponential change; it’s an exponential change and transformation. Consumer behaviors and thinking, and sentiment are changing. They go for some brands change, their shopping experience changes. When it comes to engagement with brands, the expectations are changing. And yesterday, it was also mentioned that it was a catalyst with the pandemic. People who didn’t shop online started shopping online during the pandemic. As Nielsen IQ, we are carrying on global research also before the pandemic and after the pandemic. And we have seen that the Turkish people, based on international research, that they’re, they have a high propensity 344 STRATCOM PANEL - 11 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 toward digitalization and using of technology. They can; they’re quick adopters to technology as people. And so, they tend to use technology. They’re similar to Asia, the Chinese, and Koreans. But quality-wise, when it comes to approach to quality, they are like Europeans. They go for a higher level of quality when consuming. So, as Turkish people, we are unique in that regard. So, we are early adopters of such technology, but we are looking for quality simultaneously. So, we are not facing the old consumers, shoppers, audiences, and viewers. While we keep the consumer’s shopping policy, we have to understand what they want profoundly. New concepts entered our lives, multimedia, multichannel. We have multiple choices. And so, as part of this transformation and change, we’ve seen through quantitative and qualitative studies that consumers, shoppers, have different expectations. And we also have to base our strategic communication on While we keep the consumer’s shopping policy, we have to profoundly understand what they want. As a result, new concepts entered our lives, multimedia multichannel. 345 S T R A T C O M P A N E L this new insight. And so, in our research, we’re working with big data. So, we are doing big data analytics to understand what happened or how, when and what, where. We have thick data, which are analyzed more profoundly to understand the expectation of consumers for qualitative research—and trying to harmonize both before setting strategies, big data, and thick data. They are two concepts that are very important for us. They need to be integrated before we develop plans. What did we use to do? Five years ago, maybe we talked about retrospective insights. But now we think about insights, we imagine predictions, outlook, and onward looking, so, research. So, again, what we do is, in a profound manner, understanding consumers and shoppers and making stories, telling stories out of figures, and shedding light on the future. The result of research serves to shed light on the future, direct the future, steer the future, and foresight. It’s to earn, well, and does the same, hence the importance of research in Stratcom 21. Assoc. Prof. Yener Girişken Well, thank you very much for your invaluable insights. I want to leave the floor to Hande Beceren, now. Hande Beceren My name is Hande Beceren, and I’m CEO of Kantar Insights Division. I’ll talk about the importance of research. Kantar is carrying out a study every ten years about the future of research, and it presents four sides and how it should evolve. So, consumer insights, it’s called consumer insights 2013. We talked to 1700 C-level managers, leaders, and CEOs. This is to get profound insights. And we have research data on why we should carry out research. Research is essential in decision-making and strategic decision-making. That’s what we’ve seen and where we can do this analysis. We talked to people and interviewed people, and we separated the interview into successful, more successful, and less successful ones. More successful companies, let’s say 82% of those when they decide, put research at the center of their decision-making process, and those who are less successful, 47%. So, there’s a 40 base points difference. Research is essential, we tell, but if you put research in your own company and become the centerpiece of decision-making, that’s very important. What about the future? The global economic uncertainty indexes tell us that uncertainty is the new normal of our lives and business models. The past business models could not predict delays, and we have to have more data on consumers 346 STRATCOM PANEL - 11 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 to understand them better. So that we can reshape or review our models. So, let’s talk about past and present, and future. We should put the consumer at the center, not only the consumer but the person, the people, to understand “why?” when we are conducting research. Data analytics will always be part of this work, but we have to understand the change in the future. This will be more investigated. One of the expectations is, as we talk to managers and leaders and ask them what to expect from the research department and in terms of insight, “creativity,” they say. It’s not only artistic creativity but getting data and triggering strategy based on the data, giving us the green light when it comes to certain things that we need to do based on this data. So, converging data or combining data by bringing different groups together to make sense of data is more critical. When you wake up, you’re not going to buy a mortgage here; you’re buying Of course, we should put the consumer at the center, not only the consumer but the person, the people, to understand “why?” when we are conducting research. 347 S T R A T C O M P A N E L a house. You think of buying a house, not a mortgage. And you want to open a hole, you will not think about the driller, but drilling a hole. So, we have to understand why people are doing things. Especially after the pandemic, in terms of understanding the consumer, we should go beyond what we have been doing so far. Creativity means bringing different units together in this new restructuring of companies. We should put research at the center, bring different units groups together, and get more creativity out of this process. And I’d like to give the floor back to Yener. Assoc. Prof. Yener Girişken Yes, Hande, I took notes of your statements. And understanding people becomes more critical for brands, political bodies, states, and governments. So, although investing in technology and having openings for technology is indispensable, it is essential. But you also have to understand people at the same time. So it is as critical as technical investing in technology as we advance. And TUAD, this is the theme. The Turkish Researchers’ Association’s theme is people and the future and the people. So I want to underline them with that, and now I’ll leave the floor to Ipsos. Sidar Gedik Well, when we say, how does research feed? Let’s think of this question first. Why do we set strategies? To find a solution to an existing problem or improve the current situation. Even if there’s no problem, just improve the present situation and the status quo. So, that’s why we have to profoundly investigate the topic from all its angles and to identify the needs accurately and come up with an action plan at the end. And once we start implementing the program, we should monitor the implementation. If necessary, we need to update the plan. So, this is part of setting the strategy and implementing strategy roughly. This is what we need to do in this process. But for the research to support the system, there is a prerequisite that was mentioned by Hande before. As the international companies that chose strategy makers, they should believe in being data-driven when they decide they should be data-driven. If strategy makers decide they don’t believe in being data-driven or strategizing, driven by data, research will not contribute to this process. There is an anecdote, a story that came to mind. A customer who we are friends with and I talked to him, “I don’t believe in research, and when I make decisions, I’m not using any research.” he said. 348 STRATCOM PANEL - 11 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 “What do you lean on while deciding then?” “I lean on my desk,” he said. “Then I would advise you to go and to build a better desk, go for it with a skilled carpenter.” And that set aside this job, but first, this belief in decision-making based on driven by data is a prerequisite. There are success stories; we know that. I am not complaining. I don’t want to be the one complaining and telling that’s not the case. But I know that successful managers and strategy specialists are successful because they’re data-driven in their decision-making. We know their success stories. Let me tell you about a success story. For the last two years, we have been battling with COVID-19 globally. It’s a collective war against the pandemic; not only do we wage it here in Türkiye but also many countries are setting strategies based on this. And they’re fighting against the pandemic within the scope of a data-driven strategy. England is very successful. The Ministry of Health in the UK, Imperial College of London, and Ipsos launched a REACT program. React in English means to react. But it’s a real-time assessment of community transmission; it’s an acronym, a research project. And it has been going on for 16 periods now. And the primary goal, ultimate goal-- it is a good example. That’s why I’m detailing, but. It’s people-- I am talking about a covid screening test with people-- it’s not only the sick, it is also about people who are in contact with the sick person and feel sick-- hundreds and thousands of people volunteers gave samples, as well. It’s a giant COVID screening test, in a way. And how many persons were infected in each period? What was the infection rate in that period? And what’s the infection rate based on age groups? And the vaccination status and non-vaxxed, single-dose, two doses, three doses, and how well does it affect it affects the spread of infection? And which is the most accurate test from all tests and the antibody levels of-- related to vaccines? What is that? When taking COVID measures and deciding on them, they were driven by all these data sets. So, I’ll go back to the start. How does research serve strategy, as was evident in the example? When you place at the center of decision making, data, and you believe in data. Assoc. Prof. Yener Girişken Thank you very much, Sidar. I’ll leave the floor to Didem now. Didem Şekerel Erdoğan Thank you very much. Now, we talked about making decisions based on research. That’s very nice. And when you look at it, of course, when we speak about researchers, 349 S T R A T C O M P A N E L we say everything is changing and transforming. It’s not just technology and digitalization, but undoubtedly, there are sociological and demographic changes taking place. I’m aware of researching Generation Y years ago. And then there were Millennials; we talked about their great choices, and then we started talking about Gen Z. Now we are talking about the Alpha Generation. So, we need to remember that new generations have different expectations, what they eat, what they drink, what they like, what they buy, their dreams, their hopes. We need to understand them more to move towards success on our journey. And they call it youthquake in the Oxford English Dictionary. So, the shake that the new generation has created is called youthquake. And that’s why it is essential to conduct intense research to understand the new generations and develop strategies accordingly. Because they use multi-channels multi-screens, they have multiple preferences. They can access everything very quickly. They are very conscious as consumers. Of course, their attention span was also mentioned in the previous presentation. So, it is 350 STRATCOM PANEL - 11 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 essential to create content and insights that make a difference for this group. Now, of course, together with technology and digitalization as NielsenIQ, we also have a lot of tests in place. We also have a Smartstore concept, where we try to analyze the shopping journey of the new generations. We try to understand their expectations during shopping. We are conducting these researches domestically and at the global level. We need to emphasize one thing here, as NielsenIQ and the international research as we conduct, what we observe is consumers, shoppers, or humans, as Hande said, are seeking value, they are seeking content, they are seeking benefits. So, the consumers and shoppers need to be captured in that minimal amount of time. We need to deliver them the messages. There are 351 S T R A T C O M P A N E L different platforms. There are different tones of messages that can be delivered. These are very important. Basically, it is essential to serve a specific purpose at all times. So, consumers shoppers are saying, especially in the recent times with the pandemic according to our global research as NielsenIQ; we see sustainability is becoming a fundamental concept. Environmental sensitivity is becoming very important. Especially for the youth, ecological agriculture and local and national production are essential concepts. And again, in global and domestic studies, we see that owning such concepts is becoming very important. And what did we say at the beginning? Well, before we would talk about past sights or past and sights now, we focus on insights. Our qualitative activities observations, we try to deepen data with insights. And we try to understand what the needs of today are. And, the need, the expectation from today’s studies, or research is foresight. While making strategic decisions and decisions about brand protection, foresight is becoming much more valuable. Assoc. Prof. Yener Girişken So, in terms of shedding light upon the future, I’d like to emphasize something. Maybe 20-25 years ago, consumer decisions, political decisions, public choices were easier to take because there were not many preferences. I mean, you’re going to buy a washing machine, let’s say there were two-three brands, you’re going to buy a car, there were two-three brands, maybe four brands that you could select from, according to our budget. But now, there are tens of washing machine brands, hundreds of vehicle brands. And before, 20-25 years ago, all these brands reached us through one, two, or maybe three different mediums. So, it was TV, newspaper, and perhaps the radio a little bit. But the 21st-century human beings, today’s humans, are being bombarded by the messages coming from brands. There’s an increase in the number of brands. The messages of brands are coming into our bedrooms through our mobile phones. That’s why as a consumer, to make a decision today, or to make a decision as a voter, or to make a decision as a human is much harder compared to the previous century. That’s why strategy makers, those taking steps in the marketing area, or maybe there will be people establishing their enterprise in the future among us, in our audience. So, the fundamental message I’d like to deliver to everyone who’s listening to us is that in understanding humans, you need to understand their emotions and basic needs. And then you need to create value based on that. But this value needs to provide functional benefits and symbolic or emotional benefits. So, you need to focus on those as you’re creating the value. And, of course, understanding emotions and Environmental sensitivity is becoming very important. Especially for the youth, ecological agriculture and local and national production are essential concepts. 352 STRATCOM PANEL - 11 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 combining that with functionality is critical. And research needs to be focused on this area. So, I would like to wrap up and end our session. And I would like to leave the floor to Sidar for his final words. Sidar Gedik Thank you, Yener. Now, I am a member of the Turkish Researchers’ Association. We are also representing global research companies operating in Türkiye, as well. And we are here as their representatives, as their executives. In our companies, probably all of our employees are Turkish citizens, I mean, those who work in our Türkiye offices. So, despite these companies being global companies, all of our employees who work in our local operations here are Turkish citizens. Now, why am I saying this? Our colleagues, working in our offices here, are not falling behind. Our colleagues working in our global offices may even be more qualified. This includes the countries that are referred to as developed countries. So, what is the sector’s situation in our country? In Türkiye, the research investment per person is 1. 1 dollar per year. And in Greece, this is 2. 1 dollar. Sorry, in Russia, it’s 2. 1. And in Greece, it’s 5. 2 dollars. So, when we look at the countries that are referred to as more developed, England is $136 per person per year, and in the States, it is above $145 per person per year. Our country is a member of the G20. So, we are one of the top 20 economies in the world. But the research industry in Türkiye ranks 35th across the globe. Unfortunately, I must say. Several years ago, we were ranked 33rd. So, we did go down in the ranking a little bit. So, as researchers and as our association, and for all parts of the ecosystem in the research industry, we have a responsibility. First of all, we need to see research as an investment. And since the beginning of my speech today, I have been trying to say research investment rather than research expense. But unfortunately, in our country, research has still been deemed an expense. And I would like to invite all strategy makers to consider research activities as an investment and calculate the ROI on this research investment. Because both in terms of creating gains and preventing potential losses, research investment will have a very significant return on investment. This is what we promise you. This is what I’d like to say as I end my words. Assoc. Prof. Yener Girişken Thank you very much, Sidar. I’ll pass it on to Didem. In Türkiye, the research investment per person is 1.1 dollars per year; in Russia, it’s 2.1. in Greece, it’s 5.2 dollars, England is $136 per person per year, and in the United States, it is above $145 per person per year. 353 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Didem Şekerel Erdoğan Thank you very much. I would like to focus on the future a little bit in my closing remarks. It is the era of making humans more connected with brands and technology. So, it is essential to become integrated with technology to put forward your brand promises. And we said foresight is significant, not just insight, but also foresight. So, it is expected from research to provide foresight about the future. And I believe this summit is a precious one, the International Strategic Communication Summit being organized in our country, in Türkiye, in our strong country. It’s essential. It is the first time it is being done in our country by our Directorate of Communications. And I think this is an excellent source of pride. And we have heard very valuable speeches since yesterday. And I would like to take this opportunity to thank our Directorate of Communications and the Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye, as well. Assoc. Prof. Yener Girişken Thank you. And I would like to thank our participants for being here this morning and listening to us this morning. No, I would pass it on to you before I ended my words, of course. The floor is Hande’s. Hande Beceren I want to thank everyone, both the organizers and the participants. I mean, we are all emphasizing the same thing repeatedly. But what I would like to say in my humble opinion as well, as someone who enjoys utilizing data and enjoys making decisions based on insights, I must say that there are so many things that we think we know which are false. And when we show the data, we face this all the time. We ask the marketers, for example, we ask them if they show men and women within the social stereotypes in their commercials. They say, “No, no, we have a contemporary demonstration of men and women.” But when we ask the consumers, they say, “No, we don’t think the men and women in commercials are in their contemporary forms.” So, there are so many things that we believe we know, but that is false. And finally, what I’d like to add is, in 2030, I mean, when we look at the next decade, research, data analysis, how should it evolve? All major companies need to give space by the table to their researchers, their insight professionals. They need to be by that table while decisions are being made. I think that’s important for the future of strategic planning. 354 STRATCOM PANEL - 11 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Assoc. Prof. Yener Girişken We talked about understanding people. To understand people, first, we need to understand ourselves and enable self-understanding; we need to be able to stay in a moment for a while. So, basically, to stop and reflect for a time. Everyone must understand themselves and one another. Thank you for attending. 355 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 12 Mastering Strategic Communication: Research Agenda Revisited 356 STRATCOM PANEL - 12 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Mastering Strategic Communication: Research Agenda Revisited 12 December 2021 • Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat SETA Washington DC Research Director (Moderator) - Türkiye • Dr. Derina Holtzhausen Dean of College of Fine Arts and Communication, Lamar University - USA • Dr. Ana Tkalac Verčič Full Professor at University of Zagreb - Croiatia • Dr. Dejan Verčič Founding Partner of Herman & partnerji - Slovenia T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 357 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 12 People think of research in terms of the research methods. Research is about challenging or confirming our assumptions, whatever that might be. Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat This is the part on mastering strategic communication and thinking about research. We have three distinguished guests, both academics and practitioners, simultaneously. So, we will discuss how to research what the challenges are in conducting research in strategic communication. So, we will start with Derina. Derina will talk about challenges in strategic communication research. Dr. Derina Holtzhausen People think of research in terms of the research methods. But this is not at all what I’m going to talk about. I will talk about what is happening in the field that challenges what we do and how we think about practice and not the research methods. Because that is what research is about. It is about challenging our 358 STRATCOM PANEL - 12 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 assumptions or confirming our beliefs, whatever that might be. So, to identify these issues, I’d like to return to the three levels of strategic communication as a diagnostic tool. And those levels are the macro level, which is the societal level, the mezzo or organizational level, and then the micro level or the level where communication occurs. So, I’ll briefly use those three categories for my analysis. But I think it’s essential before we go there to generally understand that old notions of strategy, as set in stone, need to go out the window. Strategy is no longer something that we can predict will be successful or have control over the outcomes. And I’ll explain that a little bit later. So, first of all, it’s essential to understand that communication outcomes are unpredictable. I like to think of communication at this moment as a tornado. It sucks up the messages. And in that tornado, there are components where different groups form; some people communicate out, some communicate in, and others don’t. So, it is not a linear process at all. I think anybody who still teaches communication as a transmission model should not be teaching. So, I believe that it is essential to understand; that it is chaotic. The other thing is that we need to approach it as an outside-in approach, not as inside-out, where the organization or the entity knows best. You can only be successful if you understand your stakeholders and if your stakeholders react and interact with you. So, the idea that organizations control their strategy to exclude their stakeholders is simply a fallacy. Stakeholders allow us to exist and will enable us to be successful. The other thing that we need to understand is that strategy, frequently, and we ignore that, emerges from practice. Let me give you a simple example. A few years ago, in my current position, I created a position for a budget manager about five years ago. So, eventually, the other colleges adopted it. And so, we established the practice. And then, an administrator came in and said, “No, we need to- we,” I was not even part of the colleges, “need to define what that role should be.” And that’s okay. But the fact is that we established through our practice what that is, allowing him to critique it, and so forth. So, this is an example of, instead of that position being predetermined beforehand, we created it through practice. So, the strategy emerged through the course and not from the top-down. So, that’s a simple example. But I think that is very important to remember because we often forget that the people are frontline people who work daily with people established practice. Strategy is no longer something that we can predict will be successful or have control over the outcomes. 359 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Strategic communication can and should change on a dime. That is very important. We cannot resist changing our practice because it’s written up somewhere in the strategy. We need to change. And then, I think another important aspect that we all need to remember is that political systems affect the ability to practice strategic communication. For instance, we did several studies a few years ago in 48 countries. And we determined that in Europe, it’s a much more consensus- based model where the entity and the stakeholders create consensus. And that changes the way that they practice strategic communication. In South Africa and Africa, the stakeholders determine what the organization should do because of the political system, particularly in Southern Africa. And in the United States, the preference is put on the capitalist system. So, the organization and the business give preference over workers. So, there’s a difference in how you would practice strategic communication in each of those instances. I have some other ideas, but maybe we should move on. I think that’s about it. 360 STRATCOM PANEL - 12 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat When we study strategy in political science, it is a bit different. One of the critical things in political science is that operations and tactics shouldn’t determine the strategy. The strategy needs to be top-down. So, do you think in communication and in some other spheres, the way that they approach strategy is different or contradictory? Dr. Derina Holtzhausen You need to direct your strategy at the people and how the people on the frontline experience it. So, for instance, in political communication, your campaign workers have experiences that could not be imagined by the people who determine the strategy and might have critical feedback. So, if you do not consider that, you continue on a strategic path that hasn’t considered what your frontline campaign workers experience and do. So, there needs to be that constant give and take between the people who execute and those who strategize. 361 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat That’s important, because when we are talking about, for example, US-Syria strategy. We usually say that because of a lack of strategy, the people on the ground runs the operation. And operational success determines the strategy. And according to many military experts, that is something that it shouldn’t. Right? So, maybe there should be a middle ground between top-down and bottom-up strategy and practice. There should be something in the middle that the people on the ground will inform the leaders maybe. And leaders will kind of find a way to shape the strategy. Dr. Derina Holtzhausen To adapt. Absolutely. Yes, it’s a dialogue. And that’s why I think it’s essential to understand that it’s not set in stone. Dr. Dejan Verčič Let me follow you from where you left. I’m using the word strategizing because I’m very much focused on these dynamics between different levels at which we can materialize strategy. First of all, we must understand that strategic communication lives in at least three different realms when we are talking about strategic communication. We have strategic political communication, where the critical term is soft power. And also, security and strategic military communication come into this realm. Then we have strategic business communication, another realm where immaterial assets, intangibles, are the key terms. And then, we have strategic social communication, which we can also observe on the level of non- governmental organizations, civic organizations, even citizens, if you like, and where the key term is influence. And in the modern society, which I would say we have throughout the majority of the 20th century, those three realms were entirely differentiated between themselves. So, it was pretty easy to say in which social subsystem you are, what social subsystem you are analyzing, when we are talking about research. And also, as systems, scientists were saying what generalized media of communication exists within this social subsystem. So, power, money, and trust or influence on the social level. In the new millennium, what has happened now is that we can talk about postmodern, hypermodern, whatever modern, we are leaving that modernity behind. And one of the significant consequences of this leaving 362 STRATCOM PANEL - 12 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 modernity behind is that these lines between these different realms are falling. And it’s not so easy to see what’s political, economic and social because they’re all intermingling. And that’s what the internet brought on the technological level because the internet enables completely different forms of communication for which we were unprepared. In the first phase, so to say, what happened was that we came into, what I would call, double communication, or even doubling of our lives. We have our physical and analog lives, and we live on social media on the internet and in blogs. So, we have digital lives. What Zuckerberg has announced now and what Microsoft is also working on, and other big tech companies are working on now is how to bring that together again. That’s the whole idea of the metaverse so that we would be living in an integrated analog-digital world, where two different logics are coming together in a certain way. Now, what does that mean for both practice and strategic communication research? While we were still living in a traditional world, we were living basically in what I’m calling literal society. The central part of our civilization is based on books. You have holy books; you have political books called constitutions. You have laws, and whatever you’re trying to do about yourself, if you want to protect your rights, you’re It’s not easy to see what’s political, economic and social because they’re all intermingling. 363 S T R A T C O M P A N E L always talking about some book. I have these rights like these; I have these rights like that. This knowledge production in this operation of those books has always been linked to the state. So, knowledge is sanctioned by the government, which is the most obvious in traditional medical sciences. So, if you want to be a physician, you have to study medicine, graduate, and do your practice. Then you get the license, which is a state license. If you don’t agree with the official doctrine, either you will go out by yourself, or you’re going to be thrown out. But it’s the government at the end of the day, certifying your knowledge. And a lot of higher education and higher education development throughout the 20th century have been directly linked with the operation of the state and governments. Now the internet has changed all that. If we get sick today, what do we do? We google it. First, we look at Google, what’s wrong with us, how we should remedy that, what kind of medicine we should take, and then go to the doctor. And we say, “That’s wrong with me; please give me that prescription.”, which means that we are empowering ourselves in entirely new ways. And this is happening in all forms of our lives. This removal from this base knowledge, and this basement on the books, is also changing the perception of how the general population perceives power, wisdom, authority, and so forth. And that’s why we have so many problems with authority and trust in institutions these days because people are no longer trusting traditional forms of power. So, the whole production of soft power, intangibles, and social influence is entering an entirely new era. And this era is not so much text-based as it used to be. And our education is text-based. We are all academics. How do you get a promotion? You have to read, and you have to write. You have to write articles; you have to publish articles. If you publish articles, you get promoted. It’s very literature-based. In this new world in which we live today, first of all, if you look around, what’s gaining attention, and from attention follows influence are pictures, not words. So, what do you do if you want to be successful on social media? You have to make good films, good pictures. And if you’re going to manage that, again, you don’t need so many words; you need algorithms. So, you need numbers. So, you have to be number literate. So, it’s an entirely new environment in which we are entering, which will cause problems on the side of the practice and problems on the side of research because all of our studies are still literature-based. And if you look at the analysis of strategic communication, you can see that majority of that analysis is about content analysis. So, even when we talk about social media, people download posts and analyze them mainly as text, which is an exciting challenge we have. So, where I would like to stop here is that we are entering 364 STRATCOM PANEL - 12 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 a new era, both on the side of academia because when we are thinking about research, at the moment, we don’t have the tools to grasp this new reality out there. But also, on the side of the practice, because people we have educated and trained for strategic communication, they were all primarily text-based trained people. So, they have to operate now in this new, brave world, which will probably be great fun for the next century. Thank you. Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat You sounded so much matrix. I was expecting a red pill and a blue pill at the end. Go ahead, Derina. Dr. Derina Holtzhausen I keep forgetting this, just about what you said about algorithms and the new ways of communicating. I think that’s one of our biggest challenges; it is bridging the gap between technology and practice. We are, as Dejan said, still practicing like it was the 20th century. The algorithm is an excellent example of how we have no control over communication. If we can’t sit at the table where the direction of algorithms is determined, then we’re not doing our job. We are leaving the writing of algorithms to people with the technological background who do not have an awareness of societal issues, who do not have an understanding of political systems, who do not have-- And they write those algorithms based on their stereotypes. So, those algorithms are often reported to exclude certain groups of people, and well, that is what algorithms do. They target particular groups used for segmentation, so it is the ideal tool to leave out certain population groups that are undesirable or not include them in your thinking even. So, we will have a massive gap in practice unless we understand how algorithms are written and how technology influences what we do. Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat Thank you, Derina. And I have a question then. When you talk about the impact of books and the internet, is it the same thing? Are we having a deja vu moment in our long history? When the Gutenberg Bible first came out, and the translation of the Bible to literal languages and when we go back and see similar debates about the clergy’s authority, it is shake. There is now diversification of knowledge, etc. Are we living a similar moment with the emergence of this digital age? And what would be the difference if you compare two of them? 365 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Dr. Dejan Verčič There is a British sociologist Steve Fuller, who developed the notion of protoscience, which says the following: When Gutenberg came with the printing press, what was possible in continental Europe in particular, it was- that it became commercially viable to start translating the Bible into local languages, what on one side, enabled believers to see the holy word directly to read it directly. Because before that, they needed the Catholic Church. The priests had to translate from Latin what it says. Now they could read it directly. That led to Protestantism, the whole way of developing different versions of Protestantism, and basically to religious wars in Europe. That was one side. But on the political side, more important was that translation of the sacred book into local languages enabled the emergence of what we now understand as nations. Because those ethnic groups, which wrote their speeches at that time, were later able to form national communities, which were also produced through literature. That completely changed the perception of authority in religious matters, so to say, in religion. The same thing is now happening with political and scientific authority. Because there are people able to read for themselves directly what it says in the Bible, now people can read whatever they want on the internet. They have public access to knowledge. There is no knowledge practically outside of the internet, so to say. And that’s why everybody feels empowered to interpret what’s going on by themselves. If you want to understand what’s happening now with the corona pandemic, how people react to vaccination and other measures that have to be taken, and how much they believe authorities, look directly related to how they’re using the internet. So, yes, I think that’s why I’m saying the new era. This is the change we are only starting to see. I believe we are at the beginning of the significant change, not in the middle; we are really at the beginning. This will be of the same consequence, socially, as it was the invention of the printed press, then it took 100 years for Europe to feel this significant difference. Here, in 2100, we may understand what’s happening with our society. Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat Exactly. So, I think that there should be a need for social media literacy, maybe, in the future. Otherwise, with every headache you Google, if you try to think positively, you find the first thing that comes to Google is a brain tumor. So, if you try to search for everything on Google, you will lead to that anarchy of knowledge, the anarchy of information, and you would have a hard time to, maybe, distinguish what is scientific and what is not. 366 STRATCOM PANEL - 12 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Dr. Dejan Verčič Well, but it was the same when the books arrived. When Goethe wrote the Suffering of Werther (The Sorrows of Young Werther), there was a general moral panic that young guys would commit suicides on a higher note. Then in Victorian England, everybody was concerned now, young girls would be able to read all this filthy stuff, so, we have to make sure that books are not generally available and we have to make sure that they don’t understand how to read the books. A lot of our educational system is built around this idea. You cannot have the prohibitory rules as the Pope wanted to have the prohibited books, and we will keep those books out of the public view. But we have to make everybody go to school. So, we will make them inculturated in the right way. So, they will understand how to read books and know what books are correct and what is wrong. Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat Ana and one of the things that we have been talking about is strategic communication, but the assessment of it, measuring it, is a different thing. So, there were debates yesterday about measuring the success of strategic communication. And tell us a bit of that. Dr. Ana Tkalac Verčič I want to move to the pragmatic part of the discussion a little bit more. I am also an academic, as all three of us. But I have been conducting a project for four years now to discover how strategic communication functions within organizations. So, it’s aimed at internal communications. And we wanted to see, and I think it’s important for this panel, how research is connected to being able to do it strategically. So, we went into organizations and wanted to see how internal communications operate. Is it on a tactical level? Or do they do any strategic stuff? Do they participate in the strategy of the organization? In our project, we try to include all sizes of organizations. Still, more prominent organizations tend to have more extensive departments for internal communications, even though it does apply to small or medium-sized organizations. We found out that there is always a clash between human resources and corporate communications and strategic communications about who will lead the way in many different aspects of internal communication. I think this discussion on how digitalization changes this process is significant for internal communication. 367 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Because it completely changed the landscape. I think that people in strategic communication should embrace research because this will be the tool to allow them to become strategic in what they do. And to take away, if I can put it that way, from human resources and maybe other departments, sort of some of the scope that we feel we need to control. I think that we are going to redefine how internal communication operates entirely. I mean, even this conference, in a sense, is a show of that. There is no more- the rules that used to exist don’t exist anymore. So, now, if it is within the scope of internal communications and strategic communications to deal with employer branding, engagement, and trust with change management, these are all the fields that I think should be under strategic communication. The only way to do it is to do research. Unfortunately, we also discovered that people who work in strategic communication don’t like to use research very much. They talk about it a lot. They say that it’s crucial. They occasionally read books on it, some of them have degrees that taught them some of that stuff, but they don’t use it as much as they say they use it. We need you, educated young people. We want people who are hungry, who want to work. We want to attract the best of them into our organization. But, even in strategic communication, people feel that to attract these people, having a good employer brand is more of a sort of improvisation than a strategy based on research. So, to do this research, I think that practitioners and academics should connect a little more. Practitioners should use tools that academics develop and offer through instruments, methodologies, approaches, and whole concepts. But also, academics should listen more to practitioners and create things that practitioners need. It seems that we’re not, at least in my experience, I come from a tiny country, so I wouldn’t dare say this is universally true, but I think that maybe some of these things probably exist everywhere. I believe that we in academia think everything we do is essential. But then, when we have to provide solutions in real life for strategic communications, we don’t necessarily always do that. So, I saw in practice how lack of research affects strategic communication, especially internally on a high level. And now, with the big jump in digitalized communication and the fact that we are all moving online, I think these tools are getting more complicated but even more critical. We need to understand how people communicate digitally. What changes? What affects us? We’ve seen an exciting thing in the project because we did half of it before the pandemic and half of it after the pandemic. So, we could compare what happened, and we saw that satisfaction with internal communication jumped. It I think that people in strategic communication should embrace research because this will be the tool to allow them to become strategic in what they do. 368 STRATCOM PANEL - 12 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 was much higher in the pandemic than before the pandemic. But engagement fell, and job satisfaction fell. So, I hope we managed to connect a little more, the practitioners and the academics, and incorporate actual research into strategies because I think that’s the only way forward. Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat Do you find it challenging to conduct research with this increasing digitalization? Because you have been talking about communication. Most of these communications are now electronic communications, or even WhatsApp messages, instant messaging systems. So, how do you evaluate and assess the level of communication? Because those things cannot be visible or can disappear at any moment. Dr. Ana Tkalac Verčič We had a real-life experiment with that, as you say, because we had a very detailed methodology that was designed to do it live in person. And then, all of a sudden, overnight, it all stopped. And we had to redesign it and do it digitally and online. I have to tell you that first, I was apprehensive. I thought, “Oh, my God, what am I-- I still need half of my data, and the whole world has shut down; what are we going to do?” But then I have to say; now, after we’ve managed to do it if you’re resourceful, some things are better conducted online, not all of them. And you can’t always apply the same solution; you can’t take a questionnaire and just apply digitally. You have to be aware that you can transfer things automatically. But I think the combination of realizing what’s the best of all of these worlds is the perfect solution. We did a lot of interviews via video communication. And you’re right; I mean, it doesn’t translate. You cannot get all the information in an interview, video-wise, that you could attend in person because the nonverbal part is an essential element of that. Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat I have experienced in my work we used to have these meetings- track two sessions, and they are off-the-record meetings in the Chatham House Rules. And the part of the- we never realized that part of the meeting is the social interaction you had in the lunch, you know, like the traveling, going in the shuttle from one room- one place to another, from hotel to the conference center, etc. But when we try to do it at zoom, we see it like it’s not working. Right? We didn’t see the same 369 S T R A T C O M P A N E L interaction, the same socialization, the same chemistry among the participants. And even in teaching, we started to see that now. There is zoom fatigue. The first we were-- We liked it, as technology provides you a lot of opportunities to make your class more colorful, let’s say. But at a certain point, you need that social interaction. So maybe it is time to think a little bit hybrid. To create a little bit of hybrid strategic communication, there will be a part of social interaction, the chemistry, and at the same time, the digital sphere, which make it easier, faster, much more interactive, maybe. And Derina, go ahead. Dr. Derina Holtzhausen To lean into what Ana said, I think she raised a critical component, something that we haven’t researched a lot, and that is virtual organizations. And how do we communicate in virtual organizations? There are companies now that close their physical offices and go virtual. How do we bond our employees around a vision and a mission in a virtual environment? And the fact is that each employee is still the organization’s representative. We often talk about the fact that the head office does not determine reputation. The actions of everybody also assess reputation. So, again, the emerging importance of employees is vital. And if we You cannot get all the information in an interview, video-wise, that you could attend in person because the nonverbal part is a crucial element of that. 370 STRATCOM PANEL - 12 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 cannot influence the behavior or the attitudes of virtual employees, we will be in a great deal of trouble. So, that is another challenge that’s facing us. The tools are there; we know what a virtual organization is, we have researched that already. But interestingly enough, the people who were virtual workers were the managers and not the regular people whom you think would be the ideal solution. So, a critical component of what we need to study is the virtual employees, their effect on reputation, and the effect on corporate and organizational culture. Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat She talked about how the practice and academia are kind of- their relation in terms of strategic communication in organizations. And she gave an example about her own country, how about in the United States? Do you think there is enough interaction between academia and practice when it comes to the organization’s strategic communication? Dr. Derina Holtzhausen I do think that, in general, practitioners embrace academics and vice versa. There are organizations where the two groups meet each other and share their knowledge. I mean, 20 years ago, the concept of activism in public relations didn’t exist. Now they all practice activism. It comes from academics. Hopefully, this will carry over into practice. Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat Dejan, what’s your opinion about the interaction between academia and practice? Dr. Dejan Verčič Well, I think that both academia and practice at the moment are pretty conservative if you will look at the mainstream. A couple of months ago, I just saw an article published in public relations review, which analyzes 1000 employment ads for professional communicators. And out of that came the most sought-after proficiency in written communication. In this new reality, I think we have to develop four different sets of skills in our students who are entering the practice. And in practice, we have to be very attentive to these four types of skills. But I would say we have traditional communication skills, what we are teaching now in communication 371 S T R A T C O M P A N E L schools. What’s coming up, and what we have already mentioned, is computer programming and understanding what’s going on on the internet. The third one, which is extremely important, is business so that we understand how we are using resources. Because only recently, communication has become so essential that serious amount of money is invested. Previously, it was peanuts. So, nobody cared how we spent that money. And the fourth one, which we are not considering enough, is arts artistic communication. Because a lot of communication is becoming visual these days, you are missing the whole point unless you understand the logic of the production of this visual communication. And let me give you a straightforward example: September 11. Traditional political and security sciences analyze it as a terrorist attack. But, from a communication point of view, we have to see that it was planned and executed as a visual performance. Think about the pictures on the television. Those were planned pictures. The impact was so significant because it was a visual performance. And unless we understand this strength of visual performances, that new technology is enabling us, and it’s even going to go further from visible to experiential. Now with metaverse. And many wearable technologies we use now. Ana, do you have your Fitbit? She’s tracking everything she’s doing. If you want to ask her, “How do you sleep? How did you sleep last night?” She will watch her Fitbit and look at the Fitbit and the score of how well she slept. Dr. Ana Tkalac Verčič I look at the phone. I have to say, not at the Fitbit. It shows you’re not watching what I do. Dr. Derina Holtzhausen I do, want to say now. Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat Well, now, there is even an app that measures if you’re snoring or not. So, it can even give you that information. Dr. Derina Holtzhausen In conclusion to what Dejan said, we are starting a bachelor’s BA degree in And the fourth one, which we are not considering enough, is arts artistic communication. Because a lot of communication is becoming visual these days, you are missing the whole point unless you understand the logic of the production of this visual communication. 372 STRATCOM PANEL - 12 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Media and Arts in our college next fall, where incoming students can choose how they want to put their degree together in terms of mixing media and the arts, a component of computer science. And the result must be a final project like a senior thesis where they put all of that together in one bit because we understand how vital the arts are. So, maybe, I mean, that privileged position that I’m the Dean of Fine Arts and Communication. And so, we’ll see how that goes. But that is our solution to that issue that Dejan is. Assoc. Prof. Kılıç Buğra Kanat I think it is happening all over the campuses. For example, in my university, Penn State University, we started a new major in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Digit, Digital Studies. And I was one of the professors who were skeptical because I’m like, go classic, right? Like, go with the standard established majors. And in a brief period, we see the enrollments to Digit increase. And the most significant part of it is multidisciplinarity, that you can be a programmer, you can be a social scientist, you can be a communication major, but you can still do that. So, with this note, we have to complete this conversation. And thank you very much, Dejan, Derina, and Ana, for coming to İstanbul and having this conversation. It was an exciting conversation. We could continue this conversation for an extended time, but I’m getting the message that we must stop here. So, thank you very much for coming. And thanks for joining us today. Thank you very much. 373 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 13 Exclusive Panel: TRT Showcase 374 STRATCOM PANEL - 13 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Exclusive Panel: TRT Showcase 12 December 2021 • Osman Küçükdalak TRT Haber Channel Coordinator - Türkiye • Mehmet Emin Öztürk TRT 2 Channel Coordinator - Türkiye • Mustafa Bora Durmuşoğlu TRT Çocuk Channel Coordinator - Türkiye • Erman Yüksel TRT World Channel Coordinator - Türkiye • Nilgün Balkaç TRT Presenter (Moderatör) - Türkiye • Prof. Dr. Mehmet Zahid Sobacı Director General of TRT - Türkiye • Cemil Yavuz TRT 1 Channel Coordinator - Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 375 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 13 TRT was founded in 1964. Inspired by a concept used for Göbeklitepe, we can say that the date 1964 represents the zero point of television broadcasting in Türkiye. Nilgün Balkaç It is complicated to describe our future and past with words or movies. However, like the TRT family, we are all together with you. This is the first time we have all come together in such a session. First, let’s introduce our family. Our TRT General Manager Prof. Dr. Mehmed Zahid Sobacı is here with us. Cemil Yavuz, TRT 1 Channel Coordinator, is here again. From TRT World, a significant project, Erman Yüksel, is with us. Accompanying Erman Yüksel, Osman Küçükdalak, our TRT News coordinator is here and finally Mehmet Emin Öztürk, TRT 2’s channel coordinator and Mustafa Bora Durmuşoğlu, coordinator of the children’s channel, are here. We said the whole family is here together. When we say that, we need to clarify this family. For this reason, I want to go back to our general manager now. Now, sir, let’s think of public broadcasting but at the same time, let’s consider 376 STRATCOM PANEL - 13 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 that we are also a school implementing this public broadcasting. I was a student at this school of public broadcasting. I started it during my university years, and there was great excitement when I started university. From the radio to children’s programs, then to the news center, and as a reporter trained there, we see that; a journalist trained in TRT can do any job anywhere, in any field they want. This story continues from the past to the present; how would you summarize this story, sir? This is a school. You are our teacher, please, sir. Prof. Dr. Mehmet Zahid Sobacı TRT was founded in 1964. Inspired by a concept used for Göbeklitepe, we can say that the date 1964 represents the zero point of television broadcasting in Türkiye. Perhaps in this sense, TRT is a story of paving the way. The school analogy is closely related to this ground zero of TRT being a school and the story of paving the way. Think of a place where there is no way; you are starting to pave the way. That road produces its derivatives over time, and you experience integrity there with bridges, intersections, and underpasses to ensure integrity over time. Those who want to walk in that field, that is, those who want to step into the broadcasting field, are starting to diversify the sector by following the path opened by TRT. Therefore, this school issue is closely related to this paving a way issue. That is why, as it did in the past, TRT still plays a leading role in the sector, both in terms of developing human resources and in terms of bringing the firsts and innovations into practice within the framework of certain principles and ethics. While playing the pioneering role, as you emphasized, TRT must observe the requirements of public broadcasting as a public broadcaster. For this reason, we are talking about TRT, which accepts each person’s life as a world, with a broadcasting approach that puts people at its center because it is at the center of public broadcasting. When we value everyone and accept each person’s life as a world, when we place this at the center of our publishing as our basic philosophy, the following picture emerges. As TRT, we contribute to realizing a more just and livable world for everyone. This is an opportunity for us. As a public broadcaster, TRT is an opportunity but also a responsibility. The officials and coordinators of our various channels, which enable TRT to address those different worlds, are here. Of course, they will talk about their ways, what they do and their work. However, in the end, that is not all TRT is about. That is why we are talking about thousands of people working in Türkiye and worldwide to give credit to both being a public broadcaster and being a pioneer and being a school. We are talking about thousands of people working under the umbrella of TRT. 377 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Today, we talk about a TRT broadcasting in different languages and geographies with 18 television channels. We are talking about TRT, which carries out its broadcasting activities with eighteen radio channels, nine digital platforms, four digital applications, printed broadcasts, and organizations at the national and international level, trying to demonstrate its power of influence. Since TRT is a public broadcaster, no matter which channel it is, which production or broadcast is in question, it always keeps creating social benefit and social awareness at the back of its productions as the essence. We are trying to raise pure knowledge to the level of comprehension. We think that understanding can only be fed by the will that pushes people to behave. Our thematic channels will express themselves anyway but let me give an example of thematic channels that are not here. TRT Music, TRT Documentary, TRT Sports. They always keep the issue of reaching this level of understanding and social awareness in the background of their publications. They try to touch people’s world and their range of ideas in a way that includes all branches of art, music, sports, and all genres. Therefore, We are trying to raise pure knowledge to the level of comprehension. 378 STRATCOM PANEL - 13 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 TRT does not only consist of our channels here. I want to emphasize this. At the same time, I would like to state that we also took part in a difficult period as a public broadcaster, and we played a powerful role. Both Türkiye and the world are facing an unprecedented test. Our country has successfully passed this test with an intense struggle, strong administration, and will. I’m talking about COVID-19. Of course, during the pandemic period, one of the most important issues in the period of COVID-19 was the education issue of our children and the discussions held at the global level, such as online education, distance learning, digital division access to the internet. Here, TRT stepped in as a public broadcaster, and by establishing separate TRT EBA channels at primary, secondary, and high school levels, it appeared as a structure that ensures that the education processes of our children and youth continue without interruption. Let me summarize: The digitalization process continues, and as a public broadcaster, of course, TRT is also affected by it. Perhaps The digitalization process continues, and as a public broadcaster, TRT is also affected by it. However, perhaps the most crucial effect of this digitalization process in publishing accelerates content production. 379 S T R A T C O M P A N E L the most important effect of this digitalization process in publishing is that it accelerates content production. That is to say, the number of contents has increased considerably. I sometimes express this in my speeches. We live in abundance and scarcity. Currently, there is an abundance of content as the opportunity offered by digitalization. But in this abundance, we live in scarcity. This is because the contents are created based on rapid production and consumption. We are going through a period in which what is valuable is difficult to choose. As public broadcasters, we bear a responsibility. We must produce what is valuable. Perhaps the most important picture of the production of what is valuable is our TV series. The Turkish TV series industry has already made a breakthrough. We are in second place in the export of TV series after America, and TRT plays a critical role here. Our TV series, co-production films, and even cartoons are highly demanded. This is perhaps the most important picture of what is precious, produced by TRT’s public broadcaster. While we are producing these, we criticize a western-centered and one-sided cultural transfer process because, as TRT, we favor cultural diversity. We think that cultural diversity is richness, and we think that this cultural diversity, or more precisely, originality, should be preserved wherever it is located. While we bring the world to our home as TRT, we also try to carry our ancient history and cultural richness to the world. After all, why are we doing this? This is one of the fundamental questions. When I thought about this question on the way, I saw that there are several possibilities to answer this question: We, as TRT, carry Türkiye’s rights, claims, and theses on global and regional issues to international platforms. We are trying to convey the voices of previously unseen geographies and marginalized geographies into international politics. TRT World is an important instrument for this. At the same time, we are trying to implement the human right to communicate and receive real news in this age where disinformation and manipulation are at the highest level. TRT Haber provides its most important instrument, the communication center. However, we pursue the goal of creating a healthy society based on a set of values that focus on our national values and culture. Especially at TRT Kids, we deal with entrusted minds and hearts. In other words, parents entrust their children in the mental development process to us. Therefore, we are in contact with entrusted hearts and entrusted minds, and TRT Kids has a great role in creating a healthy societal structure and transferring generations. Why are we doing this as a public broadcaster? We do it to tell society about our own culture, literature, art, and experience in this field. Ultimately, instead of understanding and reading Asia and Europe with a Western-centered perspective imposed on us, we now make 380 STRATCOM PANEL - 13 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 sense of geographies, people, and cultures based on our own culture, experience, and perspective, for example, through TRT Documentary. We are doing all these things for a single purpose, a single mission. To contribute to the Strong Turkish brand within the framework of strategic communication. Nilgün Balkaç You have a long way to go, sir. As you said, let’s continue with that remarkable element if you wish. You said that we are trying to bring what is precious to the screen. However, by doing that, we put people in our focus and proceed with the logic of public broadcasting. Let’s continue with Cemil Yavuz. Starting from this logic, we look at those TV series on TRT 1. When we look at the series The Innocents, we see how mistakes made in the past affect the future. But other than that, we need the good so much that as a society, we look at the Mountain of Hearts series, there is a cast that brings together the good ones who are not bad at all. Mountain of Hearts is first and high ranking in the ratings. TRT comes first almost four days a week in ratings, and when you read this table. For example, We are doing all these things for a single purpose, a single mission. To contribute to the Strong Turkish brand within the framework of strategic communication. 381 S T R A T C O M P A N E L we look at The Organization series, and we call it undercover heroes. You show us the same picture that I saw as a reporter on the field here in The Organization series. Apart from that, when we look at the costumes and movies, nothing is fake; everything is authentic. What’s the secret? Cemil Yavuz TRT, in general, continues to broadcast as a public broadcaster, and at the same time, it continues to erase the traces of the necessity of public broadcasting. As the “story universe,” you can appreciate that we have a slightly more limited universe than private channels, but we have turned this limitation into an advantage over time. In other words, we have distanced ourselves from being derivatives of the works done on private channels in each of our stories, in each of our TV series. As you just mentioned, The Innocents did not come directly to us at first. They went to different channels, but they came to TRT because the others did not accept it. We took it and developed the project for a year. Even now, they would say that if Mountain of Hearts were taken to private channels, a project without bad, crooked relationships and conflicts, it wouldn’t work, but today it is the most-watched production of the week in all three groups. Moreover, it is the first in a comprehensive network rating. The Organization series, on the other hand, is a project that makes the people of this country trust their state. If we can move freely everywhere today, without bombs exploding, if we are not afraid of losing our relatives, it is because secret heroes are working in the background. TRT set out to make public broadcasting watchable, with a structure that makes the stories deeper and their dramatic system stronger. When we set out for this purpose, when we looked at how we can make people watch them, we realized this: We started to highlight some previously forgotten values that society needs but are not displayed on the screen these days. Each of our series includes one or more of our 12 strategic goals. If we systematize; with the awareness of public broadcasting, TRT sets out with a content that does not look down on the people of this country, has digested being washed with the water of the land, with sentences that underline our glorious history that stays away from being the commissioner of the colony and supports national consciousness. We’re looking at it from 360 degrees. Not only as TRT 1 but also our side thematic channels feed this feeling of our TRT. We set out by enriching this limitation in our existing story universe with a better dramatic structure, actors suitable for the dramatic structure, better director, and projects that will appeal to the hearts of the people of this country. 382 STRATCOM PANEL - 13 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Let me continue by giving a short example from Mountain of Hearts. At the starting point of the Mountain of Hearts project, we started talking about why people flock to Anatolia every holiday. We noticed this. There are serial migrations in Türkiye that began with the Serbian revolt in 1801 and continued for 200 years. If you remember, in the 1980s, 70% of the population was in villages. 20% today. Such a great social change was not reflected on the screens except for a few movies in the 1980s. We started by combining these two and creating a beautiful story. We said we’re going to make a story that isn’t bad. We believed that the report, which was not bad, would also have a buyer. We worked for a year. For this, we started to work with one of Türkiye’s very important storytellers called Mustafa Çiftçi. We understood that we could not start from a story, but we created a new scenario by taking different heroes from the stories he wrote. Maybe after the seventh or eighth version, Mountain of Hearts started its journey with a beautiful scenario, as we felt comfortable. And now that Mountain of Hearts is the most-watched TV series of the week, we are not only happy as a channel. At the same time, it increases our faith in the people of this country. Because we know people of this country have their hearts in the right place, they are well-mannered.. We’re just trying to make way for them. We are just trying to remind the lost values. If you know, perhaps for the last 15-20 years, there has been a policy of devaluing sacred values and devaluing crime and immorality in the world. TRT objects to this in total and reflects its belief in this country and its people on the screen in different dramatic structures. This is reciprocated by the audience and makes us happy. Nilgün Balkaç You said essential things. I hope you are familiar with TRT from different aspects. Let’s go in different directions. We are trying to show you how those channels came to life. When we went training at the BBC or CNN International as a journalist, we used to ask when we would have such media, and we used to learn from them. We used to go there for training. However, now let’s have a look at TRT World. From the presentation of our journalist friends on the field to the shooting techniques of the cameraman, of course, when we look at the presentation, light, painting in the studio, and when we see 30 different countries, we see that harmony, not cacophony, emerges. What will we say is the secret of TRT World? Apart from that, there is a very remarkable element within that secret. As our general manager has just said, it also prevents misinformation in journalism. This is valid for Türkiye, but we are also setting an example for journalism all over the world. What kind of example are we, sir? 383 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Erman Yüksel TRT World is one of the critical projects and one of our country’s moves towards creating global brands. It is a project formed by combining TRT’s broadcasting experience of more than 50 years and the international broadcasting experience of the journalists we brought to Istanbul by employing them abroad. In terms of publishing standards, yes, we have global standards in terms of journalism principles. But in discourse, we have an understanding that differs in language and offers a new perspective. Here is our argument: There is a language and a style that the global media giants you just mentioned use when communicating about our country, our region, and our close geography. In general, you will see that a language and style that is a bit condescending, a bit cliché, and a bit lazy is used, publishing by attributing destruction, conflict, and chaos to this part of the world. Our starting philosophy is to create a new perspective and discourse against it. Yes, we do not ignore the crises in our region, but we try to tell our TRT World is one of the critical projects and one of our country’s moves towards creating global brands. 384 STRATCOM PANEL - 13 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 geography’s success stories and potentials. We reveal the known wrongs and set out with the perspective of telling the truth. Our strategy in our broadcast on the Azerbaijan issue last year was entirely on this. Hikmet Hajiyev also gave a speech here yesterday. No broadcasting organization in the region can better explain the Azerbaijan issue, the Karabakh War, the occupation, and the Khojaly massacre with its background and details. As an Istanbul-based global news channel, one of the essential mottos of the project is to establish dominance in our region, be present in the field, produce good content with our reporters, produce the right content, and tell it in the correct language. Secondly, there is an ongoing process of change and transformation in the West. The xenophobia that started and escalated over the refugee movements, the polarization mainly attributed to our country and region, and severe sociological ruptures after Trump’s election as the US President after Brexit. Now, all these need to be explained well to that English-speaking audience. Recall the images that emerged when Trump supporters stormed the US Congress on January 6. We couldn’t believe it, could we? We rubbed our eyes. How can such a thing happen 385 S T R A T C O M P A N E L in the capital of America? We were there with four reporters that day; we were on the field. Inside the convention, at the door. That day, for example, American television broadcast the announcements made by our reporters while they were being pushed around and gassed. However, they still wrote this in the lower bands: “It’s like Middle East-like images in America’s capital.” So, there is such a troublesome language there. So, we set out to stand against it. For example, Africa is in our region. Currently, there is an Africa that has become the arena of competition for global powers, but at the same time, it confronts its colonial past. We have a unique program for Africa. We cover Africa for half an hour every week in the Africa Matters program. We talk about the Balkans in Across the Balkans program. We aim to produce accurate and actual content by specializing in various regions. For example, we have the French elections ahead of us. We will be solid on the field in Paris and different cities. There are also severe sociological breaks and transformations there. We will aim to explain it to our audience correctly. Last October 29, we celebrated our 6th anniversary as TRT World. We are a very young channel. In fact, in an industry where such big giants compete in publishing, creating a global brand typically takes decades. But I think the distance we have covered in 6 years is enormous. Despite this, we believe we have much greater potential. A potential that is stronger, from the field, that puts people at the center of the news, as stated by our general manager. Since the human story is accurate, it gives you the truth. With our broadcasting approach centered on this, we have come a long way towards becoming a more robust, reference-quoted global news channel, and I believe we will go even further. Nilgün Balkaç You talked about misinformation, and you said we put people in the center. We will continue with another channel that focuses on people and talks about public broadcasting away from misinformation. Osman Küçükdalak, TRT News coordinator is also with us. When we look at it, our journalists are telling the news while it is reflected on the screen, they are in the news, but they are not an element of the news. We reflect everything we know to be right on the screen. We bring people to the screen so that everyone in life can find themselves there. We get hot news, but it is crucial to minimize and ignore the margin of error while bringing that hot news because we are public broadcasters. We all need to be careful. Every word that comes out of our mouth can be a headline everywhere. As TRT Haber, we have been the first in the total number of audiences in recent years. That first 386 STRATCOM PANEL - 13 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 place is essential. Osman Küçükdalak, what is our secret if we accept each of our viewers as a person, not a number? Osman Küçükdalak First of all, I would like to start with several viewpoints. TRT Haber must be at the top because we work very hard with our teammates. I started my career in 2004. When I started my career, the authority of reporters in newsrooms was much more. However, since 2010, unfortunately, the specific jurisdiction of reporters in newsrooms has begun to decrease gradually. So why did this occur? Because the news channels realized that they could get high ratings by making people with different opinions argue, especially in the time zones we call prime time. Let’s face it; journalism is a very costly business. For example, you will be sending the team to a place; it is a high-cost job in many items such as flight tickets, hotel money, concierge fees for delivery. That’s why newsrooms started doing this: They saw that they would get high ratings by making people with different opinions argue for 3-4 hours in prime time, and they put this into practice. In the long run, this led to a decrease in the specific authority of reporters in newsrooms. As they said, “Why should we spend more money on this?” I came to this position about They saw that they would get high ratings by making people with different opinions argue for 3-4 hours in prime time, and they put this into practice. 387 S T R A T C O M P A N E L two months ago. Since I come from a correspondent business, it is the reporter who makes the news in my philosophy. For this reason, I immediately stepped in to increase the specific authority of the reporters in the news center and TRT News Channel, and we only have news now. In other words, when the audience opens the channel, we do not tire the audience with vicious discussions. We do public broadcasting, telling the audience that “We give you news, we promise to give you quality news.” So, has this been reciprocated? This is the most critical issue. Yes, one million new viewers came to TRT News in just a month. The part that is even more meaningful to me is that in the audience group we call EU, our ratings increased by 23% in just one month, and an average of 10 million people watch TRT News every day. We hope to expand this figure to 15 million next year. We have increased the number of news, and we will continue to do so. In other words, instead of tiring the audience with vicious discussions, we promise to give good news to the audience wherever they are in the world. We will continue to provide reporter-directed news. For example, we will have an exceptional interview tomorrow at 12 o’clock. As you know, there is a severe immigration problem in Europe. Dozens of immigrants are stuck at the Polish- Belarus border. Belarusian President Lukashenko will be our guest tomorrow. We will have an exclusive interview with him at 12. Again, you know, for example, there was a big storm last night in Kentucky. At least 70 people died. Our friends immediately set out from Washington. They drove for 12 hours and made the first broadcast today morning. When my teammates got there, they even got a hoarse voice due to exhaustion, but the love of giving the news went above everything else, and we made that broadcast even with that low voice. As I said, I think TRT News is the essential news brand in Türkiye right now. We prove this with numbers. Our goals are much more significant. Our primary goal is to give news; we provide the news in the best and highest quality way. We hope next year will be much better for us. Nilgün Balkaç Osman Küçükdalak, let us say that as a reporter, we will gladly work on our behalf to advance this goal because a reporter needs to see his news on the screen and make that announcement and broadcast. Such a fantastic pleasure. Now let’s continue with Mehmet Emin Öztürk, TRT 2 Channel Coordinator. Sir, when we look at it, art is a very feminine element. But we, as the TRT family, fill this feminine element in such a way with movies from the past to the present and music from 388 STRATCOM PANEL - 13 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 the past to the present. On top of that, we move forward by overcoming obstacles. Our disabled artists find themselves on the screen in every way. So, we are indeed creating a mosaic. You can reach every segment with TRT 2 and the elements broadcast on TRT 2. How do we explain this situation? How do you choose? Mehmet Emin Öztürk TRT 2 is TRT’s culture-themed channel. At first, as you know, it is a channel established as Istanbul Television. Its code name is Istanbul. Over time, it turned into TRT 2. The word “Istanbul” is perhaps a situation that reveals its secret. Istanbul is a bridge for all of us, maybe for all civilizations and history. Therefore, TRT 2 is truly an extraordinary mosaic, like Istanbul in the middle of the east and west, where people from all walks of life and all kinds of art are present. Here I would like to talk a little about our central themes. What are we talking about on TRT 2? What are we doing? We have subheadings. We can talk about these as literature, history, cinema, philosophy, music, architecture, archeology, but there is an important point here. As a result of public broadcasting, we have some missions and a motto we set for ourselves while approaching these issues. We neither reject the traditional nor stick to the modern without question. We try to blend these two in one pot and unite the past with the present. Here, again, I can give an example from our movies. We show films from the beginning of cinema history, from the beginning of the 1900s, and we also show films released in the last few years. Therefore, we offer a broad spectrum to our audience. We offer a very different range, not only in terms of history but also geographically. Films produced in every country from South America to the Balkans, from the Middle East to the Far East, are on our screen. TRT co-productions should also be emphasized here. The extraordinarily successful films won by TRT co-productions abroad are also featured on TRT 2 screens. It should be emphasized that; maybe when we say east-west, we want to revive classical Turkish music, for example, classical western music concerts, operas, and ballets. The work we did on this in the first place; We have now broadcast these concerts from the archive prepared by the State Classical Turkish Music Choir for TRT in the 70s and 80s. And we will bring them to the screens in very modern venues and with complete re- executions. We can also name this music, its primary name, Istanbul music, which is also included in the literature, classical Turkish music. Istanbul music has been still alive and will continue to live. Here, too, we are trying to strike a balance. I can say the same about the disabled people you mentioned. It’s a program called 389 S T R A T C O M P A N E L “Silence” that we made with deaf artists. Here, we are guests at the workshops of these artists. We witness parts of their lives. Therefore, we emphasize to our audience that nothing is an obstacle to producing art, producing culture, and being a part of civilization. Nilgün Balkaç First, you bring art together with art; then, you get it with the audience. It’s an essential element. Now let’s continue with another meeting. Bora Durmuşoğlu is also with us. TRT Kids Channel Coordinator. Mr. Bora, there is a story I want to share from my college years: There was a project called Sesame Street. They told us, “Here you can do translations and earn money” in that project. Of course, at that time, I started the translations of the Sesame Street program to begin broadcasting. Then they said there was another project. They told us, “Look; you are young people. Be with the children as their older sisters, as we hold a children’s festival on April 23”. Suddenly, a completely different picture was drawn on TRT. Of course, we did not understand what we were doing at that time. Then the truth came out, and we figured out how the kids met. Now you reach the younger generations in a very different way. Of course, you do this in a way that is far from advertising. After us, they will carry our Türkiye somewhere, bringing it to a point. How do you shape them? We listen to you. Mustafa Bora Durmuşoğlu Inevitably, everyone has a good memory of their childhood. Almost all of us have big and small memories of April 23rd, Sesame Street, the late Barış Manço and Adile Naşit. After TRT produced those children’s content and many more, TRT Kids was established in 2008. With the establishment of the TRT Kids, as our esteemed general manager has just started, a huge trust is entrusted to the channel. Türkiye’s children are being entrusted. This legacy is so precious; you know there is a child, a nephew, a grandchild, a sibling in every house. Somehow there is always a child. You have to produce and present content sensitively to a little child that everyone looks after. Of course, this creates serious pressure and responsibility on people. Two points stand out from then on. Love and trust. First of all, we try to win the love of children, but while gaining this love, that is, after we get them to choose us after taking the control in their hands, we also need to gain their trust as the children of their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, aunts and uncles. After balancing these two, a beautiful picture 390 STRATCOM PANEL - 13 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 emerges. Mr. Osman just talked about the viewing statistics of TRT News. At that point, we see ourselves a little differently. Because if there is a child in a house, the screen is controlled accordingly. And in the top 100 list announced every day, TRT Kids is well ahead of all mainstream channels with about 30 contents. This is an impressive number indeed. In this way, your responsibility inevitably increases, meaning that all eyes are on you in all houses. Oh, make no mistake! We scrutinize very carefully and work with a young and talented team to avoid making this mistake. Of course, it seems like media professionals and communicators use our work as content producers, but our real heroes are child development experts, child psychologists, and pedagogues. Many children’s content producers do not consult them, but TRT gives us these opportunities, and we use them most efficiently. I am sharing here for the first time; for example, as of November, we have increased our market share to 60%, which was just over 50% in the middle of 2021. It has tremendous momentum. This means people continue to trust us. Using this trust only on the screen is no longer sufficient today. We need to get in touch with children everywhere now. There is a fact called YouTube; we cannot prevent children from using it. We publish our content on YouTube with the same sensitivities, and one of Türkiye’s ten most successful YouTube pages is currently owned by TRT Kids, with approximately 6 million subscribers. Again, as we mention digitals, we cannot take tablets and phones from children’s hands. We can only limit it as much as possible. Here, again, TRT has such a big impact. Since we can’t get them from children, let’s prepare content suitable for them for digital devices. We have 38 games and applications. These are among the most downloaded applications in Türkiye at the moment, with approximately 70 million downloads. They are one of the rare contents that have a secure certificate on both Android and IOS. Cinema is one of the indispensable of children. You know, TRT Kids is also in the cinema. “Rafadan Tayfa Gobeklitepe” is our latest record-breaking content. With a TRT co-production and 3. 5 million viewers, it is the most-watched domestic and foreign movie and the highest-grossing movie ever. We have a magazine; yes, we are there too. Foreigners divide broadcasting into two, broadcasting and publishing. We strive to exist in both, and with our magazine, we reach every home on television and digital devices and in printed form. Reaching Türkiye’s best-selling dealer sales figures, TRT Kids’ Magazine continues to be published with the same sensitivity. TRT Kids’ bests do not end. We have licensed products. We hit the shelves with them. So, you have no escape from us. If you go to a market, shopping mall, or shopping online, your eyes will inevitably fall on TRT Kids licensed products. 391 S T R A T C O M P A N E L While we used to raise our children with the products of foreign characters, we now continue to introduce them to the contents of completely local heroes and raise them with them. I won’t give a brand name here. Still, when we first started this business, one of Türkiye’s largest textile manufacturers told us that “We were growing up with foreign characters in our own time, and we were especially recommending and directing American characters, but now we see that interest in their content has faded because all children in Türkiye know your heroes.” Although parents grew up with foreign heroes, children in Türkiye are now growing up with Turkish heroes. After this anecdote, I want to go back to digital again. We also have a website. Of course, the website is precious for TRT News and TRT World, and we know very well that it is visited a lot, but as a children’s content producer, TRT Kids is also very valuable for the website. Consider the amount of time you spend on a website, 3-4 minutes maximum. But on TRT Kids’ website, children spend more than 10 minutes, which is a precious time. At the same time, Türkiye’s most visited website in terms of children’s media belongs to TRT Kids. There is also a parent academy within this website. At the parent academy, we try to find answers to any questions that parents have about their children’s development. There are video interviews and articles that we have received from about 200 academicians so far. We are trying to convey the right information to the people who are most concerned about the problems that parents may encounter, especially in the 3-6 age group, 6-9 age group, and at the Türkiye’s most visited website in terms of children’s media belongs to TRT Kids. There is also a parent academy within this website. 392 STRATCOM PANEL - 13 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 starting point of puberty. While doing all these, we are trying to dominate TRT Kids or TRT and the sector. The locomotive of the animation industry is TRT Kids in Türkiye. At the same time, we nurture more than one production company, the person, the artist, or the software developer who has set their heart on this job, in a way, and we show once again that we evaluate not only ourselves but also every sector of Türkiye when producing children’s content. Nilgün Balkaç We said that the coordinators of all our units are here. TRT Kids, TRT 2, TRT News, TRT World, TRT 1. We tried to draw the picture for you, but lastly, I would like to return to Mr. Sobacı. Sir, from now on, we have to take another road. This road should never end. We need to go further and further, moment by moment, to carry the past and leave a beautiful future for the next generation. What will you say? Prof. Dr. Mehmet Zahid Sobacı Precisely as you said, you expressed it initiating the session, too. TRT existed in the past, exists today, and will exist in the future. Therefore, if we put it in a very concise statement, perhaps; TRT is both memory and destiny. Here I am using the concept of memory as consciously different from the concept of the archive. Because TRT enables us to establish and analyze the relationship between the issues we witness in the world and Türkiye to make sense of what is happening around us and the developments, it offers significant opportunities for us to analyze the distance we have covered between the point we have reached today and the fact we have stood in the past in culture, art, sports, politics, and international relations. In that sense, it’s a memory. And with its 60 years of experience, TRT will shape a future in Türkiye in terms of always presenting an innovative perspective in new channels and new lanes in the broadcasting history. Therefore, it is necessary to state that TRT is both a memory and a future. Thank you for your interest and patience. Nilgün Balkaç Mr. Sobacı, you are talking about memory and the future. We hope to carry both the memory and the future to the best points together. As TRT family, we tried to tell you about our TRT, we tried to explain the past. We tried to explain our present and future goals. 393 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 14 Does Media Spending Still Matter? 394 STRATCOM PANEL - 14 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Does Media Spending Still Matter? 12 December 2021 • Volkan İkiler Head of Advertisers Association (RD) and CEO of Concept Advertising Agency - Türkiye • Hakan Göl Partner at Deloitte Türkiye - Türkiye • Gökhan Akça Asistant General Manager at Zer Merkezi Hizmetler - Türkiye • Neslihan Olcay CEO of Mindshare Türkiye - Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 395 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 14 We had a much luckier two years in Türkiye compared to the rest of the world in terms of advertising investments. Volkan İkiler Today, we will talk about media investments in Türkiye. We have a system that we have been using for about three years. We explain the media investments in Türkiye in a very collective way. 7 associations come together to reveal the results. Deloitte is our business partner in this journey. Since all data is collected impartially, we need the perspective of an impartial company. That’s why I want to start with Hakan first. Dear Hakan, what kind of journey are we on? What are Deloitte’s contributions here when creating media investments? Hakan Göl Beginning with this year, I would like to share the issue of media investments for the first six months of 2021. First of all, let me briefly talk about the methodology 396 STRATCOM PANEL - 14 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 we follow. The method you see on this screen covers all media except digital. First of all, we use the ADEX database, which includes the media-based advertising duration and number of media in the relevant period, which Kantar Media regularly measures to formulate its media investment forecasts. Then, we break down all the forecasts in detail based on media and its period. And we collect forecast data from companies, both the advertisers and the agency world, separately. In doing so, we sift through the extreme values within the system. We also evaluate turnover estimates for cinema and outdoor media. After making the deviations and comparisons, we forward the results to the media investments advisory board you see on the screen. The Media Investments Advisory Board consists of the members and representatives of the Advertisers Association, Advertisers Association, Interactive Advertising Association, Outdoor Advertisers Foundation, National Radio Broadcasters Association, Mobile Media, Research, Marketing, and Advertising Association, which Mr. Volkan has just mentioned. We check the data we have revealed within the scope of this study, taking into account the RTÜK (radio and television supreme council) data the interviews with the sector players and associations, and we announce the results later. This work includes all media except digital. We primarily benefit from the central government financial statistics department of the Ministry of Treasury and Finance on the digital side. You know, digital services tax is on our agenda, and we looked at the results for the first six months of 2021. The digital services tax collected in 6 months amounted to 1 billion 186 million TL. The total amount subject to the digital services tax applied as 7. 5% is 15. 8 billion TL. We also see that about 45% of this total volume is made up of advertising revenues from global broadcasting. Global publishers have a minimum share of 198 in the total digital advertising market. In the light of these predictions, we calculate the size of the digital advertising market for the first six months of 2021 as 7. 91 billion TL. Considering that 40% of this represents the organized advertising market, we continue our studies and estimations. When you look at it, we come out with serious data within the scope of the study. Here you see all the channels. Our sources on the television side are members of Kantar Media, RTÜK, and RD. We work with both Kantar Media and RD members on the press side. We process ARVAK members and other companies operating in the open-air sector as the data by sources. On the radio side, we process the data of Kantar Media, RTÜK, RD members, and other agencies. On the cinema side, we also look at Kantar Media, RD members, The digital services tax collected in 6 months amounted to 1 billion 186 million TL. Therefore, we see that the total amount subject to the digital services tax applied as 7.5% is 15.8 billion TL. 397 S T R A T C O M P A N E L and other companies operating in the cinema sector. As I just mentioned, we benefit from the Ministry of Treasury and Finance data, the Advertising Agencies Association, AIB, MMA, RD members, AIB members, and MMA Türkiye members in digital. I want to share the results with you in two separate graphs. You can see 2020-2021 data of estimated media and advertising investments in Türkiye on the screen. As you can see below, total media investments amounted to 10 billion 319 million TL. Of this, 7. 3 billion TL consists of investments in the media sector, and 3 billion TL consists of advertising investments. You might think of it as about 25% of the total. If we take a brief look at this breaking point, As you can see in the circular diagram, television makes up 46. 1%. It has a share of 3. 3 billion 371 million TL. 90% of this comes from reporting and 10% from unreported data sources. If we continue, radio is 2. 2, the press is 2. 7, outdoor is 5. 6, and the share of digital in the total is 43. 3% when we look at the organized media sector. I’ll get to the breaking point of this in a moment. If we include direct 398 STRATCOM PANEL - 14 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 purchase into this, the share of television is 28%, while others range between 1-3% in the structure we have just mentioned. We see that the organized media sector is 26. 2% and direct purchasing is 39. 1%. We can say that the total media and advertising investment amount is 15 billion TL for the first six months. We just talked about it. When we look at the share in digital, we estimate the share of the organization as 40% and the share of direct purchasing as 60%. This distinction should be briefly mentioned here. The organized media sector is an important and employment-creating sector that creates brands, protects and expands the brand value, activates and transforms the economy, especially through digital partners and defines it. We can say that direct purchasing consists of the purchasing activities of both SMEs, some e-commerce companies, the game industry, etc. If we take a brief look at the bottom the breakdown, we said that 3 billion of the 15 billion TL is composed of advertising investments, and 12 billion is made up of total media investments. When we come to the division within the press, 90% of which is reported and 10% is not reported on television; we see that 86% come from newspapers and 14% from magazines. Looking at 399 S T R A T C O M P A N E L the outdoor industry, 61% come from advertising units, 17% from large spaces, and 21% from digital outdoors. As we talk about, when we look at digital, 40% is organized, 60% consists of direct purchasing. I would like to quickly share the comparison of media investments based on media in the first six months of 2020-2021. Let’s start with the television. From last year to this year, the change in television is 54%, as you can see on the far right, growth rates are for the first six months of 2020 and the first six months of 2021. This is 57% on the reported side and 31% on the non-reported side. If we look at the press, the change is not very great. We are talking about a growth of 8. 1%. We see that 8% of this is from the newspaper and 8.1% from the magazine, which is very close. When we look at the outdoor industry, we observe that the change from year to year is 41. 2%, the digital outdoors has grown by 142%, the large area has grown by 81%, and the advertising units have grown by 17%. If we look at the radio, we can say that the change from year to year is 25. 8%. And finally, if we look at digital in terms of with breakdowns, it has a size of 3 billion TL based on impressions or clicks. We see that the video was 2. 17 billion TL, the search engine was 2. 18 billion TL, the advertisement was 85 million, and the others were 440 million TL. We also looked at digital in different dimensions. We see that the share of social media in digital is 28. 1% with 2. 2 billion TL. When we look at the platform type, we observe that mobile has approached 5. 4 billion TL. As native, the share is 3. 3% to 265 million TL, and when we look at the investments according to the way of purchase, we see that the programmatic investments approached 5. 9 billion TL with 74. 5%. And finally, maybe it would be good to look at the mobile and PC ratios. When we look at the platform type, the share of mobile is 68%, and PC is 32%. The proportions are very similar. You can think of it as 2 billion to 1 billion, with both parties having the largest share of impressions in general. You can think of the video industry as 1. 5 billion to 700 million, which we see in the search engine as very close numbers. In other words, we can think that it is equally distributed in the media. Volkan İkiler Thus, we both gave an idea about media investments and compared them. We also felt where the growth trends come from. Now I want to move on to Neslihan. Neslihan has experiences more than one field. She is a professional manager of significant media agencies and a board member of the Interactive Advertisers Association. She is a board member of the Digital Marketing Communication Platform, too. Therefore, having many talents, I wonder what you think, especially from the perspective of advertising agencies, that is, media agencies. If we look at the press, the change is not very great. We are talking about a growth of 8.1%. We see that 8% of this is from the newspaper and 8.1% from the magazine, which is very close. 400 STRATCOM PANEL - 14 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Neslihan Olcay We had a much luckier two years in Türkiye compared to the rest of the world in terms of advertising investments. Based on what dear Hakan has told me here, I can say this clearly. Since 2020, investments in Europe, that is, in the old continent, either have decreased a little or remained the same as in previous years due to the pandemic. However, the opposite has happened in Türkiye and we have been faced with a rapidly growing sector for the last two years. Hakan has already shared the growth of television from year to year. When we compare the first six months, we discuss a 54% growth. Due to the change in methodology in digital, we could not give a year-on-year increase in the report. Still, when we Türkiye and we have been faced with a rapidly growing sector for the last two years. 401 S T R A T C O M P A N E L speak with different segments of this sector, we see a digital growth of around 80% year-on-year in big media agencies and more than 100% in some digital platforms. Now, what effect has this had on our industry? Here, I would like to explain the problem we are experiencing, especially employment. The human resource problems of our industry had already started before the pandemic and before this growth. Why? Because, while we are a sector that mainly recruits students from communication faculties, we faced the need to recruit students from different faculties and expand our human resources as the share of digital in total investments increased. For example, engineers had to come into our lives, especially on the side of media agencies. Otherwise, we would have recruited people from the Fine Arts or Business Administration faculties on the side of advertising agencies and media agencies, apart from communication faculties. Still, we are talking about econometrics students and statistics students in terms of fresh blood in our industry. While there is a human deficit created by the slowly growing digital in our industry, our country is currently facing a severe human resource shortage, as we have developed so fast during the pandemic and we have experienced the investment increase we expected in three to five years, in almost three months. On the one hand, this growth is good, but on the other hand, we are faced with a human resource shortage that will put this growth into operation and put it into practice. Whether you work in an advertising agency or a media agency, this is the case. It applies to all of us, whether you are working on the advertiser or the publisher. Therefore, a solemn responsibility falls on the share of universities here. This is the responsibility of raising human resources ready to work in our sector. What does this mean? A curriculum that focuses more on practice is needed. This applies not only to communication faculties but also to our friends studying in other faculties and departments that can work in our sector, as I mentioned earlier. Universities cooperate a little more with the agency, advertiser, and publisher side of our industry, whether it is a local publisher or a global platform; For example, they need to support the formation of human resources ready to work in the sector by increasing students’ visibility on TV screens and having them make applications. This is because no matter how many training programs we open as an industry, both the Advertising Foundation has programs and the Interactive Advertising Association have serious programs with the Turkish name of IAB. Although the amount of education has increased during the pandemic period, we cannot keep up. Therefore, there are some things to be done by this sector. I’m trying to say it. But I think we need support in terms of human resources to start the business. 402 STRATCOM PANEL - 14 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 If you want to reach a large audience, television is always advantageous. It is a medium where the cost is lower, and you spread awareness very quickly. Volkan İkiler Therefore, this is one of the critical messages: the diversification of the education system for the sector and updating it. The most important message that the pandemic has taught us is an update for all of us, which is called transformation. We call it digital transformation, but the digital transformation has other serious effects. The same is true for advertisers. It is nice that you have pointed that out because the industry needs to do something different. Then, by emphasizing it, we say “education” as the first message. We convey that we are ready to help, support, and share our knowledge under the umbrella of associations and foundations for updating the education system. Now I’m turning to my left. Dear Gökhan Akça, the representative of one of Türkiye’s most important advertisers. He is also the Vice President of the Advertisers Association. How do we evaluate all these results in terms of advertisers? What are the areas of development here? Gökhan Akça Since the market has grown, it is a little more comfortable. It has been a good year in that sense. Even higher growth in media investments will come with the second 6-month report, roughly above 20%. I want to tell a few things together here. How have the habits brought by the pandemic, media consumption, the reaction of the advertiser, and the development in the media been? I will try to explain all of them shortly in the given time. With the pandemic, we were home all the time, and people’s media consumption began to change. We see it in performance reports. There was a serious growth in digital and television last year and this year. There are two reasons for this, from the advertiser’s point of view. Although the digital area is a consumption medium, both consuming content and products, we have started to observe that the expenditures on the television market are increasing for e-commerce users, that is, for everyone who makes money from digital. There are two explanations for this for the advertiser: If you want to reach a large audience, television is always advantageous. It is a medium where the cost is lower, and you spread awareness very quickly. Digital is the complementary part of this. A place where you can sell the products directly and catch the customer. From the advertiser’s perspective, where do the consumer’s footprints go? What does the consumer consume, and where can you show him some products and interact with them simultaneously? From this point of view, it is possible that although the market is growing, there is not a very homogeneous growth. In other words, even though radio, outdoor, cinema, and newspaper grew, especially with 403 S T R A T C O M P A N E L the effect of the period, their shares decreased a little. There are two reasons for this. We are closed at home with the pandemic period. As the streets remained empty, interest in outdoor advertisements decreased. So, the media investments began to decline there. The radio is interesting; the debate has started on whether to listen to it in the car or at home. But in this period, the radio had become a medium that all advertisers should use in this period. Because its range is extensive. It is broadcast 24 hours. And the cost per person is quite affordable. Perhaps the biggest problem here is seen on the newspaper side. Since I’ve been talking about this for a long time, I’m a bit obsessed with this. Newspaper sales are declining. We are a country of 85 million people. We estimate a daily circulation of 1. 7 million. 1. 7 million circulations versus 85 million population. As far as we can follow, there are more than 40 national newspapers in Türkiye, excluding local newspapers. When you look at the circulation and reach, the 404 STRATCOM PANEL - 14 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 When you look at the newspaper websites, you see we have started consuming the newspaper content from there. So newspapers have begun to make money on digital and diversified both on the offline and digital sides. interest in the paper, not the newspaper, started to decrease. However, let’s not forget that some of our content digitally comes from newspapers. In other words, when you look at the newspaper’s websites, you see we have started consuming the newspaper content from there. Newspapers have started to make money on digital and diversified both on the offline side and the digital side. You can witness the same thing in the world. What will happen next? After that, we are probably waiting for this: Hopefully, there will be no shutdown. If we leave aside the economic developments, at least the daily flow will continue as before with certain precautions and protections. Accordingly, media budgets have begun to increase. The English phrase for the situation is “Does media spending still matter?” I answer this as someone representing the advertiser; yes, media spending will continue to be important, contributing, and beneficial. There are two factors for this. During the pandemic period, we saw a significant increase in the number of advertisers. In other words, even local brands have started advertising in the 405 S T R A T C O M P A N E L media. If the consumer no longer comes to you, you must go to the consumer. The only way to overcome this obligation is to use the media to be an advertiser. When we look at it in this sense, many advertisers, from small companies to large ones, have entered the game. The second important factor; e-commerce will seriously continue to use non-digital channels, which we call offline. This will likely continue for at least 2 to 3 more years. Let me give an example. On November 9-10, 60% of daily television advertising production was used by e-commerce companies. This is a fascinating figure. So, the remaining big advertiser has no way of finding a place there. In the past, campaigns such as Valentine’s Day, Black Friday, or 11/11 were made, but now e-commerce companies, where you can find everything, have started to spread it over 12 months. This results in limited advertising space. In other words, advertisement on television is limited, which is determined by RTÜK. Radio is also limited. That’s why you need alternative channels. Advertisers are now starting to use these other channels. Together with the other stakeholders sitting at this table, they spend time creating alternative solutions for the advertiser. I expect a higher increase in media spending next year, introducing these alternative advertising venues. I guess this increase will come from advertisers’ spending getting involved rather than the price increase itself. Volkan İkiler By the way, let me introduce myself. I am Volkan İkiler, the manager of one of Türkiye’s largest independent agencies. I am also the Chairman of the Board of the Advertisers Association. In addition, I am the Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of DPIP (Digital Marketing Communication Platform). I also serve as the managing partner of Yuen Gumon’s board, where we work with a focus on gender equality in advertising. The most important issue for us now is data. If you are aware, even though everything we offer you seems to be part of an emotional industry, everything is indeed data-driven. One of our most important issues was to bring up the research on the contribution of advertising abroad, which we know to be made in England, to the economy. A study had never been done in this context in Türkiye. This year, we worked for a long time and implemented this report for about six months with the help of Sabancı University and a valuable research company. We have published it to the public through the press in the past weeks. Now I’ve been saying digital marketing communication platforms twice. I want to talk a little bit about DPIP what it stands for. We are an organization brought together by four associations that shape the marketing, communication, and advertising industry. These associations are the Advertisers Association, 406 STRATCOM PANEL - 14 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Advertisers Association, IAB, and MMA. If you are aware, we are talking about the culture of coming together, which we have always called a collaboration from the beginning. We attach great importance to this culture because unity is strength. It is much easier to solve our problems together, and we know this very well. The Contribution of Advertising to the Economy Report is the product of just such a union. None of us could have done this if we weren’t together. We are together at DPIP with the World Federation of Advertisers, WFA. We both cooperate, and we work together with the world. They also have a board that I will describe as the “GARM” Global Alliance for Responsible Media. This is also a board we work with. With the development of technology, digital communication, and marketing communication, many terminologies have entered our lives. We are working on preparing the sector for these terminologies, thinking ahead of the sector, determining the needs well, and responding simultaneously. This report showed us that: One of the most important indicators of the report is the conclusion that advertising is a valuable and important sector in Türkiye. I want to underline this once again. Today, many sectors contribute to the economy with their exports. If I ask you the top three sectors that contribute to exports and the Turkish economy, of course, you will not think of advertisements. If I ask the same question for the first 11 sectors, you will not think of advertisement again. We must raise awareness here. This is because, just like in this hall, advertising is, in a sense, the future, the existence, and the guarantee of you, young people. It’s like medicine, like engineering. Do not create a perception as if it does not require special education and skill. Neslihan expressed the importance of this very well. On the other hand, we think that communication is the age profession. According to the report, In the advertising and media investments, which totaled 17 billion 469 million Liras in our country in 2020, each TL of advertising and media investment creates value by providing a 19.4 TL return to the national income. Now I underline this once again. When we are all very sensitive to inflation and economic issues, the fact that one lira creates a value of 19.4 liras seems to be a good investment tool. No investment seems to be profiting this much right now. In other words, what I’m saying is that advertising and media investments contributed 6.73% to 340 billion TL directly or indirectly to the economy in 2020. Again, thanks to this report, it has been proven that the interaction between the advertising sector, which is affected by the current economic size and macroeconomic expectations, and economic growth is bilateral. What do I mean by this more precisely? If the economy grows, the advertising industry grows, and if the advertising industry grows, the economy grows. According to the modeling data, the contribution of The most critical issue for us now is data. If you are aware, even though everything we offer you seems to be part of an emotional industry, everything is indeed data-driven. 407 S T R A T C O M P A N E L advertising and media investments to the gross domestic product in Türkiye was 6. 24 on average between 2012 and 2020. When we look at it over the years, the bar follows a constantly rising trend. In other words, this is not only an indicator of media investments, as our beloved Deloitte, Neslihan, and Gökhan have explained, but also constitutes a significant value for employment and economic indicators, and this shows an increasing trend. One of the most discussed topics today is employment. When we look at opening new employment areas and expanding existing employment areas suitable for development, the advertising sector seems to be a beautiful center again. As you know very well, million-dollar investments are required to expand the number of employments in certain fields. In other words, today, to open a third automobile factory or expand employment, some brands operating in commercial activities need to invest heavily. We move forward in the advertising industry by investing in people and creating value. As I think, especially in Türkiye, young people are very creative. They have serious confidence in the propositions they offer. Imagine there is a profession where 408 STRATCOM PANEL - 14 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 you can use your creativity. Consider that talent is about creativity, and that can create employment. According to 2020 TUIK data, It is seen that 602,704 people out of a total of 26. Eight million people employed, with 2.25%, are supported by advertising and media investment growth. I would like you to think about their families and their environment, so think about the benefits of this employment. As communicators, we always look at the content we are in when doing competitive analysis and strategies for brands. But of course, competition cannot be limited to Türkiye only. We look at the world. We will analyze the situation there. Now I will pass on the data about it to you. While the situation in Türkiye is like this, let’s see where we are in the world when talking about a sector with very high potential and growth trends. Among 38 countries with annual media investments of more than 1 billion dollars, Türkiye is the 31st market globally in terms of media investments. It is a pathetic figure for me, as a person doing this job, like everyone else in this hall, living in this country and planning their future. It hurts me because we do not deserve the 31st place as a country that is so ambitious, assertive, and acts without leaving unity and integrity even under the most difficult conditions. Türkiye’s share in the total advertising volume is only 0. 33%, which is almost nothing. This ratio is the lowest among the 38 largest markets. One of the most important issues in communication is to make comparisons so that you understand the seriousness of the situation more. Do you know what these numbers tell us? Countries with a less powerful population and economy are ahead of us. Therefore, when population and potential are essential data today, Türkiye does not deserve this situation. There is a way to achieve more here, and I repeat, there are teams that will evaluate this potential, working just for this. According to the result of the report here, there is a prediction that the potential can increase 2. 5 times in the first years. In other words, we can increase an existing potential by 2. 5 times with certain small actions. I may have spoken on many platforms today, but this is how I evaluate this platform. First, a very global platform was created, and a very broad platform was provided for participation. That’s why support and incentives are important while I’m here. Especially when we look abroad, when we follow certain countries, life can be much easier if support and encouragement are given to this union, to the culture of working together. I want to propose here. Let’s connect the results of everything so that we don’t leave without explaining why we want the support and encouragement. We envision a roadmap as follows. You all know that there is a concept called 4P in marketing. Without 4P, nothing happens anyway. If one of them is missing, you are not doing the right marketing. The economy, the world, life, and technology have improved 409 S T R A T C O M P A N E L a lot, but the 4P has not changed. It always revolves around it. With this report, we created a concept called 4İ. 4İ is already the result of the concepts that the report pointed to us. What are these İ’s? One is innovation, the other is exports, the other is employment, and the last is reputation. I will talk a little bit about these. What is innovation? Innovation is the structure that sits at the center of digital transformation today. But I don’t want you to take it that way. So, let’s say we made an innovation. There is, of course, a new element in it, but innovation is also a culture today. Countries that inject innovation into their culture can be successful, like India. Look, there are CEOs of Indian origin at the head of all the world’s giant companies today. They are very determined, work hard, and plan the competitive environment well. Therefore, it is a structure that created that culture in one way or another. Here, the culture of innovation contributes to communication, including the brands; If you have an innovative idea, it becomes a proposition worth advertising. In addition, innovation employs young people. It makes their voices heard. The most important issue for young people today is to make their voices heard, and innovation is not actually “Oh my God, I’ve done five, and I’m done.” maybe he will make 100 and be successful in one of them. In other words, it brings the culture of not giving up, standing behind it, and chasing it. This is what I mean by culture. Therefore, it is crucial that advertising communication and marketing communication be present and represented on every issue our government is talking about today. Their views are expressed here as well. As we all see, export is the most important thing we always talk about. If Türkiye were a hub, it could be a hub for anything. However, we think that we should not miss the opportunity of a communication hub. When we look at our geography today, Tunisia, South Africa, and Egypt have taken action on this issue. Neslihan said directly about the development of education systems in these countries. It draws a lot of attention. In other words, don’t we have more updated, more contemporary university structures? We have it, but they must continue with today’s current communication modules. The people coming from those old-fashioned universities have to be re-educated because they are not up to date. However, suppose systems that will create this actuality can be established within the education process, hand in hand, by including professional life. In that case, education life will be enjoyable and more meaningful. Their job opportunities will arise in the second or third year of education life as no one wants to miss the bright, ambitious students who stand behind their work. These people receive offers from both agencies and advertisers. I want to underline this point as well. So, we have solutions here too. Let’s move together. Education 410 STRATCOM PANEL - 14 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 should not be the responsibility of only one institution or the state. We can improve it together. Another issue is employment. Neslihan already told it very well. “The youth” issue. No more words are needed here. Another issue is reputation. In today’s advertising industry, all these efforts are actually to increase prestige. As long as there is reputation, there is enthusiasm. I’m not saying the industry is disreputable. I say that the importance of the sector needs to be increased. Unfortunately, our society also associates the industry with screenwriting. We see it on social media. When a campaign makes a commercial mistake, suddenly it becomes the trending topic. Everyone advertises, and everyone knows how to comment on the advertisement. Lovely. But not everyone goes deep into it. On the one hand, it should be understood that this sector is deepening, that it is a deep sector, that it is a data-based sector, and that it is a severe ecosystem. When we say the advertising industry, we do not only represent advertising agencies here. Production companies, research companies, PR companies that make up the ecosystem, even TV series are suddenly associated with this place. The media relates here. Who will invest money in those advertising slots if this structure does not produce? So what content are we going to give, more precisely? So, we are a vast ecosystem. We need to understand the power of this ecosystem well. Last word: we will continue explaining media investments and announcing this economic report. We will not give up; we will not stop. Hopefully, we will do our best to increase further this sector’s contribution to our economy and our country. 411 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 15 Future of Creative Industries 412 STRATCOM PANEL - 15 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Future Of Creative Industries 12 December 2021 • Alemşah Öztürk CEO of AKQA Group Türkiye / Ogilvy&Grey - Türkiye • İlkay Gürpınar Chief Creative Officer - TBWA\Istanbul - Türkiye • Burcu Özdemir CEO of TBWA - Türkiye • Birçim Öztaşkın Chief Business Officer of Publicis Groupe Türkiye - Türkiye • Rafet Fatih Özgür Advertising Manager at Turkish Airlines - Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 413 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 15 We are now moving to a world where we talk about metaverses, not just digital transformation and, more importantly, a planet that we call platforms. Burcu Özdemir Today we will talk a little about the future of communication. How are the creative industries transforming? Our distinguished speakers are among us. With the inspiration we will get from them, perhaps we will know more about how to direct our business and our industry in the coming period. Let me start with the first question if you wish. I want to ask the first question to Birçim. You represent an international communication group, Birçim. You have been in this industry for many years. In your opinion, what kind of future awaits us in that world of communications holdings, such as the Publicis, WPPs, Omnicom’s? They are very static structures. However, it is also those basic, static structures that need to be transformed. How do you see the state of the holdings? 414 STRATCOM PANEL - 15 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Birçim Öztaşkın It started to transform a bit. When we look at it, we talk about a world where even the transformation is transforming rapidly. Specific changes had begun before the pandemic. I think we weren’t paying enough attention, we didn’t care, but with the pandemic, it became inevitable. In the meantime, we are now moving to a world where we talk about metaverses, not just digital transformation, and more importantly, a planet that we call platforms. When we look at it this way, brands evolve, everyone evolves, and even consumer people evolve; I think we, the agencies, have a lot of responsibility. I think of it as a throwback, back to ourselves. In a world where agency names are no longer necessary, brands are getting more robust, and our services to brands are differentiated. You know, looking at marketing a little more holistically, we would call back to basics without specializations. Today, “If you need social media, we have this social media agency.” or “If you want traditional, that’s better.” I think about how to serve the brand in a world where conversations like these have disappeared recently. We shouldn’t call ourselves advertising agencies anymore because we have become solemn marketing agencies. We also plan the entire journey of brands from A to Z. We are now seeing the reflections of extensive holdings that have started to evolve globally in Türkiye. We are moving towards an understanding that puts the brand at the center, gathers all kinds of talents around it, and thus transforms us into more hybrid people. I think it’s going to accelerate. Of course, although agency names will be essential for us, I think what you do, how you serve, how you will become more critical. It is a structure with more unity, not solo movements. Recent developments show that this is going fast in all groups. Rafet Fatih Özgür On the other hand, I also think that we always talk about the companies that a few have carried. I think we will have such star players moving those companies in our lives. Under them, maybe freelance. Maybe we will establish teams with different working systems in half the time, and a future awaits us where we need to be a little more flexible and their holdings. Even though they are listed on the stock market, they will have to find other ways to get those numbers. Burcu Özdemir Yes, we were chatting with you before, Alemşah. I also know that there are such good initiatives in particular. You work in several fields. The agency is on the one 415 S T R A T C O M P A N E L side, the cryptos are on the other, and you’re doing something with NFTs. You are one industry leader who has experienced that digital transformation very closely. So how do you see this trend? In other words, how will the industry transform, how will the talent transformation be, what kind of an opening would you like to show to new communicators and advertisers? Alemşah Öztürk Advertising has now turned from selling something on its own or explaining the characteristics of a brand to providing a brand’s experience. Because some of the big brands in our lives today don’t have the hardware, it’s not a shoe you wear or something you use; maybe Spotify is one of our favorite brands. We live this whole brand through just one app. That’s why I think one of the most critical things today is an experience—experiencing design. When it comes to experience design, it also means the creation of a physical store. But on the other hand, a digital Spotify experience is also a part of that experience. When we entered the worlds of virtual reality, augmented reality, which we call Advertising has now turned from selling something on its own or explaining the characteristics of a brand to providing a brand’s experience. 416 STRATCOM PANEL - 15 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 this metaverse, Bill Gates had a statement yesterday. He says that all meetings will be held from the metaverse in two years. This is what it means. In two years, the speed of the internet worldwide will be enough for people to send data to each other comfortably with three-dimensional videos or three-dimensional models of each other and their photorealistic versions. In other words, there will be internet everywhere, the devices we will use for this kind of high-quality experience will be very cheap, and the technology will be ready. This brings the story to the occasions like Travis Scott’s concert at Fortnight. For example, there is a very famous Korean group called BTS. Due to Covid, they recently held an online show. You buy tickets through a website with a digital concert ticket. It was around $20, and when I checked, 4 million people were watching the concert live. 4 million people. Usually, no stadium can accommodate 4 million people. Therefore, the fact that this live broadcast is happening and that it is watched live worldwide creates new business models. 417 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Burcu Özdemir Travis Scott’s has reached 30 million unique viewers. They take it in the form of 15,000 slots. Thirty million is unbelievable. Alemşah Öztürk Exactly. That’s why I think the place where this business is going is completely digital experiences, new technologies, and new perspectives that will construct these digital experiences. Considering this reflection on our side, the diversity of the people we employ will increase. What does it mean? For example, what was it like when advertising started? There was an author, an art director, and a client. This was the core team. Then production joined it, then X joined, then Y joined. But typically, the idea was found, the script was written, the visual was made, shot, and finished. Then, social media, websites, apps, games, many other things came into play, but the point we come to today will get more complicated. For example, when you want a metaverse, you need someone who understands blockchain. It would help if you had someone to do 3D modeling. You need someone to code it in that sandbox. The spectrum of people working in an agency or working in such structures, working in the creative industry, has expanded with the need for influencers and social media people. It is currently impossible to create a new generation idea without a software developer. A creative agency that does not know 3D or 2D animation lacks a massive chunk of its requirements. So, the amount of talent we need to train has changed, or the type of talent has changed. This allows the creation of much more complex and much more beautiful things. For example, Adidas had a statement recently; they said they entered the metaverse and then like a bored ape or something. Here, too, brands are a little more cautious than everyone else. Here is the reason why. Today, we talk about metaverse as the keyword, those 3D people you always see in commercials, some pixels are walking around in spaces. That is Sandbox. The sandbox alpha was released last week, and the beta will be out in March. No other platforms, but everyone has been preparing for it for a year. After the sandbox is out and widespread, we will start to experience the metaverse within ourselves. What is the most important thing for a brand? I need to be able to reach all my consumers from any channel. If you are the global CEO of Coca-Cola and Pepsi, your problem is how can I reach 95% of the population? New concepts like these are still very fresh for this brand because it reaches tiny audiences. But it is also essential to show that they are pioneers. When you want a metaverse, you need someone who understands blockchain. It would help if you had someone to do 3D modeling and code it in that sandbox. 418 STRATCOM PANEL - 15 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 For this reason, I think that advertising will shift to these new channels in the coming period. It’s called experimentation and leadership. But on the other hand, I believe there is an unchanging reality of the creative industries. That’s the adjective at the beginning of the step creativity. In a world where there are so many technologies, platforms, and tools, creativity is the most important thing. Because the muscle we will need the most to use all these tools and to get something out of them is creativity. That’s why I think we have entered an outstanding period for creativity. Our weapons have increased. We have much more weapons. The number of platforms has increased. The variety of things we can do has increased. So, the number of possible combinations has increased. And on the other hand, if you look at it from a consumer perspective, there are too many channels and content. He is not sure which one to look at and which one to watch. So, creativity is also required to stand out from all of these. Burcu Özdemir That’s right. That means creativity and idea will continue to sell at a premium. In a world where there are so many technologies, platforms, and tools, creativity is the most important thing. 419 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Alemşah Öztürk I think we are entering the best period of creativity. Burcu Özdemir I also agree with you. I think the transformation of the sector will take us to another place. I will ask you a little later, Birçim, this is its economic contribution, but before that, creativity has another opening. I will ask Ilkay about him. Storytelling. Telling good stories is the best thing we humans have ever done. People who tell good stories always create a space for themselves in this society, in the community. But, Ilkay, I know you’re sensitive about this too, don’t create stories and concepts that have a lot to tell in storytelling. What do you think, Ilkay? What will the future of storytelling be like? What will the venue be? What will the target audience be? İlkay Gürpınar Today we are talking about how everything evolves rapidly. How fast our lives are changing, especially the issues that Alemşah discusses. But there is one thing that will not change: storytelling. So, we will all continue to pursue good stories. Why is that? Because we are all trying to find insights that appeal to human nature. I started this business in 1999. We have seen many things over the years; different things have entered our lives. What have we experienced together in the last two years? You might wonder if the way we work and practice has changed; in other words, you might wonder if a good idea finder, pen, and paper, understanding the idea and human nature or how to appeal, find a way to the heart and brain have changed. This does not change. So, it resembles this: How did we listen to the story in the past? Before going to sleep, we used to go to the television, remember if it was 8 o’clock, we used to listen to the story by Adile Naşit and go to sleep. Let me give an example now. In the same way, human beings want to hear that story again before bedtime. But how is it? A project of TBWA Paris is one that I like very much. They made a wallpaper for a wallpaper company. You hold your phone to the wallpaper as a parent while putting your child to sleep. He begins to tell the stories of the shapes on the wallpaper. So the child is looking at that wallpaper while he falls asleep there. He hears the story; he hears the voice. Many elements take place at the head of his bed uniquely. So that’s exactly what happened. The business is changing. But that storytelling doesn’t change. Or at work, I watched the movie Dune two nights ago. It’s a great new generation movie. There’s the spice issue. It reminded me of a fairy tale. In 420 STRATCOM PANEL - 15 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Human beings were originally designed to understand stories, not logic. We have all experienced it, especially during the pandemic period. the stories of one thousand and one night, you remember that story; he asks his sons how much they love him. One son says he loves his father as much as salt. He sends him into exile, although the salt comes out as the essential thing. This is also the case with the latest generation film in Dune. Humanity’s pursuit of spice. In other words, as I said, the story elements and the things that affect people and go to their souls and hearts do not change. But what is changing? The format. The places we put it. And a little more, I guess, the story used to come to us, but now we can go search for it. We can find our own unique story. I think this search system creates different habits. We see how everything is a story now. Very fast, easily consumed, simple, and slightly more visual stories that everyone understands very clearly. In other words, we are in an era where visuality is more prominent than ever before. I think that those who succeed in creating such stories can enter hearts in a much shorter way. Burcu Özdemir Yes, that’s right. You look back, talking about that metaverse that started with Snow Crash, those futuristic novels, then movies, Matrixes, Avatars. Now there are a lot of new ventures today. I would like to ask Mr. Rafet how this storytelling reflects on the brand side. You are doing precious work. You are undertaking international projects that we are proud of. How will brands transform this storytelling in the future with your eyes? Of course, brand channels change, techniques change, but how will storytelling survive through the eyes of brands? Rafet Fatih Özgür First of all, we have to start with the story. The word’s meaning is a verbal and written explanation of an event. So why is it so important to us? Here’s a good description of storytelling from cognitive psychologist Robert Shank that I love. Human beings were originally designed to understand stories, not logic. We have all experienced it, especially during the pandemic period. İlkay also spoke very well, thank you. In other words, we all went on the hunt for good stories on TV, mobile, digital content platforms, and social media at our homes. Because let’s face it, a good story has been beneficial for us. In a sense, it is a consumption need like eating and drinking. How aware are we of this? In addition to the impact of stories in terms of marketing communication for all creative industry stakeholders, it even has a physical, mental, and chemical effect. To briefly talk about its chemical impact, when you encounter a good story, your body first releases the hormone cortisone. It’s a stress hormone, but it’s nothing to worry about. Thanks to this 421 S T R A T C O M P A N E L stress hormone, you focus on the story and increase your awareness of the story. Subsequently, the hormone oxytocin begins to grow in our bodies. This allows you to empathize with the hero of the story. So you start to get into the story more and more, and the story’s impact starts to rise. Finally, towards the end of the story, dopamine is released together with our reward mechanism, and here comes that moment of happiness, where the story gives pleasure and satisfaction. Even chemically, the story has a counterpart. We, as brands, aspire to your most precious values with stories, whether they are to inform, entertain or relate to a different communication goal. What is this? Your attention and your time. This is becoming a more critical challenge day by day—another reason for trying to persuade for the narration and importance of the story. There is a process in which we need to have some empathy for our colleagues and business partners that I enjoy being with on this platform today. As brands, the primary expectation from our business partners is that they understand the brand’s marketing objectives very well and act like brand representatives from time to time. True, but somewhat lacking. At this point, maybe we should be able to communicate and empathize with our business partners and agencies in the art of storytelling and subject 422 STRATCOM PANEL - 15 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 headings such as creative design thinking, at a point where we need to understand and empathize together and our sales and performance targets. In other words, from the moment the client presents the brief in the first formation of an idea, what does the strategy team pay attention to when determining the foundations of this idea, how does it evolve on the copyright side and the copywriting side? What is the experience level of this job? Alemşah talked a little bit. There are not only production and its processes, but also digital experience processes besides this conventional one. There should be an idea on the brand side about all these processes. We need to make more effort not only to be understood but also to understand. Because basically, the goals of both teams are the same to reveal the value of your precious time and attention. I want to give a little data about it. Today, there is the World Federation of Advertisers, of which representatives of essential brands around the world are members. In a survey conducted by this federation last year, brand representations worldwide answered as follows. 57% of the participants said that brands offer in-house solutions within their structure, and 17% said they are considering implementing in-house agency solutions. What does this mean? Three-quarters of the average brand universe is ready to empathize with their business partners in many creative processes such as content production and planning. I think this is an excellent value for the future of the industry. Finally, I would like to talk about Turkish Airlines briefly. Today, we are one of the airlines that flies to most countries by connecting to 127 countries. It is an excellent asset for us to define network capability, yes. But this is more than just a functional benefit, providing 127 different connections from point A to point B. As we talked today, İlkay also spoke about the perspective of storytelling. If we think from a story perspective, we may be the world’s most excellent storyteller in the aviation industry today because we are the stakeholders of thousands and millions of different journey stories from 127 other countries. These journeys have many different stories of reunion, longing, joy, happiness, and sadness. As Turkish Airlines, we are at the center of this. For this reason, being a part of millions of stories is as valuable to us as connecting to those countries. This is a reason to thank you and an excellent impetus for telling a good story. Burcu Özdemir You expressed it very well, Rafet. I hope we have many stories to tell. It happens a lot on behalf of our country; it is a great pride. Because we live in lands where a great culture is already formed, I think it is essential to reach so many countries 423 S T R A T C O M P A N E L from the lands that keep this culture alive and tell these stories. Of course, when you look at these viewing rates, we experienced a severe increase in these VODs on television, digital platforms, and with the pandemic. I hope you might want to undertake projects such as telling these stories more there in the future. Well, Alemşah, I am back to you. I’ll ask them the first question of the second round you. We now know how knowledgeable, talented, and equipped you are on the technical side, but there is something we still do not know. How do we combine this traditional world with this virtual world? Now we are used to making 30-second ads. We talked about putting it digitally, let’s do it all, but there is a situation that needs to be considered a little above the media. We checked the data, and we came across the metaverse. How do we get there, and how do we integrate as communicators? Alemşah Öztürk As the creators here, we must first use these platforms ourselves and understand the opportunities these platforms bring. Because usually, the creative process goes something like this; Everyone is looking at a tree. You are looking at that tree from where everyone else is looking at first. Then you try to look elsewhere. Then As the creators here, we must first use these platforms ourselves and understand the opportunities these platforms bring. 424 STRATCOM PANEL - 15 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 you try to look from a place where no one is looking. You find it, then what you find is not enough; you try to explain what you see well. So now it has multiple stages. But the first stage is to be looking at that tree; the tree everyone is looking at. Therefore, if the metaverse is being talked about today, we, as human beings, must be involved in the creative processes and see what works and what does not. For example, we’ve been talking about storytelling for the last 20 minutes, storytelling. I even wrote an article about it recently. There, I spoke of a new concept. It’s story-living, not storytelling. That is, creating living stories. So now, the storytelling and creativity so far are about delivering a finished product. What does that mean? A movie is a finished product. You are offering something manufactured. Live broadcast, for example, is a different version of it. In a live broadcast, the story occurs at that moment; it occurs in that second. That’s why storytelling in live broadcasts has to be done entirely differently. Because you do not have the possibility of planning or it is limited to a certain extent. But now, in 425 S T R A T C O M P A N E L the world we come to, we can create living stories together with the metaverse. What does this mean? It’s like the Travis Scott concert we just talked about. Inside Fortnite, people are flying. Giant Travis Scott walks. Stars are pouring from the sky. You can design it, make people experience it, and still manage and change that experience while those people have that experience. Now technology allows it. And because such a thing happens, there will be new forms of storytelling and new forms of advertising, which we never thought of today. If you want to understand the metaverse in ready player one, I think the best movie or book you can read or watch is ready player one. I like one idea there, and I think it’s a great start-up idea. To solve one of the puzzles, some part of Friends needs to be revived. But with holograms. Think of Friends; they are hanging out at the cafe, and there is a quarrel between them, or you become the characters in those four as holograms. So, it reflects you as a hologram on you, and when it’s your turn, you have to imitate Ross with Ross’s voice, and you have to say the dialogue there precisely. If everyone says the dialogue one-to-one, you pass the competition. You’re past that part. It turns out that everyone is genuinely a super Friends fan. For example, this is a fantastic start-up idea. You are playing the most romantic scene in your favorite movie with your lover or spouse. So now the new world is such a place, and creativity is changing in the new world. So maybe we won’t be shooting movies anymore; we’re going to let people experience virtual reality versions of them. Perhaps sharing a brand will not be watching his film but going into his clothes in the metaverse and attending his events. That’s why I think we are moving towards a more lively world, more interactive, lived in the moment, and even finds its interactivity within itself, rather than recorded storytelling or a recorded experience. This will change how brands express themselves. Because, as I said, maybe 20 years from now, Adidas or Nike will only earn money from virtual shoes, much more than they make from real shoes. Burcu Özdemir Let me open a good parenthesis here. They looked at how creative industries are growing. The music industry is worth 30 billion dollars, the games sold now, that world has become 54 billion dollars. It is already past at this point. Alemşah Öztürk Of course, let me give an example from NFT. The NFT market is now $9 trillion in 6 months. NFT turned into a 9 trillion dollar business in 6 months. So now 426 STRATCOM PANEL - 15 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 the new world is moving much faster, growing much more quickly. There are too many tools. We will hear virtual reality and augmented reality words a lot in the coming period. What does that mean? Technology now has a chance to put a separate layer of reality on top of our existing reality. In the next ten years, this will become very standardized. This brings completely new opportunities for a brand to establish a relationship with a consumer. Here is research: Seeing a brand advertisement in the games makes the user feel that the game is more realistic. Therefore, when a player sees a game character wearing an Adidas logo outfit, not Adidas, it brings him closer to the real world. Because it is so, the real actions of real brands in these virtual worlds increase the reality of that platform even more for the user. This brings us the opportunity to create a new generation experience that we have never seen before. Because why? Although these target audiences are in very different parts of the world, maybe not all can go to a cinema because they do not have money. But all of them will be able to enter that virtual world from their mobile phone or computer. This brings equality. In other words, although some experiences or products created by brands are at more premium prices since the price or background has a different concept in the virtual world, a brand can create a similar experience for its users worldwide. It’s a very holistic thing. I think that’s one of the good things about technology. When we add the power of that creativity to leave beautiful experiences and beautiful traces with it, we enter a period where brands do not tell stories to users but engrave very different things into their brains with the stories they make them live. Burcu Özdemir I think our minds become more apparent as we talk and listen. A friend of mine told me yesterday. His son is a 10-11-year-old boy. You know that generation which ignores what he’s wearing and wears the same t-shirt for ten days. But when it comes to the game, it’s equalizing, showing yourself differently, moving on to another parallel life. For example, he spends 50 TL to change his costume or game skin every week. Therefore, we need to look at it from a different perspective. So that tree is standing there, but as you said, it’s time to look at that tree from points that have never been seen. It’s essential, and it will affect the economy a lot. Now Birçim, I turn to you. This is a money-making business, so where is the industry running? Okay, we mentioned where the creativity is going. There is a remarkable transformation. We talked about the effect of advertising on the sector and our industry. We also made a new statement and even published research in the association. How do you think our contribution to this economy will increase? We interact everywhere. With Gaming, we put branded content 427 S T R A T C O M P A N E L there through VODs. So, where do you think we’re going to get hold of this while this economy grows like this? Birçim Öztaşkın I see three dimensions here. The first dimension is; right now, there is a brand- new story called entrepreneurship. It has been around for a long time, but I think something significant has just entered our plan and that we have gradually noticed in the last year. Therefore, we are in a period where new ideas come to life, come to life, find their return, and find investors very fast. But I also think that the creative industry, that is, our industry, is vital for that brand to be born healthy, to progress healthily, to tell its consumers correctly, and to take its place in the competition because we see that everything that is a healthy birth from the beginning is also growing. Of course, this is mutually related to the person’s 428 STRATCOM PANEL - 15 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 ideas who created it, but I think our contribution is excellent. Therefore, I believe there is a great need for our industry in a process where there are not so many brands as big monopoly brands as before, but small brands are on our agenda now. As I said, I do not only look at the advertising dimension; I also look at the marketing dimension. We’ve been talking about another issue since. We say that the channels have become too many. Today, yes, television commercials are the thing we see the most, but when we all go to Instagram, five people see different advertisements when you look at them. Therefore, there is visible communication, and there is communication that we experience very individually. There is a greater need for talents like us due to the proliferation of channels, more technical communication, and a more personalized journey. Again, as Ilkay and Alemşah have stated, it will be something that we hybridize with the abilities that we have changed or add different talents to us, not just with the familiar roles. Therefore, when we talk about the consumer journey of so many channels and transportation, our contribution to it is enormous, especially in an era that we had. 2t seen coming before. The third issue, we’ve been talking about the story all along; we’re talking about creativity. The world of content is everything right now. So, consequently, today Netflix, when you look at the content produced there, something that comes out on Spotify, we are talking about Travis Scott, like the one in Fortnite or a perfect TV movie. So, therefore, at a point where the content wins and even the production of content are not only in the hands of the advertisers but also where there is a lot of creativity or influencers, I think it is also important for us to produce quality content, which is the basis of this industry. On the other hand, there is a lot of competition. Therefore, to stand out from the competition, it is necessary to make that creativity and that difference speak. When I look at all these, I think that the importance of our sector is gaining more and more importance day by day because we need talents like us to differentiate and get ahead. If the advertising industry grows, the economy grows; if the economy grows, the advertising industry grows. Looking at the data announced by the association, I believe that our role will increase as we move to a world where differentiation, creativity, and talent are increasingly spoken. Burcu Özdemir I agree. For example, as an agency, we have recruited good people for the last two years to create profound expertise on content creation. For instance, we designed a competition program for a traditional channel and wrote its content. We did this for one of our brands. Now it will be broadcast as usual ten-episode 429 S T R A T C O M P A N E L content. I think it’s an excellent example of how we can improve our talent. We need to do more of these things. I always believe that too. Creative minds can make the world a better place. That’s why we are entering a process where we need to work harder. We are entering a period when our influence will increase even more. I believe it. Well, Rafet, I will come back to you at this point. We are in such a rapid transformation from the perspective of brands. The topics such as gaming and metaverses how do you position and see this transformation on the front of brands? Rafet Fatih Özgür I want to start with this. Again, from the level of the story, İlkay, Alemşah, and Birçim also expressed it very well. I think Seth Godin has a good saying that still holds. “Marketing isn’t about the work you produce or sell; it’s about the work you tell.” Alemşah also mentioned it becomes more valuable to continue the Creative minds can make the world a better place. 430 STRATCOM PANEL - 15 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 work in terms of experience, not just narration. At this point, the future naturally continues to offer us new opportunities and possibilities. We’re talking about data-centric creativity, how story and content can tell, and machine learning. Here, digital experience processes are always in our lives. Now the topic of NFT, the issue of the metaverse, is fascinating. All of these constitute a tool for us to tell a better story. It diversifies our portfolio for the brand’s goals and audiences, and it’s an exciting process for storytelling. Developing and adapting to innovation is as valuable for brands as for individuals. Because as long as you make this adaptation, your story is more meaningful and more effective. I want to say that an idea does not necessarily have to include the latest technological innovation. If this idea can benefit the brand and its environment, maybe the individual, and if good technology allows it to be done, I think this is a nice balance and very valuable in terms of storytelling. I want to give a concise example regarding this. Unfortunately, we were at home during the Turkish Airlines’ April 23 National Sovereignty and Children’s Day, during the fight against the pandemic. We all had to stay at home at a time when we would celebrate with a great enthusiasm with Turkish flags. We realized a particular flight when we thought about how we could turn this experience, the celebration experience, the pride and happiness of carrying this flag into an adventure. We collaborated with Flightradar on the digital platform. In this particular flight, we created a route to the very center of Türkiye that will form the world’s most enormous flag, and when this plane completed this route, a Crescent Moon appeared. On this flight, 195 thousand people became a part of that experience alive and carried that flag to the sky. This was the most followed flight on Flightradar worldwide and simultaneously the most significant flag work ever prepared globally. It is precious to live this experience and be a part of it. But is storytelling alone enough? I want to give some data on this. We all know about Wetransfer. It is one of the platforms we use to transfer this industry, especially data sharing. A survey was conducted with 10 thousand people, and this research is mainly within the scope of brand and agency employees. Today’s definition of good work, when we say good job, reliable, respected definitions are above the award-winning, unconventional definitions. Now, when we look at the Z generation perspective, the same research says: While the Z generation’s support and participation rate on social responsibility and sustainable future issues is 58%, 75% of the participants expect brands to be more determined this issue. They want to hear brands lead or have tangible contributions as platforms. There is data to support this; in research conducted by the International Advertisers Association, there is data on brand collaborations of brand representatives worldwide. 85% say 431 S T R A T C O M P A N E L that brand collaborations should offer an innovative approach for a sustainable future. This is so precious. Now we have to tell not only a story but also offer a contribution and a benefit. So, now we need to take the power of the story with us and focus more on what we can do together as all creative industry stakeholders for the society, the environment, the individual, and a sustainable future. We can start this process by allocating time for this plan in the agenda of each of us. Finally, I have always tried to tell this journey in the center of the power of the story. We also talked about its importance for brands, but there is perhaps one last thing we forgot. The people we work with. And whatever this future may be, its impact is always precious. Every good story, content, movie has a credits section at the end, and that credits section starts with the story’s heroes first. We can talk about these stories here today and share them on this platform, thanks to the talented and good people I work with. While everyone else is here, we have friends from our team here; I would like to thank the entire advertising team for accompanying them on this journey and adding value. Burcu Özdemir You’re welcome. We thank you for giving us the opportunity. We also did some delightful things together. I hope we will do more. We would love to do good works like this that are more innovative and have a story to talk about. As you said, the interaction of people in this creative industry is also significant and will become even more critical. Here, too, I would like to direct our last question to İlkay. When it comes to these industries, many talents work together. In fact, besides being the quality director, you are also the creative director of a magazine at 212 Magazine. How will this interdisciplinary transition be? Why did you start doing that job, and do you think this interaction will increase in the coming period? İlkay Gürpınar Yes, 212 magazine is a culture and art magazine that is published every six months all over the world. It has been influential in choosing this profession, namely creativity, a field that does not have patterns. I don’t think any of us should stereotype ourselves. Here I am a copywriter; there is no such thing as a copywriter. But, of course, I strongly believe in specializing in certain subjects; you cannot make this interdisciplinary transition without knowing anything. It is necessary to reach a certain level of knowledge, culture, and enthusiasm. But after achieving it, we can all make specific transitions in every field. That’s photography, 432 STRATCOM PANEL - 15 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 film, fashion, styling, or digital. These are all areas that interact with each other anyway, and it’s so fun and nice to make these transitions. I think this is the part that feeds us. We worry about what will happen to our children or what they will become in the future. I have two daughters; they come to me every day and say, “Mother, I will become this or that.” For the future, perhaps the most correct answer to the question of what should I be, mother, actually is; It’s essential to be yourself. In other words, it is necessary to be yourself no matter what you are, to have a job where you can reflect what you have inside, understand yourself, turn towards your abilities, reflect on it and make yourself talk. Because, of course, techniques are essential, developments in the digital world are significant, but let’s not forget that these are things that seem like ideas at the moment. They will be generic and technical very soon, so everything will become technical in that respect, and personalities who can always be themselves in those new techniques will come to the forefront. In this respect, I think that we will be able to exist in these technological worlds without losing our personalities, and we will see a world where they will get rid of them in the future. Burcu Özdemir Hopefully, our children will have the opportunity to live in a world where they will find themselves and their talents. We will also provide an environment for this. 433 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 16 Media Planning in Strategic Communication 434 STRATCOM PANEL - 16 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Media Planning in Strategic Communication 12 December 2021 • Ömer Erdem Publisher of Campaign Türkiye - Türkiye • Nüzhet Algüneş CEO at OMD Türkiye - Türkiye • İnanç Dedebaş CEO of Publicis Groupe Türkiye - Türkiye • Özlem Ergazi CSO of MediaCom Türkiye - Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 435 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 16 The word we will hear the most next year will be “super app.” In other words, the applications we call super applications are a prevalent subject both in the USA and in our country. Ömer Erdem The main subject of today’s panel is that we come together with big organizations and their prominent branch managers in Türkiye who correctly plan dozens of different creative works or communication studies, thinking about how to prepare when, where, to whom, how, and on what budget in an optimum way, to deliver the right message to the right target audience by bringing the customers, media, and brands together. I want to invite everyone with your permission. The CEO of OMD Türkiye, Nüzhet Algüneş is our first speaker. Dear İnanç Dedebaş in the CEO of Publicis Groupe Türkiye. Today, we experienced an event that explained what pandemic conditions are brought to our lives and how they affected everyday life. Dear Özlem Ergazi, Chief Executive Officer of GroupM media services, could not be here since she has been in contact with someone with covid, she will attend 436 STRATCOM PANEL - 16 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 online. As I mentioned in the introduction, these media planning companies are the Türkiye branches of the extensive network organizations in the World. Indeed, in terms of their starting points and establishment purposes, these structures have emerged over how those big brands can manage their global budgets. There is so much to talk about on this topic, but our main plan today is to focus on specific messages. You know Vala Afshar overloaded us with information. He spoke of essential details about serious concepts, new developments and technological advancements, and what they add to our lives. So how do we bring this information and these developments into our lives, consumers’ and brands’ life? We will now try to understand and go into a little more detail with our esteemed guests, accompanied by questions and answers. Dear Nüzhet, my first question is to you. Technological developments continue at an incredible pace. In other words, it is almost impossible for us to learn, follow and adapt these concepts to our lives, but this is your job. How long will these incredibly rapid developments continue to change and affect our lives and businesses? What else awaits us? Nüzhet Algüneş Most of us have started to feel this more and more in our daily life and will continue to handle it. The following year 2022-2023, will be one of the breaking periods in this regard. Let’s start with two examples. I’ll start with the technology. Let’s go down to the media side a little more from there. The word we will hear the most next year will be “super app.” In other words, the applications we call super applications are a prevalent subject both in the USA and in our country. What do we mean by super apps? For example, we can talk about Hepsiburada or Zubizu making a leap into this issue next year. Many different technology companies in Türkiye, such as Yemek Sepeti, will be one of the first brands to make the leap in this regard. This is what I mean by a super app. An application will take up our entire life. We will buy our plane tickets and make our financing from there. You can even see it right now. For example, Yemek Sepeti was a place where we used to order. Now, Yemek Sepeti has a neighborhood, and we have started to do our different shopping there. What we call Hepsiburada is more technology- oriented, where we can find everything used in our lives at the moment. In 2022, this movement, this transformation, this merger will continue rapidly. On the other hand, the exciting thing is that the considerable holdings that are spoken in the world have started to break up. They are also falling apart. For example, Toshiba will be divided into three parts; General Electric will be divided into two parts. Johnson & Johnson will be separated into pieces because the 437 S T R A T C O M P A N E L holding structure in the old sense seems to come to the forefront with the more dynamic movement of smaller parts by being divided into more parts. Now, of course, these will also be reflected in the media. In the simplest sense, I started with these super apps. You may be thinking, what is the benefit of this for us in terms of media, but they will also become the partners with which brands will cooperate the most in marketing communication. This is called retail media. In the world, for example, Amazon Advertising is one of the most critical players in this subject. In Türkiye, Hepsiburada continues to be the leader among local brands with Hepsi Ads, and as you know, it has recently opened to Nasdaq. Because the super applications from The holding structure in the old sense seems to come to the forefront with the more dynamic movement of smaller parts by being divided into more parts. 438 STRATCOM PANEL - 16 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Türkiye continue to make a sound in the world, in this sense, the first issue is that the applications we know as e-commerce become super apps. These super apps play a severe role in media planning and communication platforms for brands. Speaking of the latter, there is a transition in television. There is a transition in the blocks in traditional media. And that is. The first one was the national media we know a second block emerged, which we can all call the transition from national to global brands in our lives, on top of all kinds of traditional national brands of Türkiye, such as ATV, Hürriyet or Süper FM. What are we counting? We’re especially counting social media brands. We call it Facebook; we call it Google. And then on the second platform, we call it Netflix on the TV side, and now HP 439 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Omax and Disney are coming into our lives this year. Subscription platforms and social media platforms, which we call platforms, have formed the second block next to this first national media. Now here’s the exciting part. Nothing’s going to replace the other one, here’s something called coexist. When the TV came after the radio, it was said that the radio would die. Radio and TV do coexist. They will be together. The exciting part is that these are centralized structures, specific social media brands. There is a discussion in America. Our data is collected. After this data is collected, it can be presented to brands for advertising targeting, and with the income obtained from this, these brands continue their investments for the future. Most of them are already listed brands on the stock market. We are heading towards a third block right now, which seems to be the block where we need to be most prepared.. We are heading towards a third block right now, which seems to be the block where we need to be most prepared. It is decentralized media. So this is what we all know as the metaverse or Web 3.0. This is one of the areas where I think we can be very assertive, especially since we were traditionally perfect in the national media anyway. We’re doing very, very well in the second block. Why are we so good? Because in the second block, the issue of content comes to the fore rather than media platforms, and we are number two in the world, behind the US, the simplest example in Turkish TV series and movies, in terms of content production in Türkiye. If you ask what the way to go here is, Türkiye needs a platform. So it needs an outlet for forwarding. I hope that we will see this being developed in the coming period, and I think we can convey this power forward. The third block is these metaverses and Web 3.0 parties. Since there will be decentralized media, it will not be a center. Still, a media created by people, created by a cloud, on the blockchain system will increase the value of the content even more, and in that sense, our strength that I mentioned in the second block will also increase its importance in the third block. But we have a shortcoming to go faster to the technologies there. We need to highlight that shortcoming; we need to invest there. We have no shortcomings in the system. We do not have a shortage of senior human resources, but we need new generations growing up. We need to support more courageous ecosystems that are built on startups, especially about these new technologies. Ömer Erdem I want to ask my second question to dear Özlem. It may be a cliché, but how did the agency-brand relationships develop, especially during the pandemic and post-pandemic period, so what were the major problems? It was a time when not everyone was accustomed and prepared at all. And the expectations in this Nothing’s going to replace the other one, here’s something called coexist. When the TV came after the radio, it was said that the radio would die. Radio and TV do coexist. 440 STRATCOM PANEL - 16 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 regard, the expectations of the brands, the reflections of the media on this, what innovations have come into your life, and how did you struggle with them? Özlem Ergazi If I take what Nüzhet said, the pandemic period has accelerated our lives for almost five years. In other words, the structuring that we expected in five years has accelerated so much both in terms of consumers and communication I think we had a hard time catching up. I can talk about the following infrastructural. In one day, 600 people went home to test our systems, wondering if we were ready to work from home, and we had been at home for almost two years. Therefore, we do not have a problem with the infrastructure. But of course, it is related to the working principles, which we could not adapt at first, both on the advertiser and The pandemic period has accelerated our lives for almost five years. 441 S T R A T C O M P A N E L agency sides. Our laptops were on for almost 24 hours; something was coming up every minute. Consumer behavior has accelerated. In a way that we did not expect, we expected, but not so quickly; Our business has suddenly accelerated terribly with its commerce adoption and technology adoption and people’s expectations for entertainment as they move home. Therefore, the biggest problem is managing the time, planning the time correctly, and prioritizing. Because every day a priority emerges from somewhere, so we went to a very different point from our everyday working styles. Both our brands are on the advertising side and the agency side. This one challenged us. Then we adapted. But our business items have increased terribly; I’m sure my friends agree with me at that point. We started to have difficulties with where to reach and how to reach. We began to experience certain deficiencies related to the staff coming from below. Our turnovers about our teammates started to be very serious. As in every sector, we also had problems with human resources going abroad in our industry. Not only about agencies but also about advertisers. We had difficulties with our new teams with orientation or adaptation related to agency or company cultures. Because we have come to the point where we have been working for 1.5-2 years with friends we have never met, and we had difficulties onboarding people whose faces we do not even know but with whom we should work within the same team. As for the business side, as I said, 24 hours is not enough. The balances in our advertising campaigns or communication campaigns have changed. In other words, performance and short-term investments gained importance rather than investing in the brand. I can understand that. Because we do not see tomorrow from today, if you had asked us where we saw ourselves five years ago, none of us would have said that we saw it in the pandemic. Therefore, the balance of the communication world had to evolve from one to the other side of the scale rapidly. Of course, I can say that understanding the balance of this, putting it at the point of the needs of the brands, putting it at the end of human resources was one of the issues that challenged us. I guess that was the answer to your question. Ömer Erdem Yes, you explained it very well. In other words, while we have experienced such a significant change in this life in a short time, we will be sharing other developments regarding the continuation from now on. My third question is to you dear İnanç, as you are the country manager of Publicis Groupe Türkiye, the head of media planning companies and many structures such as creative agencies, 442 STRATCOM PANEL - 16 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 data content companies, and PR companies. Especially after the pandemic, it has become little clear that there will be no return to offices, especially in some fields, regarding the changes in these home-office structures, ways of doing business and processes, and the hybrid systems that everyone is talking about now. What are your plans or general developments regarding these issues? İnanç Dedebaş What kind of industry do we work in from the beginning? What type of industry do we work in? You need to set it up. We’re talking about an industry where advertising, communication, consulting all come together. Its core capital is human resources. In other words, there is no machinery, since we are talking about a vast, very labor-intensive, very people-oriented industry that transfers a large part of its total income to human resources, just like in consultancy companies; While this process of returning home and working from home first started with the idea of working from home, it later started to settle into a system based on responsibility and flexibility. Of course, we observed whether this system works or not. We received feedback from two sides, from advertisers and brands, on whether we could do well and work efficiently. We conducted surveys with our employees. These were perhaps the fastest filled survey returns in the company’s history. Just in case you won’t call us to the office, we are so happy and satisfied with this system, which is filled with such a reflex from the whole company in a couple of hours. We expected this; we received feedback as if this was what we wanted. Therefore, nearly 89% of the employees said they are pretty happy and plan their life; private and business lives better. We can see it as a system, even if it is a small development area. Therefore, there are shrinking offices in almost the entire sector. There are trends such as creating co-working environments, which we call covering spaces instead of offices, and their deployment in different parts of the city. But today, we were a group operating in five other locations in Istanbul a while ago. Over time, we reduced this to three locations, two locations, and a single location. Was there a need? Today, it is not correct to say that it is a single location. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that we are in as many locations as the number of people we work with. We have offices where about 10%, 15% of that population goes. The design and setup of the offices are completely changing. This is an obligatory covering space to keep a culture alive again. A while ago, our global president said, “ Publicis will no longer be a Zoom company.” The main point he underlines here is we will 443 S T R A T C O M P A N E L work hybrids; of course, there will be flexibility, but basically, let me talk about master-apprentice, observation-based training in our industry, a talent that grows while watching Özlem’s presentation. This talent grows while watching Nüzhet’s presentation. It is essential to see, recognize and know this physically in the same environment. We will not be said to have closed these offices or return to the offices now. There will be a balance between both. We can talk about an industry trying to find the right spot and balance both. But like heavy industry, is it an industry that must always be visited? No, in a meeting I had with the interns recently, they also told me that this is insane. I said, “I feel certain terrible days of the week, and I’ve been having an unproductive day because you’ve called me into the office in the past. But at home, I spend that time resting. I do a more productive job than ever before during those three productive hours in the evening. Therefore, I heard from an anecdote from an intern that it is not rational to put a sensible workforce, working on thinking, ideas, strategy, planning, implementation, and We will not be said to have closed these offices or return to the offices now. There will be a balance between both. 444 STRATCOM PANEL - 16 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 design into patterns like 9-6. When you think about it, is the time spent at the office productive? This is an even bigger problem in metropolises and cities like Istanbul. So even if we don’t call it hybrid, what can I say? I think it is a flexible model based on trust, a model where the initiative is given to the leaders, the employees, where you believe in their purely business responsibilities. Of course, life is not all roses. Let me illustrate with another anecdote. One of our employees decides to work at the company for a long time after getting a job and leave. To a leader who worked with him in the office for about ten days after he gave his resignation after leaving, “Actually, I wouldn’t quit, it’s fine here.” says. This shows another shortcoming. There are huge problems that we need to solve in the remote working system when creating culture. So I think the middle point of both would be very accurate. But now that these walls have come down, the group I was with announced that you could work from anywhere in the world 445 S T R A T C O M P A N E L for up to six weeks. This shows another vision that the study will pursue in the advertising communication sector. I think it is both a pleasure and a great luxury to be in an industry where you can work from home, not home, but anywhere and any place where borders are lifted. And I think it is a great privilege for everyone working in our industry. But we will also continue to have a problem keeping that balance. Ömer Erdem Well, İnanç, do tens and hundreds of brands you serve work from home like you, or how can brands that do not work from home but continue from the office communicate with you? Can you hold a meeting? Don’t they tell you? You work at home, but we go to our office. I think some people can make jokes with you about what kind of work order you are having. İnanç Dedebaş There is a phrase in Turkish that has no equivalent in any foreign language. Envy. So, of course, jealousy rarely happens in this balance, but this does not mean that we neglect the brands we work with. The environment we meet with them does not have to be physically an office. We can meet anywhere, discuss any plan, strategy, thought, idea, and hold our meetings. I emphasize again. The offices were not completely closed. I’m talking about a distinction between meeting physically or meeting online. But of course, it is needed to observe the sector. Some of the brands we work with have returned to their offices. We also go two days a week at a specific rate, but we do this with a top-down mentality; In other words, I don’t think it is correct to say we would be present and we would be in the office for so many hours. In other terms, I believe that a system based on trust and flexibility is more accurate. But, of course, without forgetting our advertisers and brands. Ömer Erdem Again, with these radical changes in our lives, the problems that came before us started to increase. One of the most important of these is the human resource problem. In other words, there are many developments such as these dizzying changes, this extraordinary mobility in technology, consumer trends, new applications that have entered our lives, and the unbelievable increase in the Again, with these radical changes in our lives, the problems that came before us started to increase. One of the most important of these is the human resource problem. 446 STRATCOM PANEL - 16 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 logistics supply chain. Well, dear Özlem, this question will be for you again. As human resources, are we prepared for these radical changes? Or how do we educate people about these changing needs? While creating corporate culture, are the employees as loyal as before in this process? Or we hear that there is a very high tendency of going to those who pay more. What would you say about this? Özlem Ergazi You are right. Because after this pandemic, there is a trend called the grand resignation not only in Türkiye but also in the world. In other words, people have a solemn resignation and turnover process in return for their efforts. We see turnover, which we have not seen in our lives, especially after the pandemic. There are, of course, several factors that trigger this. One has to do with cultural affiliation. As Inanc has just mentioned, working remotely stems from the difficulties that come with the sense of belonging, which you learned from the person next to you, or from a commitment you learned from speaking at the meeting. Secondly, the clocks got very mixed up. And especially on the digital side, there are almost 15-16 hours of work per day. Third, the human resource in the industry is limited. Both İnanç and Nüzhet will confirm this. Human resources are limited regarding people from below and young people who need to be brought up with new technologies. In other words, it is not a sector in high demand. I also work at the Advertising Foundation. I am on the board of directors. While advertising and communication were among the preferred professions in the top 10 years ago, it has fallen to 42nd today. Therefore, we are at a point that has reached the end of very rapid consumption, a little more than a consultancy and a service sector. So, it is essential to raise human resources from the bottom. The pandemic also brings opportunities because the sector is an Istanbul-based sector; however, together with the principle of working remotely, with the technology infrastructure of the business, technological changes, and the penetration of technology into the media. We have started to open up to employment sources that can work in the sector based in Istanbul and from various regions of Türkiye, which we call onsite, from where they live, in a way called anywhere. We could have done this last year, but we kept turning around the prospect of being back in the office or going to the office and we were going; this was extended, and it was seen that it became irreversible at a certain point. For this reason, the advertising and communication sector is at a point where other cities in Türkiye are also open to employment. This brings other opportunities as well. It can only be of different towns in Türkiye means that communication with After this pandemic, there is a trend called the grand resignation in Türkiye but also in the world. In other words, people have a solemn resignation and turnover process in return for their efforts. 447 S T R A T C O M P A N E L some countries abroad can also be made from Türkiye. At this point, it is seen that Türkiye also has an opportunity for offshoring since its human resources are relatively more economical than Europe and the rest of the world. But there are obstacles here. For one thing, we are experiencing a significant barrier to English. The reason is that both those in the industry and university graduates in Türkiye do not have a certain level of English. Therefore, if we can turn this barrier into an opportunity at a certain point, I can say that we have a great potential both in terms of employment that may be created from other cities and at the same time in terms of serving abroad. But beyond its purpose, it is helpful for providing reliable verification at the point of sale in the design of such a tool with delivery from a company type; the presence of swift job changes, freelance work, and self-employment in the new generation is accurate.Education is a significant factor here because the industry is high-speed. There is something new coming out every day; you need to read it and keep it updated. For this reason, we were very serious about training in our organization in the last year. We have added fast-tracking and hands-on keyboard training to our lives with a small and global movement. Education-related training from an institution that has been thought out of education, too. It wants to do something about this kind of thing from something that came from the earth. Because the thing that keeps our sector or alive is people, when you remove people, the machines already do everything Ömer Erdem Dear Nüzhet and İnanç, do you have anything to add regarding this issue? We may have listeners among us who are probably in the career planning phase regarding human resources. What would you recommend to them? Because there is a severe gap with it. Yes, on the one hand, unemployment is talked about a lot, but on the other hand, there is an earnest search for qualified jobs on your side. Nüzhet Algüneş First of all, I have some straightforward advice for friends who have just graduated or are about to be. They can come to our industry. Probably the fastest growing and transforming industries in Türkiye and even in the world are the industries related to advertising and marketing. We have a severe human resource shortage here. By the way, you have a strong chance no matter which department you 448 STRATCOM PANEL - 16 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 graduate from. Because as long as you have a command of what we can call basic mathematics or basic operations, and most importantly, as long as you are willing and ambitious, you can progress in your career much faster than your other same-level friends. It is also fun industry. Ömer Erdem İnanç, do you have anything to add to this subject? İnanç Dedebaş Although we fully agree, it is a very current industry and marketing communication, which is much more dynamic, changing much faster, transforming much quicker than many other industries, becoming more fragmented, more divided, and needs new expertise. We are talking about an industry whose ecosystem touches almost every technology and digital marketing side. Therefore, we are talking about a young industry by nature. We can estimate that in the next 5-10 years in this industry, the lack of human resources we are experiencing will continue. It is necessary to increase one or two gears in cooperation with academics and universities methodically and systematically. This is very clear. I suggest it to the end to practically almost everyone I meet and talk to on this subject if they don’t have much idea about what to do in the future and have a slight interest in, a little passion and talent for marketing, advertising, and communication. Because I have seen and witnessed that you have opened a field at home and abroad where you can grow very steadily, and we see this more and more every day. Let me give a minimal example, as it is a talent-based industry. A large part of the income earned in consultancy companies goes to the employees and talents. The most significant capital, I just said, is human resources. Still, more importantly, you don’t have to dedicate your life to a single product for a single brand in this dynamic industry. It is so lively and vibrant. I have always enjoyed being in it for years. Ömer Erdem Again, it is a technology-related subject. I want to continue with Nüzhet. Consumer movements and their data tracking are now much more accessible. What we call the consumer journey is the movements we make in the consumption journey, the sites we visit, the credit card or cash movements we make at the shopping 449 S T R A T C O M P A N E L point, the gas station, etc. A lot of data is collected everywhere. However, there has been a significant data silo with this data. Can the concept we call big data be used efficiently by your brands or your business? We collect them, but we also have a data waste with them. And can we use this data effectively? What would you say about these issues? Nüzhet Algüneş First of all, there is such a thing; we love certain words. Earlier, we entered a significant mobile era with the arrival of 3G in 2008-2009. In such panels, we talked over and over about how important mobile is and how mobile is essential. How much did we fill? This is negotiable. Something like this happened in the data and big data too. I have a lot of efficiencies, but our data is of better quality than yours, but our friends collect much better data; we use it while collecting and stuff. There are even occasional data management platforms. What is your brand that we call DNP? Here’s our brand; it has this and that; these were discussed. We couldn’t give more information about it. This metaverse and blockchain topics that I said at the beginning are cool because when we use them in a sentence, it sounds perfect, but let me be clear. First, data or the data word is nothing new in marketing. As you know, watching television at home is being reported on a daily basis as the daily television consumption movement by a panel representing Türkiye at a certain rate. We receive and use this data. But we use it heavily. In other words, a group of people is consuming televisions at the moment, the data of this will be in the hands of your friends at the company tomorrow. After that, they will process it; maybe they will take the precaution in the evening the next day. We are talking about a 24-hour cycle. We always had data at hand. We have always used data with projections. So there is an audience; we have said we will project Türkiye here. We used it in slightly slower and longer loops. What did we do? We’ve finished three months; let’s go down to the field and see our brand’s status after three months. That’s what the research firm has always been told. When do we go to the field? Here we go down the field next week. When will you prepare the report on this? We are ready now. Let’s all gather in a hall. After collecting, analyses come out; it is said to be like this, but be careful. Now they are looking at marketing agencies like our research agency said, pay attention to the following points, as our research company said. He said that we need to pay attention to the following points: a quarter of what you did in February, you went on the field in April, and we are in the middle of May. But yes, let’s be careful, let’s be careful. That’s how everybody tells each other. But with technology, life has accelerated so much that I have colleagues whom I call 450 STRATCOM PANEL - 16 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 people wrapped in servers. Let me tell you one of the most recent examples. Hepsiburada. For example, one of our customers. We program so dynamically that when we broadcast the TV spot, on the other hand, they see the performance on the server, they give feedback, and we update the next plan immediately. Because that’s where the business goes. As I mentioned blocks, the first block was more access-oriented. In the second focus, we explored interaction with our target audience. In the third block, we are heading towards the virtual economies circuit. Media reach is no longer on the edge of media planning. There is no influencer marketing at the end of media planning. These are already highly formulated. At the end of it, there are now virtual economies. While internet usage in Türkiye has reached 90%, we don’t have the luxury to talk about media planning anymore, while half of this is online shopping. I already connect it to big data from there. There was something beautiful in the previous presentation; It’s not gasoline. Its life is water. But water also has the quality and how we use water is important, where you use it is important. Even if we use it in humus soil, we have the opportunity to get a severe yield in a proper place. That’s why data glue speed is increasing if you are aware. Just like that in Turkish, our lives are accelerating with the help of technology. Then this takes us to a place related to organizational and business culture, the big data issue. If life is accelerating, if it creates situations where we need to take immediate action instead of much longer cycles and make better decisions faster, this is a managerial issue. It’s a human resource issue and a system-related issue. I can tell you, can you do better in 30 seconds tomorrow what you do in five minutes at your job today? This is the point that big data gives and will give us. Speeding up and maybe getting us from regular gasoline to jet fuel. And to further increase its return to our business. We also need good human resources for this. I want to connect to the previous side as well. Especially in our country, there are critical gaps in data awareness. We can define it as three block sides; There is a serious lack of human resources in these three fields, which they call data engineering, data analysis, and data synthesis. There’s no point in having data. There is so much data you wouldn’t believe. Data flows from everywhere. What matters is how we use that data, how we can plan better, and how we can bring it back to our trade more quickly. There is a need for cultural change in companies regarding the use of data. When we watch it, statistics that we call very good are of no value to us. This cultural change should not be exaggerated. Look, many companies have been overwhelmed with issues such as data management I can tell you, can you do better in 30 seconds tomorrow what you do in five minutes at your job today? This is the point that big data gives and will give us. 451 S T R A T C O M P A N E L platforms and big data from this DMP. The most important problem in this matter is from the outside, so don’t get me wrong, it’s not in the sense of defamation; it can be a consultant, another company, or anywhere. In the consultancy received on this subject, companies were overwhelmed with very high theory, and they could not cope with that high theory and become very unwieldy. I recommend starting the change with simple steps. Small, dynamic, and thus big data cultural change and how this data will be used will motivate the masses with straightforward steps. And as the masses are motivated, they will press the button for change again. So we have great potential ahead of us. We invite you to work in this field as well. But please, let’s not get stuck with cliché words. Ömer Erdem I want to ask another related question, Nüzhet. Now, while there is such a data- centric, technology-oriented world, a panel of 3-to 4 thousand people is still used in television measurement systems. Isn’t this a regulation issue as well? In other words, we are trying to plan advertising media expenditures based on what 4 thousand people do while we have the data of millions. Do we use it this way, or is there another method in our lives? Nüzhet Algüneş Let me answer from technology again. You know that chip crises are famous. I’ll begin from there. For example, you see the size of the chips; it’s about how many chips you can put on that area. You are not using the highest technology in your auto. In other words, a 15-20 nanometer chip works fine, but when you enter a very high-tech place, there is a war between TMC and Intel. They work with three nanometers because you have to fit the maximum. The subject of television is such a massive subject that television is so powerful, as we have been counting block by block, there is currently no medium with greater power over large audiences. The data from Peoplemeter is a tool to determine the exchange rate between the media, agency, and advertiser so that we can agree with each other. How do we know this? “This panel is too narrow,” they said in ancient times. So this panel has been expanded. Other panels were also installed. Conclusion; the rating of a program increased from 8. 1 to 8. 2. But the cost in between was maybe $5 million. The industry said, “No need.” Because it runs on regular gasoline, it’s there to create mass impact. You can make a significant impact in a short time with television. You can create a significant impact in a short time with television. But if I want to go to a specific segment, high octane data is essential to me. 452 STRATCOM PANEL - 16 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 But if I want to go to a specific segment, I can parse that segment very well, and high octane data is of great importance to me if I need to convey my message and interact and even return it to the trading network. So it’s about where and how we use the data. We’ll make the TV for 40,000. It will not change. When we look at the science of statistics, so right now, the optimum panel and the optimum thing, as a methodology, yes. So we’re not talking about massive technology. Where will it evolve? When the systems we call Netflix or other platforms come into play more, when the consumer switches to there, and when we start watching our regular television online, it seems that we will, of course, be switching to a bit higher octane data since we can get more real-time data and real-time response. Ömer Erdem I want to direct my last question to İnanç. This will be a question about the future. You represent specific global structures in brand agency media relations, and how much do international structures benefit from us? In other words, we, as a country, are solid in terms of human resources and talented human resources in the country. This is now known. In the past, advertisements came from abroad and were adapted to Türkiye. But right now, we can develop many innovative applications, both creatively and technologically, in our own country with our means. While local structures are capable of doing work on a world scale, can we produce projects for other countries, or will we be able to make them in the near past, the future? Will sectoral service decrease exports? İnanç Dedebaş First of all, the first thing you ask is, where is the relationship between the model advertising agency, the media, or the brand agency and the media evolving? What are the models? Let me answer these questions. After that, let me respond to the other dimension. We have just said that, as we all heard from Nüzhet, even in the presentation before us, the communication ecosystem has become very fragmented; it has become a very fragmented, multi-armed ecosystem. With this division and fragmentation of the media in this ecosystem, we are talking about a world that automatically frames the brand that is more difficult to coordinate and more difficult to orchestrate. This gradually introduces a model in which agencies get closer to each other around brands, or experts get closer to each other around brands. So the model says; Just because you’re doing the parts right, does that mean you make a big impact on the whole? Shall we question this? 453 S T R A T C O M P A N E L He asks this question to all of us. When I started this business, we could count it as expertise that does not exceed the finger of both hands in the advertising, ecosystem, agency ecosystem that applies to all of us. If we count these as titles or works done within agencies and companies, we sat down recently and said, let’s count and write; what are the experts? We have counted nearly 50 specializations in our ecosystem that are both chaotic on one side and exciting on the other. We are talking about a sector in which nearly 50 experts, large and small, work around a brand, either piecemeal or partly from each other, or work together from time to time, and provide complementary services to grow that brand. Therefore in the first model, in this triangle, where does this relationship evolve? This relationship is a little more - come on, guys- let’s sum up a little bit. Because the fact that we are doing the parts correctly may not mean that we have an impact on the whole. So, let’s evolve the subject right here. I am certainly not saying that the future of a business is integration. There are still vertical specializations, and it is precious to deepen there. Let’s get to the second part of your question. In the second part, will Türkiye have an even more important place in exporting services from this industry in the world? While talking about the film and TV series industry, another creative industry, and a country that has taken an important place in the whole world right after America, I will open the subject by saying why not in these structures we represent today. Because we are talking about an industry that works on ideas, on a field that goes on like this, such as strategy, marketing plan, application design. We have a prediction for the near future that these specialties will be more demanded from Türkiye if the right steps are taken in terms of human resources with each passing day. Almost all of us have such foresight, and it has already begun to be demanded. Because this number of specializations that did not go beyond the fingers of both hands, which I just said, became richer and deeper. And in this sense, we represent structures with outstanding talents. Türkiye-based global hubs have already begun to be established in these structures. We started to see performance marketing hubs at the base of these hubs. In other words, giant performance marketing hubs started to be established in Türkiye. Therefore, we are working on structures and setups where brands in America or Europe will purchase their performance marketing services from Türkiye. Production is just like that. In other words, hubs are starting to be established in Türkiye, not only for the service we call Premium production but also for dynamic and fast creative Türkiye-based global hubs have already begun to be established in these structures. We started to see performance marketing hubs at the base of these hubs. 454 STRATCOM PANEL - 16 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 material production. These services will be provided quickly from Türkiye to the whole world. At the same time, we see that strategic services will start to be provided from Türkiye even faster in certain regions, together with the trained workforce in the coming period. But, as we said at the beginning of the speech, the cooperation between a robust academy, university, and companies that carry out marketing and advertising activities will leverage this speed. I can count on such a long list because there are so many specializations and business lines with global counterparts today, including advertising, media planning, public relations, and digital marketing. More in the agency world than ever before. However, are there successful businesses coming out of Türkiye? Very successful things are coming out. Many different industry stakeholders receive important awards at award ceremonies where international creativity and innovation are rewarded every year. We see that our agencies receive important awards in the event awards. The fact that an industry with a huge impact on the economy can create such exemplary jobs indicates that it has serious potential. We will see a lot more with specializations with global counterparts; it will be on the agenda in the coming period. If we can develop and retain these talents, I can say that there is more to it. Ömer Erdem A Chinese model is being spoken, stemming from the exchange rate advantage with popular discourse. Its advantage is being said. But in fact, it also shows an export opportunity that we have created with the absolute and qualified human resources we are talking about now. İnanç Dedebaş Absolutely. In other words, when we look at the vital service hubs in the world in the past decade, at least in our line of business, these are India and China. We all see severe problems in specific work timings and work quality. There is a very intense and bright future with its sustainable continuation in this sector and its qualified and trained workforce. In other words, it is not just a matter of exchange rate advantage or cost advantage. Demand is high in this industry. The need for the work produced by this industry is increasing day by day worldwide with digital transformation. Therefore, the advertising communication business, which creates a competitive advantage for brands, can go to a much better place in the next 5-10 years if it is evaluated correctly in Türkiye. 455 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Ömer Erdem To be honest, I think we have expressed this need and this potential in such an organization organized under the roof of the state. Nüzhet Algüneş The three of us, the four of us, have discussed a lot. We may have friends who think about what words to remember when leaving here. Let me say a few words about the parts I’ve shared, talk about the field, and strongly advise them to conduct in-depth research and develop themselves in this area. Because they are all open source now, there is no need to order such books. All of these are 456 STRATCOM PANEL - 16 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 available on social media and in specific open sources. As a gesture, please speed up. I just said, “This is a discipline of life, and can I do in 30 seconds what I do in five minutes in this discipline of life?” Can I do better? An important question. Otherwise, you will realize that you cannot fit into life. Second, data literacy and technology literacy are critical. It’s straightforward, everyone is talking about the metaverse, and we are talking too. I wonder how many people became members of Decentraland. They don’t want money. What you call the metaverse right now is a place built by an Argentinian boy, which has reached 10 billion dollars. Maybe some know cryptography. But when you go inside Decentraland and wander around there, you can see the first instance of the metaverse. I recommend you improve yourself by taking these simple steps; still, we are in perfect shape. Most of them have come to significant positions in Europe and the world primarily as a country, as a power, as a marketing leader in film production. There is a perfect environment. Due to our strength in content production, Türkiye will be much further ahead in both the second and third phases and blocks. It is already a severe center, and this center will grow. And that’s why we always need quality human resources. So let’s work a little harder and be a little more confident. It’s not something that will happen on a 9/5. What can happen in 9/5 is over in the world. We rest or feed ourselves by creating pockets for one or two hours a day, 24/7. It now has 11 at night. It also has 7 in the morning. Because when you are connected to the world, one day you will talk to Dubai; the next day you will speak to America, and the next day you will talk to China. We are doing global business now. When you sit on the team screen or the Zoom screen, it’s 11 o’clock, so I will watch my movie. The period of not being able to deal with work is over. So let’s trust ourselves more and work harder. We look at the future with great hope in terms of our field. 457 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 17 Communicating Türkiye’s Brands 458 STRATCOM PANEL - 17 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Communicating Türkiye’s Brands 12 December 2021 • Nilgün Balkaç TRT Presenter (Moderator) - Türkiye • Mehmet Gürcan Karakaş CEO of TOGG - Türkiye • Mert Dorman THY Corporate Communications President - Türkiye • Mehmet Kalyoncu Board Member of Kalyon Group and Partner of IGA - Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 459 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 17 When we say public diplomacy, we’re talking about nation brands and companies identified with Türkiye. How do they create national brands? Nilgün Balkaç Hello, I will talk about brands. When we say public diplomacy, we’re talking about nation brands and companies identified with Türkiye. How do they create national brands? We’ll talk about that now with our esteemed guests. You’ll see an image behind me. Once you see this image, you will say, “Wow, that’s it.”This is the automobile of Türkiye. These images tell us many things, but before we saw these images,we followed their Twitter accounts, and then we saw bits and pieces of the process leading to these images as news reporters who tried to put them together. Well, it shall push our imagination. Now we have Türkiye’s automobile in front of us. Türkiye’s car competes against global brands, and we try to assume a leading role in the market. We are also part of this race. This picture tells everything, but we have to talk about the journey. Embarking on this new journey, Mehmet Karakaş, the CEO of TOGG will explain how it was. 460 STRATCOM PANEL - 17 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Mehmet Gürcan Karakaş Esteemed guests, I salute you all. Well, because we are a brand that is quite new, and we are quite ambitious in this industry where there are old brands, experienced brands. As we embarked on this journey, I was faced with many questions. I’ll try to talk about my journey and answer those questions. The first question is: Is there room for a new player? Second question. If so, in Asia, we know in China, I mean, there are close to 500 companies like ours, what is the difference? What distinguishes you from others? And then, when starting up this brand, what did you pay attention to? Well, I’d like to share my experience with you. I’ll start with the first question if you allow me. This is what we have observed. First and foremost, the rules of the games worldwide are changing. There are three dimensions that we need to take into account. We’ve seen that technology now is present in each field of life. It provides comfort, additional comfort. Internal combustion engines have been converted to electric cars. Battery technologies, connected carstechnologies, autonomous driving, cameras and sensors, and cameras are needed for this transformation. The response is accelerated because of digitalization. On the other hand, we have smart life solutions that comforting our lives, supporting our lives. Ultimately an automobile is not just an automobile; it’s more than an automobile. This was a part of our slogan. It’s a living space. You know it will happen soon, and it’s happening. We’re not only focusing on technology use. We will be able to do whatever we can do at home, at work in the automobile as well. That’s why this is transforming into a smart device, and this is our basic motivation. Everyone is part of business life, so we are data-driven. When you look at the data, you see that profit pools change. So, the world known as the conventional automobile world is transforming itself, growing itself. Then, the structure of the profit pool is changing; turnover is changing. There’s an absolute value in the gray part that you see in the column. It is not growing in percentages; it regresses to 60% by 2050, but the turquoise color, this new business field, makes up 40% of the business. These are well-talked about double-digit bits. And this is developing very quickly. Does not everybody see that? Everyone sees that, and everyone realizes that, and they’re trying to be a part of this new field you see in turquoise color, but there are some issues that people fail. Before we embarked on this journey, we had worked together with a strategic adviser, and we examined more than 20 companies before we started up the business. The size or material capital doesn’t have a big role in tackling intellectual property and accumulated knowledge. Using, transforming 461 S T R A T C O M P A N E L this knowledge into solutions for drivers, in an agile way, is more prominent now. If you can do that as a company, you will attain success. This is the development. These are the trends. So, we’ve seen this happening; that’s why we were assured before we embarked on our journey. What is our goal? What are our objectives? We are not only building an automobile; as I said, we want to create a global brand with intellectual property and industrial property rights belonging entirely to Türkiye, a brand that can compete globally. In doing so, to create the core of Türkiye’s mobility ecosystem in an environment where technology is transformed into a mobility ecosystem. We’re not saying we’re going to do it all, but we want to build its core to allow it to develop quickly. In doing so, the structure of our company’s shareholders and the fact that our shareholders have the competencies required for this task are issues that empower us. When you look at it, we have one of the largest retailers in our country, the largest commercial vehicle manufacturers in our country, and another one of our shareholders is a strong steel producer on a regional basis. Our country’s largest digital and internet operators are with us. One of the largest television producers in Europe, 462 STRATCOM PANEL - 17 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 which has a say in consumer electronics, is with us. We are also with the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges, the largest non-governmental organization in our country. Now, when we set out in this context, believe me, this is one of the points that makes us different from the companies producing automobiles abroad for 100-150 years. When they ask, I answer, do you have shareholders like Deutsche Telekom, for example? Or is Bertelsmann a shareholder? Or is Bosch Siemens Hausgerate a shareholder? You see the benefit of this instantly when developing products and improving services. Here’s how we describe the authenticity of this holistic approach. There are two dimensions to this. First, when you are original and national, you can design the intellectual property yourself and shape it yourself. What does that make us? First of all, it makes us independent and free. Independent and free means that in this world, when I choose my supplier, I will not ask someone at a different headquarters. When I want to place something in one place, I will not ask someone in another First, when you are original and national, you can design the intellectual property yourself and shape it yourself. What does that make us? First of all, it makes us independent and free. 463 S T R A T C O M P A N E L headquarters; we will make all of our decisions at our headquarters. Currently, it’s in Gemlik in the IT valley. Indigenousness is the second most important pillar. If you own intellectual property, how can you efficiently achieve indigenousness in a commercial world, where competitiveness is at the fore? We promised 51% to ourselves and our country; we started with 51%. There have been companies producing automobiles s in our country for 60 years. Some companies make light commercial vehicles. When we enter the Ministry of Industry’s website, we see that these figures change from 20% to 65%. So, if you ask if that’s a good number or a good goal, yes, that’s a pretty good goal. It’s an ambitious target. From this point, we are preparing for the new world together with our business partners in Türkiye, completing the infrastructure to transform the new world together. Thankfully, Ms. Nilgün also mentioned this; there are some issues, some problems that we were aware of on our journey. We want to share these with you. We have the old league and the new league, the old world, and the new world, which should segregate now. More important for the new league is to have electronic parts and a battery. In the old league, we have the engine and the mills. So, in this new world, we have valuable assets other than the gearbox and the transmission. So, the most frequently asked question is, “How much horsepower does it has?” Okay, horsepower is necessary, but what about the microprocessor, the strength, the power? Because these are more important in future smart devices. What about security? Blockchain, we have blockchain solutions; cybersecurity is critical, it will be even more critical. We are aware of this when designing an automobile. Our hot topic is becoming a brand. So, a brand taking ownership is different from a brand we own. There’s a world of differences between those two. This is where we are very different; in the classical world, we have a product concept, and they’re developing the model they make and then produce it in mass. Then they sell it, and they have to support the process with financial services at the end of the product lifecycle. They work on it and make it well. But since the start, if you define your automobile as a smart device, your automobile will generate data for you and update services. Connected, automated, shared, electric, CASE as an acronym. We investigated the CASE, and we’ve seen that’s not enough because in three days, technology will advance or someone will buy it, and it will equalize everyone. Still, we started by prioritizing the solution of user focus as one of the points where we can make a difference to users, plus the use of artificial intelligence and producing smart and empathetic solutions. When asked what our vision is in the global competition, we say we are a global use-case (User-centric, Smart, Empathetic, Connected, Autonomous, Shared, and Electric) mobility provider. We also registered it after the trademark. Of course, 464 STRATCOM PANEL - 17 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 this mobility ecosystem needs to be reduced from a cloud of gas and dust to slightly more transparent measurable and workable points. That’s why I focused on five areas. I want to talk about the first one: There are smart live solutions in smart cities. That’s very important because especially in big cities like Istanbul we spend a lot of time in traffic waiting or driving in stop-and-go traffic. Solutions in smart cities are essential. There are more profitable new business areas that are emerging. They’re growing fast in the automobile world. It is crucial for data- driven business models. And our focus is to transform our ecosystem quickly. We have had a strategy advisor, we’ve examined close to 20 companies; as we departed on this journey, there are eight criteria that we need to consider. First is the brand and the product portfolio. If your brand is not powerful enough, that will be an issue when you market it. If you don’t have a selection basket in your product portfolio, it will result in severe cases for you. We wanted to be a solid corporate brand, a strong consumer, and a strong employer brand. That’s why we focused on these infrastructures and did our homework professionally. We did our market research and additional market research; we tried to address our target audience’s subconscious expectations and determine the essence of the brand, and we asserted our claim. I wanted to be strong, self-confident, Solutions in smart cities are essential. There are more profitable new business areas that are emerging. They’re growing fast in the automobile world. 465 S T R A T C O M P A N E L powerful as this is part of our DNA. Do we have enough time to talk about this? This is the breakdown. When I said market research, I didn’t mean that we spoke to 3 or 5 people. We addressed this professionally and went to many provinces, 36 provinces, 291 sub-provinces, and their entire neighborhoods. We have close to 6000 people, a potential audience, target customers. We talked to them and worked with them. And for the last decades, we know that the socio-demographic structure of our country has changed, and purchasing behaviors have changed. When we were going into the mobility ecosystem, we knew what the use of technology meant, what its role, what its function was. So we examined what lies in the subconscious of our target group? Using metaphor images, we asked them what kind of smart automobiles they were expecting. We used pictures and images of people breaking the chains, achieving success, and challenging to access valuable jewelry, which should be practical, of high value, and be connected to the world. These are the metaphors that we used. We see the strength, the power, the connectedness, and the balance that needs to be needed to be there. So, this is how do we develop and identify our brand. Excuse me; I need to go one back. As we were doing all this, we needed to translate the brand value into communication. And this is the result. People-centered, we instill trust by being focused on people; we synthesize the Western in Eastern culture in this geography, we live in this geography. So, this is synthesizing the West and East. When we turn to the left, we see the East, and then we see the West and the emotional and the material world coming together. And we wanted people to admire us, to be fascinating for people. If we could do that as a brand, we would be successful in the medium and long term. In terms of customer-orientedness or driver-orientedness, we prefer the term ‘user’ because no one has to buy our smart device to be a user; you can be any guest in the automobile, so that’s a user. We used well agile collaborations; we didn’t entrap ideas in a box. We took creative ideas and synthesized them, integrated them. We had close to 350 user experience scenarios; 30 or 40 of them found innovativeness high. So, we prioritize those. We know it’s not the classic automobile world. We work with startups in the technology world, and we talk to more than 226 startups. So, one more chart. We shook hands with 20 of them; we did a proof of concept, we collaborated with ten more of those and signed contracts with them. So, as of marketing an intelligent device with innovative startups within the mobility ecosystem, we are coming up with a strict set of solutions for you. So, at the center of it all lies people and all the capabilities that need to be covered. Of course, the qualifications we found here, we got here, and if something was missing, we procured it from abroad. See, we have also caused reverse brain drain. 466 STRATCOM PANEL - 17 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 So, we had many doctorates, graduates, or students. This platform attracted many people with doctorate degrees - because there aren’t so many projects of its kind in the world - and enabled them to realize their dreams. In our first Great Place to Work assessment this year, we received a certificate; we were entitled to a certificate. In two months, our reputation increased, and we were more and more recognized by way of communicating through social media. We are autonomous in our decision-making environment; we’ll look at the global or international reputation we know will make a difference. These are signature projects. As signature projects, they have a bearing on the country brand. Our country is supporting us a lot, and with the support, there will be more and more of these projects that will strengthen the brand of Türkiye. Thank you. Nilgün Balkaç I’m going to be talking about transformation through design. Now, you might say, how can you transform through design? What does it mean to establish branding through the transformative power of creation? What does it mean to combine creative leadership and soft power along this process? Imagining, designing, and bringing to life: what are the secrets to all of these? How can all that happen? And at that point, we will hear from Mehmet Kalyoncu, the founder of the Turkish Design Foundation, the board member of Kalyon Group, and Partner of IGA. Mehmet Kalyoncu Thank you. Hello, everyone. I hope you’re having a good day. Now, how can design find a place in branding? And how do designers start their work, and how do they finalize it? When you Google “what design is”, you see colors and shapes that are harmonious to one another, or maybe architecture, industrial design. Things that we can touch, see, and experience in our lives are all part of the design. Still, these, I believe, are more on the comfortable side. Design can’t be left to designers, warfare can’t be left to warriors, and education can’t be left to educators. As you know, these are phrases that we have heard. And we are talking about design thinking, but we’re not talking about engineering thought, medical taught, or music thought. So, I guess there is a potential to design that makes us discuss it deeply. So, let’s start to dig deeper into this. So, designers are cool people. That’s, of course, more of the tabloid part of it. And what makes them valuable is their approach to a problem. How do designers solve problems? Now when we look at it, when designers approach a problem, first of all, they 467 S T R A T C O M P A N E L simplify it. To reach the result of a problem in a simple and fast way doesn’t make your solution less valuable. Now designers first imagine, and they have a lot of activity going on in their brains and a lot of brainstorming. As they prepare for the solution, this brainstorming helps them a lot. So, they are very much interested in detail, but they don’t drown themselves in detail. So, they always keep the big picture in mind. And this is because of the skill they have to work between skills. For example, in architectural design, as you are designing a window, it needs to have good light penetration, it needs to look aesthetic, it needs to be at the right angle, it needs to be positioned at the right place on the facade. And it also needs to be able to build accurate relationships with the people it interacts with. It works in many ways. They also do prototyping. The worst thing that can happen to an idea is for it to stay as an idea. An idea needs to come to life as soon as possible so that the deficiencies can be seen and it can be improved. And sometimes the point it reaches may not be enough, I mean, designers are not easily satisfied, they are a little disturbed, which leads them to search for something better, something prettier. And they are always in pursuit of this. The 468 STRATCOM PANEL - 17 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 When it comes to creativity, sometimes it is thought that talent is required. But even in music and arts, even though these require some skill, it still requires an incredible amount of hard work. first thing we learned in school and architecture was form follows function. So, that’s why design needs to be functional at the end of the day, and it needs to be facilitating it. A design that doesn’t do us any good has no point, and it won’t be used if it doesn’t solve a problem if it’s not a remedy to some problem. Most designs are made for humans; there are probably very few designs that are not intended for human beings. For that reason, for designers to be successful for them to produce some benefit, they need to be seeking ways to understand human beings. Individuals, organizations, and institutions trying to transform through design need to, in essence, be motivated to understand humans, and designers are very good at observing. And that’s why children are very good with design as well. And as we grow older, we are all trying to preserve this quality; we have good observation. And of course, in creative industries, you need to put in a lot of effort and work hard. It’s the case in all tasks, but sometimes it is thought that talent is required when it comes to creativity. But even in music and arts, even though these require some talent, it still requires an incredible amount of hard 469 S T R A T C O M P A N E L work. If we cannot express an idea, well, if we are not able to appeal to the minds and hearts of people, then we could be wasting our idea. We need to be good at expressing our idea. And all of these aspects of designers have been researched since the 40s. There has been part of literature with various definitions, and in Harvard Business Review, there was an article, and it became a prevalent concept. ‘Design Thinking’ became a buzzword. Now design thinking is trying to enter the business world. I didn’t receive a formal business education. I’m a graduate of architecture from Istanbul Technical University, and since I received design training, I have been able to use these skills that designers have in business life. Organizations, institutions, and individuals are trying to integrate design thinking into business life; they’re trying to integrate designers’ quality. We saw the post that’s on Mr. Gürcan’s presentation as well. When discussing creating an idea, these are the first tools used, but in Türkiye, or other places to transform something, will this be enough? That’s what we need to question. Design thinking is a global term that is being promoted. And we see its processes here in Turkish as well. But I believe there are some other steps that need to be added. Now, there are such complex and sophisticated problems across the world it is not possible to solve all these problems with a single discipline. We need to have some multidisciplinary teamwork at the Istanbul Airport, from architecture to planning, from industrial design to IT. We had many disciplines involved, and we worked with a team spirit. That is why we were able to begin operations at the Istanbul Airport without any major issues. It’s the case with the Turkish automobile as well. It would help if you also managed criticism well. Usually, when you put forward an idea, the first question is, why is this necessary? Now you need to be very good at managing that question. Because you need to create insight out of that question and then give a satisfactory response to the owner of that question. Of course, using proper communication strategies is very important to enable the idea to receive the value it deserves. And when we do all of this, the design has transformative power. And what does that help us acquire? It helps us acquire a sort of soft power; there is an incredible fight for power, the share of G7 countries on wealth is decreasing day by day, and there are various parameters where this battle is going on. Now, of course, the traditional powers are still important; they’re still in the field. But there are also new parameters that are added. And TOGG, the Turkish automobile, is also one of the windows that helps our country acquires such power. So, technological power, cyber power, soft power; countries and nations are competing in these areas; they are fighting in these areas, and companies, brands and institutions have a vital role here. The soft power that the American companies are helping their state acquire 470 STRATCOM PANEL - 17 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 is immense. And we know that it shapes opinions on the country as well, from Starbucks to Tesla, from Port to McDonald’s. These are all unique companies. That’s why Turkish entrepreneurs also are taking on an important mission in helping the country gain soft power through Turkish friends. And for that reason, as we were creating the assembled airport, we never thought of it as just an infrastructure activity. We wanted Türkiye to have a soft power in this area. There were a lot of discussions about it until it was completed. We did battle a lot of disinformation. For example, there was flooding at the Kuwait airport, and it was published as if it was the Istanbul Airport. But once it was experienced once it came into use, people gave it what it deserved. These are the global awards that we received. We were the second-best airport in two different awards, and we were the most accessible airport in Europe. These are not awards that you can receive from the awardees; they are distributed or presented through readers’ votes. And, of course, as we were on this journey, we used the power of design and branding; we had to enable this huge structure to build a connection with people. And as much as we were systems-oriented, we wanted to be individual and passenger-oriented, and we wanted to take part in people’s stories. Here, there was someone who inspired us. As someone who is very much loved and respected in Türkiye from The soft power that the American companies are helping their state acquire is immense. And we know that it shapes opinions on the country as well, from Starbucks to Tesla, from Port to McDonald’s. 471 S T R A T C O M P A N E L seven to 77 with his work well, how could he have influenced our communication strategy right? Well, all airports are saying that they are passenger-friendly. And here, we focused on the most joyful ones of our passengers, the smallest to the most innocent ones, the children. At the Istanbul Airport, we started the family and passenger-friendly program. And we created projects; we identified problems, we observed the problems we dreamed of. Again, we worked in a team with a multidisciplinary process between different groups. We facilitated the past in our airport, enabling people to have a more comfortable experience in the airport. So, we put forward a lot of things that facilitated families with children. And, of course, we also had some exceptional guests with special needs, children with special needs. They can be very disturbed by the noise and the speed of walking at the airport. That’s why we also have a special protocol in place for them. If a passenger is not flying with Turkish Airlines, we are creating the first impression for that passenger when they land at the airport. If they are coming with Turkish Airlines, they’re already coming with a great experience, so that makes it easier for us. But as soon as they step foot on the ground until they get to the city, all they experience needs to be inspiring. That’s what we aim for. And here we have various art pieces from various museums across Türkiye. So, we have an airport museum. We wanted to take the transformative power of our infrastructure one step further. And with wider teamwork, we wanted to write a new story. Now there is a part of the airport that we are not very happy with. It is the departure. It’s the floor before the departure floor. And we wanted it to be transformed with creative industries with arts. So, we have a competition in place. Together with the Turkish Design Foundation, we have IGART, and designers and people from various creative industries below 35 can apply to this. And soon, we will reach the deadline for applications. And the project that is selected by our jury will then help us transform this area. And as we saw the contributions design made to the Istanbul Airport, we wanted this to be spread across the masses and create more benefit. Now, of course, design can be very comfortable and romantic, but also it creates great amounts of soft power, as I said, and we always focus on that. We focused on areas in our city, which could be improved, and we had workshops about those areas, and we recorded the outcomes to decision-makers. This is what we have done just in Istanbul. Now Istanbul is exciting for a designer because there are so many problems, and the more the problem, the more active the designer’s brain is. So, Istanbul was also selected as the 2017 Design City and the UNESCO’s Creative Cities areas. So, when design comes together with Istanbul, a much bigger potential is created about the challenges of our cities. 472 STRATCOM PANEL - 17 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 We all have heard of smart cities, which are quite popular. If being a smart city could solve all the problems, then San Francisco, which is a city that hosts Google and Apple, probably wouldn’t be the city that has the most amount of homeless people. So, we believe that design also needs to work towards creating benefits for humanitarian problems. And for that reason, we have the urban strategic guides that have been created for Syrian refugees. And we work together with an American consulting company, and we try to create solutions to social issues here. We also want to focus on transforming the industry. So, we had the furniture competition, which created a lot of resonance. And we also enabled the winners of this contest, I mean, that furniture to be produced. And another thing that makes us very happy is to bring the consciousness about design to very young age. If children acquire an aesthetic viewpoint from a young age, they can make many accurate decisions if they look at everything in life from that perspective. We are having a collaboration with Arkki from Finland. And through some of their trainer programs, our trainers have now learned about their programs, and we are providing architectural training to our children now. Another thing we did was to promote ancient Anatolian crafts across the world. Now, since it is very familiar to us, we don’t always attach the deserved value to these crafts, and for Europeans, it could be much more interesting. So, these handicrafts, these Anatolian crafts, were important for us, and we had some videos, some documentaries, some documents created, and we announced it to all European designers. And now European designers are being inspired by these crafts, and they will be putting forward their ideas with this inspiration. And they will be attending a competition we are holding, and we will see the results by May. And basically, we are united, uniting Turkish crafts with a designer in Slovenia, for example. Finally, to integrate this efficiently into our institutions, we have a strategic design and management program together with Istanbul Technical University. And within this program, people institutions or individuals from institutions who are interested in transformation through design can receive educational content. Design beyond the potential of improving cities and lives can improve our institutions’ functions and processes and has healing or improving power. And we are doing all of this together with our team, and we want to unite and improve through design. Thank you very much. Nilgün Balkaç We want to thank you very much as well. You told us that we could do it as long as we could imagine it. We need to dream and perform, and we need to have 473 S T R A T C O M P A N E L a human at the center, and we need to appeal to minds and hearts. And we would like to thank Mehmet Kalyoncu very much for being with us. Now, we will continue our journey along with the design and, again, one of the best brands of our countries; ; they are the number one. We continue with Mert Dorman, Senior Vice President in charge of corporate communications at Turkish Airlines. Mert Dorman Before talking about our brand, I wanted to start with our global image video. Now, as brands are expressing themselves, they need to do some international activities to function on a worldwide scale. And, of course, these global activities need to be filled with operations. And in this global scale competition, we are the airline company which flies to the most amount of countries and that gives us a significant title. We are flying to 333 airports, and we have operations in 128 countries. And we have been holding this title for five years now. Now, during the pandemic, as you know, many airlines had to pause their operations. As Turkish Airlines, we continued our flights, and we also started to fly to new destinations, and we turned the crisis into an opportunity. In 2021, we opened new destinations 474 STRATCOM PANEL - 17 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 in many continents and many countries and widened our network. Of course, Istanbul, as a vast hub, plays the most significant role in this. When you look at our fleet, we have 23 cargo and 350 passenger aircraft, and we have 373 planes in total. And today, we ranked ninth among the airline companies in terms of the number of airplanes in their fleets. And of course, Istanbul, as you know, there is a saying that if the world were a single state, Istanbul would be its capital. Istanbul is very central, which creates a massive advantage for Turkish Airlines and our airport. Mr. Mehmet did an excellent presentation that the Istanbul Airport is so magnificent, especially during the pandemic when social distancing and hygiene were critical. This airport added value to Turkish Airlines because people want to have more spacious areas and more innovative airports as they’re traveling. And as Turkish Airlines, we are utilizing the benefits of such a magnificent airport. If we were to draw a circle around Istanbul with a three-hour flight distances, you could go to 50 countries. So it is logical to choose Turkish Airlines if you are flying to multiple cities. And again, according to Eurocontrol data in 2021, we continued our flights without any pause, and we had an average of 1175 flights daily. And we were the most significant network carrier across Europe. And we were the airline that best managed the crisis; we had the slightest decrease in passengers throughout the pandemic. And we continue to be the number one airline company in Europe regarding occupancy. Now, as you know, air traffic stopped, and all our planes were on the ground and cargo came to the fore at that time, and Turkish Cargo, in terms of social responsibility carrying vaccinations and medications to all parts of the world, also continued to carry cargo and with proactive decisions that we took. We also decided to transport cargo and passenger aircraft. We converted our passenger aircraft into cargo planes during the pandemic. We increased our market share and ranked among of the top five cargo companies across the world, and, of course, as part of the 2023 vision, we want Turkish Cargo to be one of the top three companies across the globe in the cargo segment. We said one of the most significant advantages we have is that we have a magnificent airport and Istanbul is at the center of the world. Also, we have a great network. We have the fourth most fabulous network, and we have a very young fleet; our aircrafts are very young, and the average age of our airplanes is very young. So, we have the youngest fleet. Of course, we have globally launched global image campaigns investing in sports, arts, and culture to increase our brand value. And as you know, we are helping people in need. Turkish Cargo is bringing medication, vaccines, and blood to various countries. We are working with the 475 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Turkish Red Crescent, which increases our brand value, and we are communicating about products and services. We have carried out a brand perception study, and People voted that Turkish Airlines is worth their money. We are offering affordable prices. In return, people get high-quality services. So, our sales campaigns are going on. During the pandemic, we were one of the most affected sectors. As Turkish Airlines, of course, we continue to communicate with people, utilizing the power of social media more; we never interrupted our communication, and still, we are the second most recognized, most known brand in the world. This is the contribution of the investment we made in communication. In terms of intercontinental flights, we are number 3, the third most preferred. The pandemic is coming slowly to an end, and people have started to travel. In terms of the recognizability of your brand, we are among the top and one of the most preferred 476 STRATCOM PANEL - 17 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 brands. This is the 85th anniversary of Turkish Airlines; I want to show you a video that we produced on this occasion. Thank you very much to the audience. Nilgün Balkaç Our guests tried to tell you about the importance of branding and becoming a brand. If we believe in ourselves, we can make everything possible and create more brands for our country. Thank you very much to the Turkish brands for being with us. 477 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 18 Media Ethics and Editorial Policies 478 STRATCOM PANEL - 18 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Media Ethics and Editorial Policies 12 December 2021 • Erem Şentürk Founder of NotHaber (Moderator) - Türkiye • Ali Saydam Honorary President of Bersay Communications, Journalist, Author, Communications Expert - Türkiye • Zeliha Eliaçık Opinion Editor at Anadolu Agency - Türkiye • Meryem İlayda Atlas Editorial Coordinator for Daily Sabah - Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 479 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 18 At the end of 2020, the budget spent for fake reputation is more than 2 billion US dollars currently. Erem Şentürk Thank you, everyone. We’ll talk about media ethics, misinformation, disinformation, editorial policies, everything, and the information warfare that surrounds us. What happens backstage? How does the mechanism run? Let’s invite the specialist, Ali Saydam, first to the stage with your applause. He is the honorary president of Bersay Communications Consulting. Zeliha Eliaçık, she’s the opinion editor at Anadolu Agency. Meryem İlayda Atlas, editorial coordinator for Daily Sabah. At the end of 2020, the budget spent for fake reputation is more than 2 billion US dollars currently. I liked this; I disliked this; I got angry with this news or not when everything shared in social media turns around that, in terms of the terrorism- related news, we were discussing a dilemma: Shall we publish terrorism-related news or not? If we did, would we advertise terrorism? Would that be propaganda for terrorism? But, we have to inform the public. So social media went beyond a dilemma; now, it’s a trilemma. It requires a crisis management approach. The same 480 STRATCOM PANEL - 18 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 goes for news about disasters and violence. What about damaging information being broadcast? Would this normalize violence, or would we increase sensitivity toward violence? How would that serve the public? The same goes for speculative news. Is it a crime to say that ASELSAN was purchased by foreigners, etc.? Why do we have this news? Ali Saydam, let’s start with you. So, these are all media and ethics discussions and 2021 ethics. What makes it different from the ethics in the media in the 1960s? Do we apply all the rules from the 1960s? Are they still valid today? Ali Saydam We should go back not to the 1960s but even further to the Ahi culture, which we were quite acquainted with. And we should delve into this concept more. Aristo has three books on ethics, and this is where the idea of ethics or the word ethics comes from Aristo. Then, it was translated as morality, and the Latin word is Morales. So, it comes from Arabic, and we’re using “ahlak” in Turkish instead of morality. So, there are three concepts: ethics, “morales,” and the other is “ahlak.” Well, the phenomenon called ethics turned into morality. It comes from Latin; as I said, it evolved from that in the Christian world. Some religious motifs were introduced in secular societies; the work ethics is used more. Other than these three words, we have different words from the Ahi organization from “Ahi Evran” time. We have the word “edep, adap” which means decency, propriety, civility. I wish we also talked about it “edep yahu” it is also used by people in this phase, so it has a particular system of values, social morality is embodied in this concept, and I think we should use the words “edep, adap”, propriety, polite, civility decency more. It should be called “media adabı” when we refer to media ethics or when we talk about medical ethics, lawyer ethics, or legal ethics. It is clear that this isn’t only something that my generation thinks. I will further use the word “adap” which means media ethics. Media ethics, this concept is not to be distanced from society itself. Media ethics cannot be considered apart from society’s overall positioning. Let me try to explain without going too far back. Savage liberalism and savage capitalism started to be implemented in Türkiye after the 1980s, which I call the age of “joyful ignorance.” People who follow good manners are decent, gentle, and elegant. In short, those involved in media ethics must be decent, elegant, and courteous. These Aristo has three books on ethics, and this is where the concept of ethics or the word ethics comes from Aristo. But, then, it was translated as morality, and the Latin word is Morales. 481 S T R A T C O M P A N E L three concepts, especially in the 1980s, fell into a period of liberal economy and consumer society when all the cultures, virtues, and professional ethics were consumed. I started to deal with communication in Milliyet Newspaper in 1978. It was a tabloid journalist. In the 80s, I saw this approach very clearly with my eyes, and I was agitated in terms of professional ethics. In other words, this issue of catching singers of the ladies now continues as collusion. Female artists inform the journalists for getting their attention, saying, “I’m going here with my boyfriend tonight.” But they say that they came and caught him. I remember this very clearly, I remember the media posting erotic photos of women saying, “She did this without shame, very courageous.” Along with this hypocrisy, the media adapted to this due to the gradual degeneration of society’s general moral accumulation, experience, and values in the 1980s. 482 STRATCOM PANEL - 18 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Now, the issue of decency, which includes the moral and religious values system beyond these cultural behavior patterns, has completely disappeared in the civil social media, which is the media in itself. There is an environment where all kinds of insults and ruining people’s reputations are accepted as permissible, where reputation is consumed straightforwardly, and an environment where everything can be done behind the scenes and people can make any aggression and attack. In other words, at the point where the consumption society meets with social media, decency, morality, and ethics have disappeared. Now then, the individual and institutions are incredibly open to it. In another way, we are witnessing the execution of a brand without ever discussing the last example. It is thought to have been instrumental in giving an award to an ineligible person. But, there was only a sponsor there. “Wow, how can you sponsor here” the rival brand is battering that brand through segments entirely disconnected from the codes of decency and ethics in social media. Erem Şentürk Can I ask something right here? What does the world need in terms of media ethics? Shall we refer to specific ethics, recover it, reclaim it, or redefine it? Shall we define ethics in any way, or shall we claim a better definition? Ali Saydam Well, I think society has its value chain, and if you are consuming as a society, you can’t talk about a media ethics at all. The community has to act in unison when it comes to morality and look at the War of Independence, the pre-World War era, and the period of resistance to the mandate, so if you can steer the society in a specific direction, media will have to redirect or restore itself. Otherwise, we’ll get loose because morality serves reputation significantly. Whether as an individual or an institution, having a strong reputation directly impacts your commercial success. So, to protect your reputation, you have to align yourself with society, and the media has to do that. Depending on the spirit of the community, it has to reposition itself. I have to protect myself in the meanwhile, I mean, my personality is attacked, or I have to defend my place in a social system by way of a legal arrangement, and this legal arrangement has to happen fast. We talked about Western democracy; the word universal attracts my loath. With universal democracy, maybe they mean the entire universe, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. We have a universal law valid for the whole planetary system. So, when they say something is universal, it comes from the Anglo-Saxon expansion of the Anglo- Decency, morality, and ethics have disappeared when the consumption society meets with social media. 483 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Saxon Imperial culture. So, I have a prejudice; I am biased toward these words. There are two issues here: We express the values of society need to be reclaimed. I want to give a typical example of media. I don’t believe media is that incredible or that fascinating. During the 1950 election, the media was controlled by the Republican People’s Party against Democrat Party. Who won the elections? Democrat Party. In 2002, what happened then? The media was against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and AK Party, who won the election, AK Party and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. If you’re a great leader, have great ideas, and have a great organization. If you can organize around this notion, then the media ethics will have to get in better shape and reorganize itself. And that will be enough and don’t forget about rights and freedoms, so you should protect the rights and liberties by the law. Erem Şentürk Now we have to talk about terrorism-related news because that’s valid, but this is where disinformation is spreading very quickly. Disaster news, climate change news, terror news, cause news, violence against women and children news is spreading all around. The entropy spread rate is very high there. So, we were in 484 STRATCOM PANEL - 18 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 a dilemma when presenting terrorism-related information. If we do, will that be propaganda for terrorism or terrorist organization? If not, people will miss this aspect. So, now we’ve talked about the trilemma. What about social media? Social media is filling in all these gaps. So, we have to strike a balance. When we look at Turkish-centric terrorism and news, How does it work? As a journalist, and as a person, Meryem İlayda Atlas, who is reporting about Türkiye in English., shall we broadcast terrorism news? Meryem İlayda Atlas Hello, everyone, of course, we should talk about it and report it. How to do it when presenting the news? We have to have ethical boundaries for the traditional media, but users in social media need to have better media literacy. These are the two essential spheres of responsibility because media has the power to create public opinion. So, it is interactive. And in broadcasting, one of the foremost principles is to consider public interests and public welfare. It’s also a social service. So, public benefits and claims need to be taken into account. When taking these steps, the media should be aware of its strength and interact when reporting about the news and its editorial policies. French sociologist Raymond Aron had said before the digital age came. “The important thing for a terrorist is not to kill more people, but to be more to be recognized, to be known known by many.” He didn’t come up to the digital age, and this makes even more sense in a digital age now. We should do news reports about terrorism and terrorists, but what kind of media or space do we create for terrorists? Are we spreading their messages unconsciously? Do we facilitate that they communicate with one another because they want to create engagement and interaction and spread panic and fear, and spread evil? So, in social media, when condemning some incidents, or when you say, “damn you,” are we communicating the messages, multiplying the statements of terrorist organizations, increasing their rate of recognizability, giving them more power, more power than they have. And when establishing links with them, are we becoming their medium or not? So, we have to pay attention to them. We have to prevent the spreading of evil. As Hannah Arendt said, we may cause sin to become ordinary. Erem Şentürk You have given an example; Harfer is also telling you the same. Media captures public opinion and then negotiate, bargaining in their name. Traditional media and social media are the two essential spheres of responsibility because media has the power to create public opinion. 485 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Meryem İlayda Atlas There are two examples. They take people as hostages; there was a live broadcast. Some terrorists took hostage people, and they interviewed them live, when they go to PKK camps in Kandil, they broadcast live, for example, and share positive news. That’s a problem ethically; of course, we should make news reports about terrorist attacks, but we have to think about how. The first one is on 31st March 2015; Chief Prosecutor Selim Kiraz was assassinated. A terrorist member pulled the trigger on his head, and it was served to the media. These images were given to the press and were reported by mainstream media and TV outlets; they became an instrument of bargaining. Then it was like, ‘he said this, he answered this, the terrorist wants this.’ So, people witnessed the entire process, and what you have done there as the media is to disseminate terrorism, and you should not be involved as a negotiator, you should leave it up to the specialists. So, there 486 STRATCOM PANEL - 18 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 was a live broadcast; the Russian Ambassador Karlov was assassinated, how he was killed, where the assassin came from. This was reenacted several times by the media, and this reenactment is an issue. We have to pay attention to details when someone commits suicide; it may become an example to others. So, you’re teaching people how to do it; you have to avoid that when it comes to abuse and rape cases. All the details and legal processes are shared—all the essential pornographic information. People believe in compassion fatigue. For example, this is also true for Israel-related news. In the killing of Karlov, we have seen these enactments a lot, and next saw all the images of the killing. So, the moments of being killed in this process and dead people’s bodies. It’s an intimate subject, and well, shared the young lady’s images recently, people being killed, a public prosecutor or an ambassador, an ordinary citizen. So, reenacting how they were killed and how they died is teaching people how to do it, and people, maybe, a felonious, can take it as an example. Let’s say there is an explosion in Istanbul or any place in the world. You know, it’s called backpack journalism or back pocket journalism. Everyone has a smartphone and a camera; they’re taking pictures and videos, not journalism. Well, why not? Because you came home, you had a busy day, you have things on your mind, and you open your social media accounts; of course, there are filters, editorial policy policies, in conventional media. Still, it does not exist in social media. You see a fragmented body as a result of an explosion. When you are reading these or sharing these images, you’re punishing the victims and the relatives. This is what the terrorists want. We have to pay attention to suicide news, and you can’t give too much detail. Because some people may copy it, let me give an example of ethics in movies. An adult who sees that a stool is falling understands that people hang themselves; you don’t have to show the entire scene of people fighting for their lives; think about children watching it. You have to present these scenes in a controlled way, which will also be ethical. So, this person hung himself- if you give too many details of the act, you will spread the evil and the message, or you’re also generating disadvantaged groups if you pity too much, if you present pitiful images. Like the Israeli state, when they enter the masjid, the mosque, the Israeli government is shooting at Palestinian females. They’re being killed because they’re turning their backs at them. So, we are condemning those, which angers us and hurts us, but the portrayal on TV, newspapers and social media is like this. We condemn it, but we have Israeli police like Robocop standing and a Muslim woman lying on the floor in blood. If you portray Palestinian women, we put Muslim women in Europe at risk because this is how we serve them, downtrodden in blood. And well, this is not something to be shamed for; we 487 S T R A T C O M P A N E L are creating our victims by presenting news of terrorism using these depictions. Stone-throwing Palestinian kids, showing them in a seminar in Europe. I’ve seen those Israeli children throwing stones, and this is a typical environment for them; I might assume that. Israeli kids are raised in a fashion that prevents them from throwing stones. So, this Israeli, Robocop police, and we show this woman lying on the floor in blood? Well, you will portray people who came to Europe to steal the lives of Europeans. Erem Şentürk I’m curious about the solutions for all of these. Do they exist somewhere, and can we utilize those solutions, or do we need to create new solutions? Meryem İlayda Atlas While I believe in mainstream media, I’m speaking for Türkiye; I think that BBC and other institutions publish some reports across the world about media monitoring. But I haven’t seen anything. I’m an academic as well, and I haven’t seen any information being provided to editors regarding this issue. Media institutions need to create their codes of ethics; they need to have ethics books, ethics guides, and some guiding documents. They don’t have that, but I also believe civil society has a lot to do. Media monitoring, which exists across the world, needs to be done by us. We need to say this needs to be done in this way and not in the other way. So, we shouldn’t just depend on the Supreme Board of Radio and Television, but we should have several demands around this. Media monitoring is a system that functions worldwide in one way or the other. Especially for groups who are not taking part in shaping the mainstream media, media monitoring is a necessity. Erem Şentürk Okay. So, after what Meryem said, especially about compassion fatigue. It’s creating social anxiety through media. I think we need to be very sensitive about this. I want to turn to Zeliha Eliaçık now. Because this is the case with us, I wonder how it is abroad. Because we have almost double victimization, people who are victimized are victimized once again. A child who is harassed is harassed once again; on media, a woman who was killed is killed once again, and when a bomb explodes, it’s flashing. It’s flashing for the second time in media. So, that’s the case here, but I’m wondering what the issue is abroad. 488 STRATCOM PANEL - 18 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Because I know there is a fetish rating, no matter how much we say, it doesn’t exist. There is a fetish for all the details in such news reports. And the rating for that is going very well. Especially with SEO journalism, Search Engine Optimized journalism. I mean, people know what the most searched keywords are. So, for example, a lighter fuel, we had a news report about a child dying from lighter fuel. And we heard three, four more such incidents. Then we had another news report, saying that the lighter fluid or lighter fuel turned into a death machine. And then it stopped, for example, because we just stopped reporting such issues. So, what do you think? Zeliha Eliaçık Moving from your example, I want to give another example, it’s not just about the new media, but the example reminded me of Wolfgang Goethe, the great German poet. I remember he was writing the book “The Sorrows of Young Werther,” and there was the young Werther committing suicide, and then there was a trend of committing suicide all across Europe. Then, they have a sentence added to the book’s introduction saying don’t follow my path; they try to decrease the amount of suicide. So, we see this in literature as well. We are talking about ethics at the Strategic Communication Summit, and I want to tackle the issue from this framework. And there were also certain things that I heard from the professor here and from Meryem. I want to combine what I have heard, and I want to emphasize this. Now we’re discussing ethics today, media ethics. And it’s not just us who are discussing this. Now, I come from a German background, and I know there’s a lot of discussion in Europe. We talked about ethics, and I’m not going to go into that conceptual discussion around customs and ethics. In the 60s, a theory was created about public space and communication, and with the artificial intelligence and media, there have been so many developments in this area that the theory needs to be revised. Currently, technology is moving forward without bounds. And we need new ethics, new codes. You’re wondering if we already have an existing set and if we should update that. Well, I am not a journalist right now. I am an editor at Anadolu Agency at the analytics desk. So, just talking from my observations, I was wondering if there was a media codex. In Germany, Der Spiegel has a codex, and various other institutions have codexes, and you can read them. They have been created based on certain principles, and the publications are then done accordingly. I haven’t seen that in Türkiye, but I know we have such preparations. Our Director-General is here as well; our CEO is here as well. The codex in Europe is also being updated. So, they are also creating or seeking a new understanding of ethics. Because as Habermas says, “The world was different when I developed 489 S T R A T C O M P A N E L this document.” And now we are living in a post-secular era. And as you know, in the secular world, morals were something else, and ethics was something else. And the grounds were clear. However, in the post-secular era, when technology’s so advanced and everything is so doable, you need to have a new reference to stop you from doing certain things. And there, Habermas as a secular philosopher, is saying that we need to recall religious and cultural values to duty, and we need to create new codexes based on that. Again, I want to refer to him. If we are talking about ethics, it is not about the executives or the media institutions, but we as consumers of the content are also content creators because we are sharing things. So, we are the boss as well, and who will set the codes there. 490 STRATCOM PANEL - 18 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Habermas is saying that there is a requirement for a new code of ethics, but it will not happen overnight. It requires the development of media literacy, but I also believe that there is a misjudgment in Türkiye. When you prepare content, who is going to check it? Is it going to be the media executive, is it going to be the reader, or could it be the state’s intervention? And they are intervening, and they will. For example, there is the Müslüme issue. Then there is the young girl who was killed with a samurai sword. So, social media users said that there should be something that stops this; they asked for a broadcast ban. Because people were so insensitive at one point. And now, when we talk about ethics, it’s not just about, you know, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, issues around women, or it’s not just about warfare news. There is also the case of being unbiased. As you know, this is one of the fundamentals of media, you know, being unbiased or objective, and there is a principle saying that a microphone should be presented to everyone. And by the way, before coming here, I also talked with some representatives from the media, chief editors of some media institutions in Germany. So, I was preparing for this. In terms of neutrality or impartiality, there is also a requirement for ethics about how to report the news. In Europe, journalism generally makes sure that there is a microphone presented to everyone. But basically, there is a story plot created in advance, and all actors are playing their parts. And there was an interview that I took part in for 20 minutes, and the subject was the refugees in Türkiye, and they only used one minute of the interview that I gave. They were able to say that they were doing neutral or impartial journalism because they had an interview with me and, you know, a journalist from Türkiye, who is stated to be close to the government. So, they make sure you are part of the story and make sure that they look impartial, but they use any part of the interview they like and make sure that they deliver the story they want. So, in Europe, and Türkiye, I mean, everyone broadcasting the way they wish, is creating a bad image for Europe in terms of the public communion there. Also, it creates an incorrect image about Europe for externals. And it’s the same case for Türkiye, for example, look at the 2020 figures in Germany; this is a sensitive issue. That’s why I wanted to give this example. It is about children’s abuse. One hundred fifty- two children were killed in Germany, and child pornography increased by 53%, with 18,761 cases. And there are one or two children who are sexually abused in every school. And these figures come from the German criminal department. So, I just translated it. So, this is a statistic created by the state. I’ll tell you how this takes place in the media in Germany; it doesn’t take place. They don’t portray it in media, and I wondered why they don’t. I asked the people I talked to, so, is there 491 S T R A T C O M P A N E L a prohibition? No, there isn’t. But this is basically about the manners we were discussing. So, how are manners created? There are some unions; for example, in Türkiye, we have professional associations, and we have that for journalism. And basically, they have some principles that they adopt. And also, there’s the social culture. I was talking to my journalist friend today, and I said, you know, if it’s not prohibited, why don’t you broadcast and publish it? And my friend said in German society, we have the concept of Wohlgefühl, a society of happiness, and we are an open society, and we don’t want to ruin that image. So, we don’t reflect negative news reports very much. So, as a responsibility, we don’t write it. If I wrote it, no one would punish me or penalize me for it, but we don’t, you know. So, for example, the girl Müslüme who was abused, and we see it on the news. It’s almost like pornographic content. It’s like it’s put forward in such a juicy way. In our media, there is so much visibility around these issues, creating some political and social results. I mean, for example, the German society is not aware of these issues that are taking place in their countries, and they assume it doesn’t exist. But here, since it has been presented to us, and as you know, media creates perceptions now, rather than delivering reality and facts. So, here, because we see this so much on media, we have the perception that there is a child raped almost every day in Türkiye. And this is very bad for child psychology. And also, seeing this news around abuses becomes concerning for mothers. When a grandfather pats the head of a grandchild, are we going to think of it as abuse? I mean, pedophilia and things are not normal things, they don’t happen every day, but it is put forth in such a way on our media. There’s a perception about Turkish society or the Turkish men because we are saying abuse and harassment against women are becoming part of the culture. And they are saying that it is based on the fact that we are such a religious community and under pressure. But I guess that’s not the case, because we just saw the figures in Germany that I shared with you. So, it’s a perception created, and the Turkish men are being portrayed as rapists and as perverts as if this wouldn’t happen in Germany. And, we are getting the false impression about ourselves as a perverted culture. And we are creating a bad image for the external parties as well. Erem Şentürk Thank you very much. So, we started with Ali Saydam, and we continued with Meryem İlayda Atlas, and Zeliha Eliaçık. And we also saw an issue in Gaziantep, there was a father who beat up a tiny baby who was very small, and some part 492 STRATCOM PANEL - 18 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 of the media did not broadcast that video, that moment of the actual beating. And they said these images would not do good, any good for the public. So, yes, we are curious about the baby’s health status; we will follow up about whether or not the baby was taken under state protection. And we will not broadcast the video. But then another group did broadcast the video. Those who did reveal the video got around 1.5 to 3 million views. And this turned into millions of TL in advertising revenue. And the public also realizes this. And the crowd was also divided on social media, saying we would not watch the people who broadcast this. Watching a video is the same as purchasing a video; if you want ethical content, then you have to make sure that you consume only such content. Zeliha Eliaçık I want to say something about how the manners in Europe became the manners based on a consensus. And what they did was the editors in chief come together? and they say, how are we going to do this? And there doesn’t have to be a political intervention, a state intervention. Merkel doesn’t have to call them while they’re doing this. But basically, they are focusing on their social interests. And they are trying to prioritize their society in their approach to broadcasting, which is what I expect from all media institutions. So this is not political discrimination. It is discrimination favoring the country, the nation, and we need to prioritize our interests and a master plan around this. 493 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 19 Inspiring Today: Women Leaders in Communication 494 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Inspiring Today: Women Leaders In Communication 12 December 2021 • Prof. Dr. Müge Elden Head of Department at Ege University Communication Faculty (Moderator) - Türkiye • Şeyma Eraz Çelik Founder of Zera Medya - Türkiye • Gonca Karakaş CEO of EFFECT BCW Türkiye - Türkiye • Ayşe Akalın Chairperson at IAB - Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S STRATCOM PANEL - 19 495 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 19 Women also found a place in the business world, in the academia later on creating extra benefits on the society apart from their qualifications as mothers, as nurturers. Prof. Dr. Müge Elden You all know the title of our panel: ‘Inspiring Today: Women Leaders in Communication’. Well, inspiring today, we say, but we will also talk about our experience. We will talk about women’s role and leadership in communication, the situation in Türkiye, in the world, and in academia.. Women are present in all walks of life. And, of course, women give birth, raise other living beings. As human beings, women are inevitable in our lives, in terms of their capability as mothers, wives. But on the other hand, women have always been the founding pillar of the family. Women also found a place in the business world and academia, creating extra benefits for society apart from their qualifications as mothers and nurturers. Let me give you some information about the academic world as I am a female academic. As you know, women have a 50% parity in the Turkish population. Half 496 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 of the population is female, and half is male. And looking at the business world, however, we have an average of 19 years for women and 39 years for men in terms of their length of staying in the business life. What about the professions? I’ll give you a few examples. Women mainly exercise the careers of teachers, engineers, lawyers, architects. Women are more present in such professions. However, when it comes to being an executive, which was striking for me, it’s only 20% female representation. What about women in the universities? We have 181,231 academics in Türkiye in total. 54% are men, 46% are women. So, in the academic world, we almost have 50% parity. What about the faculties of communication? As our topic is communication. In total, we have 2045 academics in Türkiye. 1048 of them are women. 997 of them are men. Looking at the gender split of professors and assistant professors, for instance, 50% of the professors are women, for assistant professors 54. 5% are women, for research assistants 46%. And for PhD students, we have 56% of female representation. And lastly, in terms of the number of female students in the faculties of communication, we have 4272 female students, 3284 male students in total. So, we can say that looking at the faculties of communication, in Türkiye, we have the 50% parity almost achieved, and in some places, even more than 50% is achieved. When I was invited to this panel, I asked a very distinguished friend from the team, “Why me?” I asked them, and they told me, “There are many reasons, but your most recently published book is the most important thing.” My book is called the Masters of Advertising 3. I think it’s been 20 or 30; I can’t even remember the exact number. I have such books and publications, and papers published. But this book is of particular importance because it created an awareness in me through my students. I had my previous books, Masters of Advertising 1 and Masters of Advertising 2, which talked about the history of advertising in the world and Türkiye, based on the crucial figures and names. However, among these critical names and figures, we only had Nesteren Davutoğlu present in the history of the Turkish advertising. She was the only female in the book. When I was in my office, my female student came to me one day, and she demanded something. They imposed something upon me. They said, “Professor, thank you so much; together with our professors, you have published this book, Masters of Advertising 1 and 2. We learned so much from these books. However, as women, we will step into the world of advertising in a couple of years after we graduate. But we want to see what other fellow women have done in the sector, as role models. They said. I came to realize that I was not doing enough. Something was missing. I said we need to have a book about the biographies of the female masters of advertising. And we need a book that will tell us about STRATCOM PANEL - 19 497 S T R A T C O M P A N E L their contribution to the advertising sector. So, many advertising masters and Turkish and international female figures took place in this book. And the editors are women. The book cover page was designed and illustrated by a woman. All the masters that are analyzed in the book are women. And the authors are also female academics from different universities of Türkiye. We also would like to thank our students for triggering such a project. Türkiye, we said 50% parities there. In the communications faculties, we have so many distinguished, esteemed, successful female professors, making sublime publications, raising excellent academics, creating a benefit to society. However, as I am physically present here, today, before I came here, as the topic of our panel is women leaders in communication, I asked myself, I said, “I am an academic for the last 30 years, and what have I done in these 30 years? What are the things that I achieved as first of its kind?” So, I can say that in advertising, I’m among the first people who had a PhD in Türkiye. Again, I am among the first academics in Türkiye who received an Assistant Professor title in Türkiye. Again, in advertising, I am one of the first and the first, actually, an academic who opened a PhD class. I’m the professor who founded this department, providing education at In the communications faculties, we have so many distinguished, esteemed, successful female professors making sublime publications and benefiting society. 498 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 undergrad, grad, and PhD levels. I’ve raised many students. I have established a center in the Aegean (Ege) University, etc. I’ve done many things like this. And I was thinking to myself, all these things mean that if we are determined to focus on a topic, we can achieve many things. We have the capability because women are very inclusive target oriented. They can use their minds as well as their emotions. Women can establish empathy using channels of sympathy. Women listen, talk, understand, and embrace. And women are creatures that can make a change in others’ lives. Women are very productive. Women can analyze things in detail and come up with correct analyses. And they are result-oriented in their actions. And women can see everything in detail with an extensive perspective. As the topic is communication, and professors tend to talk a lot, let me go on. Is this something that we acquire along the way, or are we born with these We have the capability because women are very inclusive target- oriented. They can use their minds as well as their emotions. STRATCOM PANEL - 19 499 S T R A T C O M P A N E L characteristics? Is this something like God-given to us? I want to ask that question. And I will answer it, and I’ll give the word to the panelists. So, people have analyzed the female brain and male brain, found that it starts to be shaped, starting from the first weeks, when we’re inside our mothers. Because male babies and female babies are subject to different hormones, the left-brain lobe of a boy baby develops more petite than a baby girl. As that’s not the case for girls, both parts of the brain get developed in the same and equal manner. By the way, these are all proven by neurological research. We have a central connection artery, the corpus callosum, as we call it. In women, this is thicker than men, which means that when men perceive something or when they’re going to do something in their minds, they mainly use the centers within the same lobe. However, when women want to interpret something or like a brain function is necessary, they can work both with the right and left parts of the brain by using this thicker part of the brain. So, biologically speaking, we also have some differences that help us communicate better. And the left cerebral lobe is about speaking, seeing, smelling. So, they are present in both the right and left lobe, but the left one is more effective. Just as we use our right hands, no more effective way; this part of the brain is more effective. Women have a more developed left brain than men who can hear, see, speak better. They can use their facial gestures and understand and interpret someone’s face better. The left and the right brain can function effectively in a simultaneous manner. Women have better multitasking capacities capabilities. We are not monotasking creatures, but multitasking creatures we are. And we have a better ability of empathy. This is a physical situation, a physiological situation. What about the communication field? Communication is all about understanding, listening, establishing empathy, speaking, telling, gathering detailed data, processing the data collected systematically, analyzing the data, forecasting and developing strategies. Women are, in fact, in my opinion, designed precisely for communication. This is like a gift of God. Our panelists will also discuss it; our generation laid the foundation blocks. Still, you, the next generation, the young people, we believe that you will be more innovative, integrated with the world, with higher competitiveness. You are willing to do this with strategies, plans, and programs. We have to say that for a society to be strong, it needs strong women. If women lag behind in the academic world, private, or public sectors, society cannot be strong. We are present in the community, outside our homes, and we can see this in our history. Turkish women have never existed with their motherhood characteristics only. We have always been a part of society, and we will continue to do so. So, very briefly, I talked about 500 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 the situation of women in the academic world. I will welcome our speakers and panelists, and I’ll start with a question. Şeyma, you are from the media, Ayşen, the advertising sector, and Gonca, you are from public relations, which are the three main pillars of communication. In the world and Türkiye, how do you see women as leaders and employees? Where do you see them? Are women in the decision-making positions, or are they in a more passive place where they just need to abide by others’ instructions? You can start as you wish. Gonca Karakaş We have to go into the details. We have to talk about how the inequalities emerged and how we can change this. I’ll give you some examples from the pandemic period. When we say gender equality, we talk about women and young girls having equal opportunities in society to reach similar positions with men. It has many different pillars. We are talking about a solution platform. Since 2000, UNDP has been working in this field. And significant progress has been made in this field. However, only in the coming 100 years will the inequality be eliminated if we go business as usual. This is a fourfold problem—education, health, politics, economy. STRATCOM PANEL - 19 501 S T R A T C O M P A N E L We’re talking about women and girls having equal opportunities in these fields. We had a very disadvantageous period because of the painful pandemic periods. I’ll talk about some figures from some reports. I said the gender gap would be closed in 100 years if we continue business as usual. This increased to 236 years because of the pandemic as of last year. As opinion leaders and communicators, we have to focus on this more. And we need to come up with some solution recommendations in a more straightforward way. And we need to spread these solutions to society. Let’s get some information about the current situation. The World Economic Forum, the Davos Summit, has the Global Gender Gap Report published every year. And in the report says that the pandemic impacted women more negatively than men. And the report says that the gender gap that would be closed in 100 years increased to 236 years due to the pandemic. Female labor force participation has seen a sharper decrease all around the world. A higher number of women are losing their jobs, but I’ll give you the figures for Türkiye. For women, female labor force participation in Türkiye went down to 38%, whereas it’s 78% for men. Of high-level executives, 16% are female, remaining 84% are men. And income of women, in a significantly extraordinary manner, is only 45% of men’s income, as the rate of high-level executives is very high for men. And as there are more women in low-paid jobs such as agriculture and health, women make 45% less income than men. These are the figures for Türkiye, but looking at the world, in developed countries, this is higher than 50%. The world global average is 38%. It is 58% in the UK and 55% in Germany; 78% in Sweden. So, female labor force participation has to increase in Türkiye and the region. And I’ll talk about why, in the final part. McKinsey also prepared a report last year. Because of the pandemic, the risk of women facing unemployment is higher compared to men. The reason is that in remote education, their children are receiving online education at home. Domestic chores create a more significant burden for women. I won’t go into the details, but compared to men, women risk losing their jobs more than men. And this gender inequality is also having very negative implications for the overall development of the world. We have minimal time; I will not go into the details of what I want to say. But I’ll keep them for the second round. I want to give the floor to you so that you can provide some examples from the sector. Ayşen Akalın I’ll talk about the advertising sector in Türkiye. Of course, we’re talking about a very creative, innovative industry with a higher accumulation of intellectual 502 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 knowledge. So, we expect gender inequality to be less, but a limited number of studies show us that that’s not the case. We have two academics from Galatasaray University who conducted research, and it shows that women from different experience levels in the sector were interviewed, and they realized that sexist statements are not made that much in the industry. But even those respondents, who say they don’t see sexism in the sector, also said they were subject to sexist behavior. So, there is this difference in the industry. Mediacat conducted research. Out of 123 agencies, they received information. And by the way, almost 5000 people are employed in these agencies, and 51% of the employees are women. In terms of numbers, women are higher in percentage, but only 15% are in leadership positions in terms of executives. So, again, the characteristic properties are attributed to gender. Just like Professor have said, women are more prone to multitasking, they’re better for communication, they’re soft-hearted, they can plan things in a better way. That’s why advertising agencies are mainly positioned in the customer relations departments. Another important department is strategic planning. STRATCOM PANEL - 19 503 S T R A T C O M P A N E L And for creative departments, for instance, it’s primarily male-dominated. Well, they call it the men’s locker room. I didn’t even know; I’d learned it. So, it’s all about a man coming together, laughing, talking together. And this is portrayed as something positive. So, on the creative side, women are not very present. That being the case, the creators of advertisements are men. So, there is always the male perspective in the advertisements. But the good news is that at the global level, when we take a look at the advanced countries, in practice, they are also almost in the same position as us. J. Walter Thompson researched over 2000 ads. They analyzed these 2000 ads based on gender criteria, gender equality criteria. In terms of numbers, men are more visible, two times more visible compared to women. They are more present on stage four-folds compared to women. And in terms of the duration of their speaking time, men tend to speak seven times more in ads than women. This was very striking. We carried out this research; Effie is the name. It’s fundamental research. And it mainly looks at if there is a business outcome out of this. We took a gender lens to analyze 561 ads according to their criteria. We saw that the situation in Türkiye is not that different than the global situation. The ads with a central female character constitute only one out of three ads. The voice-over is 91% men. Only 9% were female. And we said maybe we don’t have any voice-over artists in Türkiye. But we researched, and we saw a high number of women exercising this profession. But we realized that it almost became a self-fulfilling prophecy that the male voice is more trustworthy or reliable. So, people think like that. Men do the voice-overs. More than 50% of women hold a bank account or credit card, but only 4% of the financing sector have women as their main characters. And for the telecom sector, it is only 16%. When we look at the ads concerning cleaning products, only 9% feature men as the main characters. So, we started working on this. Especially awareness-raising among agencies and advertisers were important. We had activities for that purpose. We had some search conferences. And I think the most important thing is that everyone sees this as a corporate social responsibility project. However, it also has a business outcome because such progressive ads have up to 25% of a positive impact on people’s purchasing decisions, and for women, it is up to 45%. So, looking at the 2019 Effie research, we have seen improvements. The voice-overs increased 55%. And for female and male main characters, we have achieved parity, 50-50. And visibility of women in finance ads increased to 29%. And for housecleaning products with urbanization, we have an increased number of households with one or two people living. So, men are also now shopping for cleaning products. So, in that, also, we have seen an improvement going all the The ads with a central female character constitute only one out of three ads. The voice-over is 91% men. Only 9% were female. 504 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 We don’t need any support because we are women. We just need some clearance on the way. If we are given a chance, we will show ourselves. way up to 29%. These are all critical. That’s why we will continue to work in the field. But I’ll talk about those activities later; I’ll give the word to Şeyma. Şeyma Eraz Çelik Well, I’d like to start with a confession. When I first heard about this invitation and learned about the topic of this panel, I was together with some colleagues in the panel in a set. And we started talking with each other; we should not be praised because we are women; we should be praised because we are doing our job well. We don’t need any support because we are women. We need some clearance on the way. If we are given a chance, we will show ourselves. I then told myself that I shouldn’t be that aggressive. Thank you very much for the invitation. Let me share an anecdote with you. I have a brother. And we passed the national university test. And back then, there was a problem because women wearing headscarves were not really well STRATCOM PANEL - 19 505 S T R A T C O M P A N E L accepted at universities. And my father suggested that I study abroad. And I was excited about the news. But my mom was quite worried because she thought it would be difficult for me to study in the other part of the world. Then my father turned to my brother and said, “Well, if we were talking about this one,” meaning my brother, “I would be worried, but I’m quite sure of my girl. And I know that she would survive wherever I sent her in the world.” So, we were never a daughter and a son for my parents. We were their children. And they were always quite sure of us. And they were measuring us because of our capabilities and our character, not because of our gender. But, of course, that perception starts in the family. And of course, media has a significant contribution to it. Today, the media and film industry can change and shape the cultural perspective in a good or a wrong way. Children are subject to some social patterns and social prejudices that they see on television and media. And that shapes their future thoughts. I want to share some statistics—only 20% of the news feature articles from female academics. And only 20% of the cases, women are the leading television role. Women journalists produce 37% of the news. But when women can find a position, they are more likely to support an advocate for other women. I mean that women are writing about other women’s stories, but being in less prominent roles, they don’t have that chance. So, the last statistic I talked about is that women produce 37% of the news articles. This is not too bad because this is global statistics. But I think we don’t see any reflection in the actual news because we don’t hear stories of women that much. We don’t see many women in the decision-making seats. Also, there are certain stereotypes about how a job should be done. We don’t have a clear perspective of women in the media world. And women managers or position holders are also asked to work in a manly manner, representing the male perspective. I think we can still overcome this problem by giving more room to women’s stories. According to media content analysis, half of the news further fosters cliches about gender stereotypes. So, the international media or general media outlets, be digital or printed, show women as domicile workers and are generally victims. This is not only related to the news. When you look at the film and series industry, you see a similar scenario for women. The stories told by women are not about strong women. And if, for instance, in a film or a TV series, the husband is always unfaithful. The Turkish TV series industry has quite a lot of viewers worldwide, around 700 million. This is quite a good asset for us because we have the chance to create an impact. So female directors, female producers, and female scriptwriters, who have the decision-making position, can inspire the rest of the world. So, about my story, we talked with Professor Müge here, before the program, and The stories told by women are not about strong women. And if, for instance, in a film or a TV series, the husband is always unfaithful. 506 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 she kindly asked me to share something about myself. Yes, professionally, I’m working in communications. I’ve worked in different positions in this industry. And there were at times; I bumped into some hurdles. I don’t want to give some specific examples. But I’ve always wanted to do my job. I’ve always had dreams and plans that I wanted to practice. I still do. I always asked myself, what’s the worst that could happen? I may fail; I may not be able to do the jackpot. But, my talents are always going to stay with me. If I fail at one thing, I will try and become successful in my other task. So, entrepreneurship is quite tricky, but we have to keep trying. Because in the future, I don’t want to regret the things that I haven’t done in the past. “If not now, then when?” was my self-question. That’s the motto that triggered me. My humble advice to those who would like to start their own business is that they should get the required experience before they set on a journey. Any occasion can be an asset for you in the future. Work hard and do it for yourself. And you should have your success criteria because your work is your signature. When you look back on the things that you’ve done, and when they smile at you, then I think you shouldn’t care about what other people say. Your gender does not define your success in your position. It’s about your perspective and your hard work. Thank you very much. Prof. Müge Elden Thank you. Now that we have the industry’s representatives with us, and after hearing their stories, I also would like to say a few words. Because I’m an academic, I feel the luckiest among you. Because in the literary world, women have a perfect position. The division is almost 50%. And we have managing positions as well; we become deans and directors. So, in the academic world, things are good for women. But as far as we heard from you, women are really among the main pillars of society; we are the engines of civilization. Our job is quite challenging. We give birth to the next generation. We train them; we teach them our culture. And psychologically, we are responsible for the baby’s health. So, the foundations of a healthy future generation are laid by women and mothers. As far as I understood, women cannot reach the positions they deserve—neither in the political theme nor in the public or private sectors. Yes, of course, our objective is to leave a good heritage to the next generation to keep on building bricks on the foundation they laid. That’s why we should always be hopeful. We should have self-confidence. We should never be desperate and never give up. Keep on the fight and find the truth both in social life and in our professional lives. So, that’s the primary STRATCOM PANEL - 19 507 S T R A T C O M P A N E L thing that we need to do. And apart from that, in the communications industry, for women to achieve the positions they deserve, what should be done? What should they do in the future? Gonca Karakaş Digital transformation has become a reality. Gender equality can be triggered with digital advances as well. By 2030, in the US, as far as gender equality is concerned, if the desired level is achieved, the economy will grow by 13 trillion US dollars, only by women joining the professional life. As academics and researchers, we talked about important things here. But as working women, we have privileges. If 508 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 we close this panel before we mention something, I would feel sorry. And this is domestic violence, which is on the rise with the pandemic. In Türkiye, it is again on the top of the agenda, and it’s on the rise. But although domestic violence figures are on the rise, awareness about it is also on the rise. There was a social reaction, for instance, quite recently in Türkiye. There’s public awareness growing which affects the media outlets as well. So, we understood how critical social reactions are. So, as working women, as academics, of course, we studied the basics of domestic violence, and those basics are women not being able to go to school, for instance. I think we should be raising our voices on their behalf as well. And, of course, we should benefit from the digital transformation. But we should not always forget about the basics. Ayşen Akalın Well, advertising is there to convince people to buy a product or change their behaviors. For example, we would drink tea by brewing the leaves in the past, but now we’re using the teabags. So, there’s always a question of whether society is shaped by advertisements or is it the social behaviors that shape the promotions. Şeyma mentioned this earlier. So, I think the first thing that will come to mind is education. But before schooling, we also have to focus on TV shows and commercials. Because ordinary people are exposed to television commercials a great deal, they surveyed the industry professionals daily. The question was whether they monitored the impacts on the society of their commercials. And the majority of the participants believed that they affect the consumers. But when they asked the same question to consumers, most of them thought that they could not identify themselves with the figures they see on the commercials or the TVs. This rule is called 3Ps: perspective, personality, and presence. Presence is important. We should see women physically in commercials. Of course, quality is vital as quantity. Perspective is also critical. We should see people with rich characters. They should not just be standing there. We should see people with better qualities on television. In that regard, we learned some lessons. I want to give an example from my own life. Recently, we received a lot of agencies coming and showing their demos. And we asked them to create content about modern women. Three agencies showed up with demos showing women doing yoga. So, stereotyping should be avoided. And the second thing I’d like to mention is that we have to demonstrate stronger characters on television. And thirdly, we have to try to reach out to all segments of society, not only women but also people with disabilities and other disadvantaged parts of the STRATCOM PANEL - 19 509 S T R A T C O M P A N E L community. Also, we have to go back and look at the companies. On the brand side, leadership is critical. So, we should see more women leaders. It should not be the only message, but it should also be the reality. Companies should pay attention to having gender balance in their recruitment strategies. Also, raising awareness is quite important. We have campaigns about that. And also have to learn from each other and reward the suitable jobs. There are many contests in our industry. And we managed to start providing awards for gender equality as well. You don’t have to have a strong woman in the commercials to win the battle. If the commercials also show a father playing with his daughter or a man washing the dishes, that can also help the company beat the award because there are lots of cliches that we can break. Gonca Karakaş Let me give another example. In the Public Relations Association of Türkiye, together with KAGİDER, we have been providing gender equality awards for 510 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 the last five years. And this was integrated as another chapter in many award ceremonies in Türkiye. That seems like a beginning. Whether this is an award or a contest, we start raising awareness because these things become more visible. So, our industry is quite the leader in that matter. Ayşen Akalın Measuring and assessing is pretty essential. If you do not measure the progress, it will not be possible to make forecasts for the future. Therefore, we always have to monitor and measure. Prof. Dr. Müge Elden Şeyma, what do you think about the future? How do you foresee the future? I asked you to give some personal examples to show how women should be entrepreneurs? How women are capable of shaping their own professional lives, how they should not fear. Especially in the communications industry, with the media becoming more digitalized, especially now I look at the past ten years with the transformation of the consumer, change of the media and content, maybe this is relatively small, but this is still something which we were not able to dare in the past. Not fearing to take that first step. I think we see more of that among women. In the past, to establish a media agency or a marketing agency, you needed a lot of investment. But now, if you have creativity, multi-intelligence, and innovation, you can start something without a very high capital or without requiring a lot of investments. Now that we’re speaking of women, I think women have that chance. Don’t you believe that this is an alternative? Şeyma Eraz Çelik I completely agree with you. Especially with digitization, we don’t need the budgets we required in the past. The content is quite essential. If you start with the right content, it is easier to find a budget if you want to present the right content. Because everyone’s interested in communication, everyone’s interested in the media. And, of course, there’s a target audience for everyone. So, what makes you different, what makes you stand out, is the quality of your content, actually, rather than the investments you make in it. And with tiny amounts, you can provide that content. Thank you very much for reminding us of that. Because STRATCOM PANEL - 19 511 S T R A T C O M P A N E L this is something significant to share with our audience here, you also asked, what should we do for women to keep on this good job? Yes, we have women journalists and reporters. But sometimes, we have difficulties accessing female experts’ views. And I remember the days when I was a journalist. I made the same mistake. I was an economic journalist. And I always resorted to a male point of view in the area of the economy. In the news world, you race with time. You always have to do something at the last minute. And you have to come up with a speedy solution to produce that news article at the last minute. Of course, we need individual efforts by the journalists. We have to have the correct contact lists. I think female journalists have a significant role to play here. If they contact those female experts or academics before and have their contact details back, then in those last minutes, they will know who to contact. And I think we have to pick the stories carefully. The selection and the perspective of the producer are essential. But this is something entirely missing in Türkiye. That’s why we do not see strong women in films or television. You asked whether the society shapes the content or whether it’s the content that shapes the community. I think it’s a mutual area. I think society needs stronger women appearing on television. And that can only happen if women get leading roles in decision-making positions. Ayşen Akalın While in the past, it was pretty difficult for women to come to a particular position. And when they achieved that position, they didn’t treat well the working women, and they’ve done quite well. Many women thought that if I could do this, they should be able to do so. But it’s not going to be easy for them so that I can maltreat them. In my team, for instance, I want to see powerful women. Creating that spirit of sisterhood and supporting each other is very important. Prof. Dr. Müge Elden When we were talking backstage, I recommended a book to you. It’s about the importance of sisterhood. And I think you have rightly spotted here. As women, we should not be creating hiccups for each other because the rest of the world is already challenging for us. So, as women, we should be supporting each other. So, Gonca Karakaş, let’s hear some final words from you. 512 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Gonca Karakaş In my opinion, rather than discovering something from scratch here, we have to help create the right platforms. Of course, we all try to do something in our respective arenas. But let us cooperate; we should try to get together because the more we become, the faster we will be able to reach the solutions. If, for instance, there are specific quotas in executive boards for women. That will be more widespread in the future. That will help us to get organized and to start more significant projects. And of course, I should emphasize the importance of education. It’s an entirely different topic to discuss. There are many things to be done in the area of education as well. Prof. Dr. Müge Elden Thank you very much for your valuable contribution and your ideas. This brings us to the end of the panel. Thank you very much for your attention. STRATCOM PANEL - 19 513 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 20 Disinformation & Crisis 514 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 20 Disinformation & Crisis 12 December 2021 • Prof. Dr. W. Timothy Coombs Professor at Texas A&M University - USA • Dr. Jake Wallis Texas A&M University - USA • Ömer Kablan Presenter and Executive Producer at TRT (Moderator) - Türkiye • Wasim Khaled CEO of Blackbird - USA • Assoc. Prof. Ece Baban Associate Professor at Fenerbahçe University - Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 515 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 20 One of the most pressing issues of our time is disinformation. Ömer Kablan Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the strategic communication summit. The discussion is called disinformation and crisis. One of the most pressing issues of our time is, of course, disinformation. We’ve heard in and out, day in day out, the idea of fake news and disinformation, both spoken from politicians, both spoken from journalists, and of course spoken amongst ourselves. If you’ve been watching, reading, or following the news over the last several years, you’ve probably already realized that this is the golden age of conspiracy theories and fake news. I have some great panelists joining me to talk more about this very challenging issue. I want to start with Wasim Khaled, the CEO and co-founder of Blackbird AI. He’s consulted and advised government agencies and companies worldwide on the dangers and countermeasures of the escalating information warfare arms race. Wasim, thanks for joining us. Let’s start with you. Tell us what exactly is disinformation and why is that a problem? 516 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 20 Wasim Khaled Thanks a lot. Fake news disinformation, I’d say, first of all, we have to understand that this is a placeholder term for various systemic issues. The real problem here is not just fake news. It’s narrative manipulation. It’s coordinated, inauthentic behavior. These are often focused on hot-button topics that are designed to polarize all of us against one another. For us, and in our research, our approach has been how do you understand how online actors manipulate information streams to shift human perception, which is essentially a cyber-attack on human perception and what drives human behavior, so much bigger problem than just fake news. I think the big problem that we have today as communicators are that today’s intelligence systems operate from this old belief that the conversations online are coming from real humans, and they’re not. When you look at keywords and how happy or sad people are, it’s an unsuitable proxy for the new and novel risks we see today. Then the metrics that are being used, and indeed I’m thinking of it from the perspective of how do we quantify using technology, these old metrics were never designed for sophisticated tradecraft that we see online. Social media has just shattered this notion that nations or corporations can message from the top down and control the narrative. It’s no longer linear, the dangers. Today’s playbooks that people use are still somewhat linear, and today it’s about decentralized, moving at the speed of Twitter, and requires entirely new methods to make sense of. I see the last thing here in terms of it; we’re on the verge of some much more advanced weaponized systems using AI towards the automated generation of fake news and in the spread of manufactured realities with minimal efforts. It will enable our adversaries to flood the zone with much more than we see today. So, organizations need to shift their mindset to address this technology arms race severely. They need to invest the time and the resources to shore up capabilities here. Otherwise, they’re going to be sideswiped. Ömer Kablan Thanks for awesome. Now, I want to move on to Associate Professor Ece Baban from the Communications department at Fenerbahçe University, and her area of expertise includes global terrorism and communication strategies. Ece, thanks for joining us. Can you tell us because many researchers have difficulty explaining exactly what disinformation is, and the widespread influence of disinformation, especially through social media and other platforms, is causing a lot of chaos? That’s why we’ve seen more and more on the news. How would you define it? 517 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Assoc. Prof. Ece Baban Technological developments and social developments pertain to social media and the use of social media, of course, especially for Twitter, it spreads disinformation. It helps store, disseminate, and generate disinformation. We are living in the age of information, and information is essential in terms of shaping our perceptions and lives with the entrance of disinformation into our lives and with the sharing of disinformation in an uncontrolled manner on the social media platform, we can say that in many fields, people are storing and sharing fake news as well. Let me give you an example. When you make a wrong decision in medicine, for instance, when you enforce an unfair treatment, it costs a person’s life, or if you miscalculate a judicial decision, you can steal from a person’s life years. And in the same way you share fake news and disinformation on social media and manipulate them, provoke them in this post-truth age. Unfortunately, it can also cause the lives of the masses because this can trigger actions that would cause people to lose their lives. In social media, especially on Twitter, we have such a large amount of information that is being shared. As people share such a large amount of information simultaneously, it’s challenging to check the authenticity of the news. We see that they are used to manipulate the social memory to polarize us. This is all imposed upon us by social media instruments, and the conventional media. But if all these perceptions are built on fake news, this will have implications not only for our generation, but also for future generations. So, disinformation and its derivatives, especially on social media platforms becoming a source of information may considerably impact more outstanding segments of society.This is a very concerning situation for the entire world. Therefore, we can say that fighting against disinformation and sharing authentic information is very important. Ömer Kablan Professor Timothy Coombs now he’s a full professor at the Department of Communication at Texas A&M University. He’s also authored an award-winning book called Ongoing Crisis Communication. So I want to ask you, now we’re trying to explain disinformation, but let’s also explain why are people trying to create disinformation? I mean, what’s to gain from it? Prof. Timothy Coombs Well, usually, what you have on the other end is a purposeful attempt for them to achieve some goal on their own. They’re trying to undermine; perhaps it might 518 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 20 be an election or trying to raise questions about a government. It could be to hurt a corporation in some way, either financially or reputationally, but there’s always an objective to it. So I think, as Wasim pointed out, this is a cyber-attack on perceptions, and they’re trying to manipulate perceptions for their own goals. Now, some are just trolling and doing it to create chaos, but most of this misinformation is purposeful and designed to achieve some particular objectives. Ömer Kablan I want to bring in Dr. Jake Wallis, Head of the Program Information Operations and Disinformation at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s International Cyber Policy Center. Jake, also, thank you for joining us. Now, I’d like you to explain to us the concept of fake news, why it became such a huge phenomenon, and why we’re all of a sudden all talking about it. Dr. Jake Wallis Well, thanks. I’m very grateful to be able to speak with you. So fake news, I think; as Wassim mentioned, there are many placeholder terms that we can draw on in this space. I had a previous career as an academic, and since I gave that up, I try 519 S T R A T C O M P A N E L not to get too bogged down in definitions because it can be slightly unhelpful at times. But I think following up on Timothy’s comments is really about strategic deception and how a range of actors with diverse motivations are trying to shape the information environment. So, we look at that whole spectrum of actors who may be financially, politically, or geo-strategically motivated to manipulate the information environment for some strategic- to further some strategic goal, and the penetration of social media amongst populations creates an attack surface. This vector just hasn’t been available before. And there are plenty of actors who are very keen to exploit that opportunity. So, for example, here in the Asia Pacific region, where I’m biased in Australia, we see that whole spectrum of activity. There are content farms, here in Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, all of whom are trying to shape the interactions on social media, amongst these populations and in an area of the world that is highly networked and has highly educated people. Still, it also has a surplus of cheap digital labor. So, these kinds of actors at the base of the internet economy can take the opportunity, and it’s pretty entrepreneurial in many ways. In Australia, back in 2019, we saw actors from Macedonia, Albania, Republic of North Macedonia, all trying to shape the conversation around the Australian Federal election. Now that wasn’t for geostrategic gain. It was purely financial. They were steering- they were using fake news to guide audiences out of social media environments into content farms, where they could generate advertising revenue. But I think that highlights how events like elections become significant targets for this diverse range of actors. Ömer Kablan Okay, and I’d like to bring Wasim back into the conversation here. Now. Wasim, one thing we hear from many governments is that disinformation is so critical that it could be detrimental to a country’s political, social, and economic stability. In what way? How can it be so powerful that it puts city institutions in jeopardy? Wasim Khaled In any system where the public has to be informed, not having trust in institutions is going to create issues around trust. We’ve seen this erosion of faith over the last several years. I think just that people have resigned to the fact that we live in a post-truth world that people believe says a lot. You have to have a well- informed public for society to function over the long run. Suppose the media environment is seen to be something that can be gamed, or just the public discourse, also gameable to distort reality completely. How do you form trust We look at that whole spectrum of actors who may be financially, politically, or geo- strategically motivated to manipulate the information environment for some strategic. 520 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 20 in societies? Without faith, how can people be expected to be rational? So, it’s perfect that more and more often today, we see the concern in these areas, as we’ve been looking at these problems since 2015. If you want a recent example, after this talk, or people-watching in front of their computers, just google “Birds aren’t real.” I know these things are funny, sometimes. This is a conspiracy that all birds are government-made drones. Just let that sink in for a second, and just a few days ago, the New York Times did a feature with the 23-year-old that started this satirical conspiracy years ago. We’ve been looking at this for a while, trying to figure out this is a satire. He’s gone public saying this was just a ruse, just a gag. The problem is, the reason I bring this up is that the believers still won’t stop believing. These are the consequences of an ecosystem that allows any idea, even outlandish ones, to spread rapidly to the masses. So, when you have problems like, you know, vaccinations and anti-vax, health and climate change, and all of these different issues that people need to be well informed on, we have a system that people just haven’t put any genuine faith in for the last several years. I think that’s why the concern is genuine, and people should be concerned. 521 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Ömer Kablan Now, I’d like to bring back Ece. Wasim spoke of some of the challenges, of course. What are some of the methods used by governments and other institutions to help counter disinformation? Assoc. Prof. Ece Baban Of course, social media is essential in terms of the use of disinformation, and we see that there are specific measures that should be taken to fight against disinformation. I want to focus on Twitter a little bit. Because of the news portal, Twitter is now being used the most frequently, with a broader outreach area. For instance, after the Arab Spring events, people started to use Twitter more and more, and Twitter used its bird symbol and spread the wings of the bird logo more comprehensive, claiming that they would spread more news and information on this. And they also increase the number of characters; you can tweet up to 280 characters. Twitter is used in a diplomatic way to spread information. And we have some examples. For instance, when we say post-truth, we think about certain governments and people with influence; for example, they are using Twitter as a diplomatic platform. Information is not the basis of the truth, but basic emotions are used to form the information basis. When we say post-truth, two names come to our minds. Donald Trump, for instance, is an excellent example of post-truth, and Twitter, of course, became very important in that regard as a platform of diplomacy. The framework is critical here; once you spread misinformation or disinformation, it’s also essential to provide the correct and authentic information. What is accurate information? We have a lot of misinformation presented on Twitter with visuals because when visuals are included, we start perceiving that misinformation to be more precise. According to the 2019 data of Twitter, we have 326 million active users, and people are posting 500 million posts every day, and the information is updated constantly. The news becomes old news all of a sudden. It’s tough to check the authenticity of fake news in such a short period because, daily, trending topics change. So, the perception of people on important topics can be reshaped. Speeches that appeal to emotions rather than facts may be more influential when you share visuals and frame specific texts and visuals to appeal to certain emotions by using certain words. When we talk about disinformation, misinformation, and hashtags of authentic information, we need to correct them by providing the right visuals of the good news so that they will distinguish between right and wrong and fake news and authentic news. We should also use Twitter as a platform to spread accurate information. You have to have a well-informed public for society to function over the long run. 522 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 20 We have seen this in the Peace Spring operation. Anadolu agency shared some news showing us how we should work on this. Okay. Ömer Kablan This discussion is called disinformation and crisis. And your award-winning book is entitled Ongoing Crisis Communication. We hear the word crisis. Can you explain to us what is the crisis exactly? Prof. Timothy Coombs The crisis will vary from the type of organization that suffers from misinformation. At its core, a crisis is this perception by your stakeholders that something’s wrong; you’re not aligning with their interests in some way. Something is problematic. Let’s take, for instance, the issue with COVID-19 and getting vaccinated or not. You have one on one side, this stream spinning out of anti-vaxxers conspiracies that this is Bill Gates trying to inject you with microchips so he can track you somehow. Why Bill Gates would want to follow people, that’s another question, but that’s part of the conspiracy that emerges. It can hurt organizations in different ways. This conspiracy of the anti-vaxxers impairs the government’s ability to engage in effective public health that this is being undermined. As a result, the virus spreads and keeps spreading because a certain percentage of the population will not get vaccinated. And we see this in other ways, governments having to shift their attention to deal with these problematic misinformation campaigns that take their focus away from other more critical tasks they might have. I think that’s an underlying concept within a crisis that diverts attention. When you label something a crisis, you want to give it time and attention, which means you’re not giving time and attention to something else. Any organization, be a corporation, be a government, or be a political party. When the crises come along, created by this misinformation, you now have to deal with things you shouldn’t have to deal with. It makes it much more challenging. I had been working with groups related to the pandemic since its beginning nearly two years ago. A recurring theme is spending time and resources on misinformation and not just on addressing public health concerns. And again, I use that just as an illustration. Any organization that finds itself sidetracked by this misinformation is not giving them time and resources, which could be much more productive for their stakeholders. 523 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Ömer Kablan Okay, and let’s go to Dr. Jake Wallis because now we’ve heard Timothy talk about the crisis, and Jake, you’re working for an organization that tries to counter this crisis. So, what other methods do you use, and how possible is it to entirely counter this crisis? Dr. Jake Wallis I think this is a challenging space, Omar, and there’s quite a high threshold for the technical capability required to analyze disinformation at scale. There are several challenges around getting access to the correct data; there are challenges around attribution and the precision of attribution. Attribution is strong enough for us to call out bad actors willing to perpetrate information operations and disinformation campaigns. Several challenges, but I think in our instance, here at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, we’re fortunate enough to work very closely with the social media companies. We get access to data that others don’t necessarily. We have tactical insights that emerge from working with those companies that are very helpful to us as we analyze open-source information at scale. The kinds of capabilities that we use are built around artificial intelligence applications and machine learning, natural language processing. We can explore the types of traits that malign actors will leave behind, footprints of the sort they’ll go in their linguistic data, the variety of behavioral patterns they display as they try to disseminate false narratives. All of those techniques can be useful. I’m sure there’ll be the kind of techniques that Blackbird AI uses to offer these kinds of services to companies. But I think that the technical capability, certainly for those of us who work in the not-for-profit space. For many governments as well, technical ability is quite challenging. This is a negative space, so the bad actors consistently improve as we improve our defenses. Even the social media companies themselves would acknowledge that because they have already made significant investments in their algorithmic layer of protection and human resource capability on their security teams. I think, essentially, the guards around building sophisticated AI, ML, natural language processing systems that can adapt as our adversaries adapt in this space. Ömer Kablan I would say I’m an average social media user; I probably spend about an hour on Twitter, Instagram, maybe an hour and a half. Most of us are like that; we spend 524 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 20 perhaps an hour, two hours on our social media feeds. Someone like me, an ordinary social media user, how much am I exposed to disinformation? Wasim Khaled It does depend on indeed many factors, like your browsing habits and whatnot because people tend to get targeted more based on what they look at once actors understand what types of things engage you more, but, you know, just stepping back to, to speaking about the crisis, because I think I can put it into some terms that might be helpful for people. Everybody who is on the internet today on social media, in particular, has to assume that they’re most likely being manipulated at some point about something. This used to be ad-tech marketing. What is marketing? It’s perhaps shifting people’s perception to buy something at a particular time. These systems, where billions of dollars have been spent improving and refining them over the last decade or two, have now been hijacked by actors trying to shift our perceptions about things that are much more critical than what item to purchase. At Blackbird, our core focus is accelerating the types of insights that major crisis management firms and ultimately down the road; hopefully, we can provide things for individuals to understand their environment better. I think we explain things in something we call the five signals frameworks. It attempts to get to root issues around the crisis, root issues for individuals on the internet, and what we think about. I’m going to go through these signals real quick because it might give some context of them a little more concrete. When we think about disinformation, the way we look at it is narrative. These are online storylines that form around a topic, organization, or company. We look at the entire network. How do you visualize the evolving relationships online and the concepts they share? We look at what we think of as coalitions, so these are like-minded actors in their communities that seek to drive narratives together. These could be anti-vaxxers; these could be Bitcoin bros in the crypto space. We look at things like manipulation. How do you distinguish between authentic and inauthentic behavior, including the spread of conspiracies? And finally, influence? How do you detect and measure the impact of harmful actors and sometimes even trusted voices, the nodes that shape the narrative? One of the things that social media companies and just every organization need to get around is that if you can process all of these things at the same time, at high enough speed, you can build resolution to understand how I might be manipulated. And granted, we focus more on kind of the analyst in the organization, but everyone who is in the ecosystem suffers from these issues; whether you’re a CEO or a 525 S T R A T C O M P A N E L policymaker, or just all of us who are online, there needs to be a better resolution, when forces are acting on us to move the needle on what we believe and what we think might be essential to understand how might I be manipulated. And granted, we focus more on kind of the analyst in the organization, but everyone who is in the ecosystem suffers from these issues; whether you’re a CEO or a policymaker, or just all of us who are online, there needs to be a better resolution, when forces are acting on us to move the needle on what we believe and what we think might be necessary. Ömer Kablan Ece, can you also talk about why online media, advertising companies, marketing campaigns, and so on would also benefit from disinformation? Assoc. Prof. Ece Baban When you look at the basics of disinformation, we see that disinformation is maybe preferred on social media. We have a lot of campaigns for disinformation on social media, which are supported by marketing campaigns or advertising campaigns. You may be asking why disinformation is more common in online platforms. To answer this question, we have to look at the purpose of disinformation. If you want to create certain attitudes or behaviors, or maybe you want to change people’s behaviors. You have to release misinformation to trigger specific behavior among people. You want them to act on not facts but specific lies so that they start believing what you want them to feel. That is why disinformation is used. The most important thing that should draw our attention is that some very prominent or outstanding features are chosen. They rely on people’s experiences in the past stories to configure or come up with those fake stories. On social media, everyone is a content producer. We can interact with almost anyone on social media, and that interaction, that cumulative role of exchange, is getting bigger and bigger. As a social media user I can be on Instagram or other social media accounts. And people who want to create a particular perspective or those policymakers who wish to make a specific ideology among people can also be on social media to inject their ideas. We can also look at the pandemic during COVID-19 times; there was a lot of social media misinformation about the disease. There’s, again, disinformation about vaccines. In the lockdown period, people started consuming more. They were limited to their own spaces; they were not in the public sphere. That’s why they had to resort to social media. If you want to create certain attitudes or behaviors, or maybe you want to change people’s behaviors. You have to release misinformation to trigger specific behavior among people. 526 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 20 Social media then became a new public sphere. We had a lot of correct information in that public sphere, but many people also released misinformation because social media became a public sphere. Although we were locked down at our homes, we were given a lot of ideas about what to consume, how to consume it, and how much we needed to consume. Of course, social media has this immense power to influence people. It can be used to divert them into a specific behavior type. Social media was also used as a tool to spread misinformation. You mentioned something earlier; we always go to Google to find answers to our questions. So, imagine if there is more accumulation of misinformation on the internet, then the future will be based on an illusion actually because people will be using insufficient data to shape the future. Why do people release misinformation? Maybe they have different intentions to negatively affect society or make the community believe in a particular lie. Still, of course, they are mainly on negative emotions. You don’t see many people using misinformation to trigger positive ideas or feelings. We also talk about artificial intelligence. It became a source of interaction between real human beings and the digital world. By using facts and correct information, we can prevent misinformation from spreading actually. People always try to affect you for your behavior patterns or change your voting choices. Therefore, I think it is our responsibility to go and seek the facts and correct information. For that, we need to increase awareness among society. Our lives are not only about social media; our life is about much more actually. Ömer Kablan Social media has become so interventional in our lives that it’s direct intervention, including what we think, act, and decide. Do you find the future bleak in the sense that we’re putting so much trust into social media? Wasim Khaled This is more of a personal stance. I don’t find the future bleak, but I do sometimes find that this work; you’d think people would have more uptake. Let me say this, social media companies, first of all, have to continue to invest in this space; they have to continue to do takedowns, but at a much higher rate, but everyone often thinks about this through the lens of a particular social platform. No one platform can solve this issue. There is no solving this issue; there’s only getting better resolution, faster resolution on the subject. It would help if you had an ecosystem-wide analysis to understand the emergence and evolution of the threats we’re seeing today that can impact organizations. I know I just said things Social media has this immense power to influence people. It can be used to divert them into a specific behavior type. 527 S T R A T C O M P A N E L aren’t bleak, but I think one point needs to be made here. Suppose you look closely at every significant debate. In that case, whether it’s policy, sustainability, or the culture wars, every hot button issue that impacts the world today, when they appear in the media, or on social or in the public sphere, they are plucked straight from the virtual realm and used as a guide for real-world action. I hate to say this; the real world is getting more similar to a downstream version of what happens on Twitter and what happens on social. I’d say we should all be very concerned; it makes it all the more critical that leaders and communicators understand the environment and invest time and resources to enable kind of new frameworks of thought, new technology, new playbooks for understanding what is happening, the hidden mechanisms, the information flow, and how to get ahead of these issues. But I think this is, at least from our perspective, the reason I believe the future looks bright, and everybody at this conference, for example, is thinking actively about these issues and trying to move the needle. We do need to focus on high-speed, scalable technology. Of course, I will be a little biased there because I think technology is the solution in this arms race. Still, we have to analyze information to reveal manipulative messaging at their point of emergence to understand better and anticipate these threats, and frankly, to deploy a modernized response playbook and start to detect these things. I think everybody goes straight to how you will solve the problem. First of all, you have to be able to measure something before you can mitigate and understand, and I think we’re on the path to that, and I’m very optimistic based on all the discussions I’ve heard I’m here in the past few days. Ömer Kablan Dear Wallis, what do you think of the problem? How is it solvable? How do you project the future will be? Dr. Jake Wallis I agree with Wasim; I think this will be a negative situation; cybersecurity is a good metaphor. This is a challenge that isn’t going away. So we need to think about how to mitigate risk, think about what the attack surfaces are, and think about how to enable a degree of media literacy that allows citizens in democracies to continue to participate politically without being overwhelmed by manipulation from external actors. We need to think beyond the technical level; we need to think about the kind of problem-solving structures that we need to put in place to enable societal level responses? So how do we get the government to work with social media companies? How do we get government and industry working 528 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 20 together? How do we get civil society and industry working together? And I think there are several exciting models. In particular, I’m thinking of the Hybrid Threat Center in Helsinki or NATO’s Center of Excellence in Strategic Communications. Still, there are many domains in which these kinds of models and their formulation become particularly challenging. Again, turning to my region here in the Asia Pacific, we have a range of political systems. We have a range of regimes with differing thresholds for plurality within the information domain. So how do we create structures that enable some degree of diplomatic engagement across that spectrum of democracy? And how do we allow the industry to be proactive about mitigating risk within that operating environment? I think those are challenging questions beyond the technical layer; they’re about how we get organizations and sectors working together to mitigate risk? Ömer Kablan Timothy Coombs, please join in the conversation. What do you feel? What do you think the future will look like? How do you see the counteractive measures against disinformation? Prof. Timothy Coombs I think we have to accept a future where polarization will be what we naturally encounter. Because that’s what a lot of misinformation-disinformation is about: creating polarization. The technology did help identify it early and remove it. It is excellent, and I think it serves a function, but once something is out there, it’s out there, and it sticks. And I think we’re just going to be within that environment of polarization. And we need to learn how to navigate that; how are you going to work where you have groups that you know you’re not going to be able to relate to in a meaningful way? Because one of the reasons conspiracy theories catch on is that they resonate with people. Once they have that resonance, you’re not going to move them off of that. And unfortunately, you want to talk about bleakness, look at the research on dealing with misinformation. Once people have it, it’s very, very bleak. They’re not going to be able to change that. How do we navigate that as strategic communicators when building a lot of strategic communication around this notion? We can all work together; we’re moving towards consensus. Well, how do we live with dissensus and polarization? How do we work with that as strategic communicators? That’s the challenging part of it, and I think it is one of the critical points of why this is no longer 529 S T R A T C O M P A N E L linear. Some of what we do in strategic communication is linear, always linear, and always linear in how we approach it, but more and more, what we do will not be linear. It’s going to evolve out of the situation. We’re going to need to work on that notion of improvisation and how we work with these various publics because there is no one path forward; there will be multiple paths ahead. And those numerous paths are what create this flux, and this needs not to think linear anymore and try to adjust as we see what’s coming along. So, I believe there are many challenges I think strategic communication is up to. We’re just going to need to shift that focus from thinking about consensus and bringing people together to how do we work meaningfully with polarized groups of people? Ömer Kablan And Timothy, while we’re speaking to you on this issue, can you also just for our audience, and for those who have trouble understanding the differences, can you tell us the difference between disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda? Prof. Timothy Coombs I see; disinformation is incorrect information that floats and gets circulated. There’s no particular agenda behind it. Someone sees something, they share it, and it is wrong. That occurs. More often, we’re seeing misinformation, and misinformation is purposeful. As I mentioned before, there’s a reason for it, people are putting it out there to achieve some objective, you know, and it’s not just for fun, as was the case with birds aren’t real, but they have some specific goal that they’re trying to achieve through it. And propaganda has always been a questionable term. Because it depends on your perspective, one person’s propaganda is another person’s truth. And we’re seeing that now one person’s misinformation is another person’s set of facts. So, there’s always that interpretive nature to it. And so, propaganda has always been that perspective. It’s like, oh, you’re doing that to deceive me somehow. We think of propaganda as deception, and propaganda, really, at its roots, comes from the Catholic Church and is about spreading of faith and spreading of ideas. And so, propaganda became corrupted as a term to mean, oh, you’re spreading information I don’t like, which is the same thing we see with fake news being used as a term to say that’s something I disagree with; therefore, it’s fake news. So I think the key differences are that misinformation and disinformation. And the most significant problem that we face is misinformation, the purposeful use of incorrect information. 530 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 20 Ömer Kablan Now, we’re going to move back to Dr. Jake Wallis for a moment. Jake, can you talk about whether we know who the prominent actors are regarding disinformation? I mean, maybe we come across smaller disinformation campaigns, we’re talking about, you know, individual social feeds and so on, but do we know the more prominent actors? Dr. Jake Wallis I think we do. A lot of the discussion around disinformation, information operations has been framed by Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. There are undoubtedly other actors at play, and beneficial resources to explore the kind of dynamics and perhaps create a leaderboard of the most prolific actor would be to look at the Information Operations archive that Twitter makes available. But I think Russia and China are up there. What’s interesting to see play out is the distinctions in how these actors operate. Russia favors a more disruptive approach and focuses on the transatlantic security alliance, particularly as it impacts its western fringe, a traditional buffer of influence. We’re most focused on the actor here in our work at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in China. Because the Asia Pacific will be the nexus of great power competition over the next decade, what we see at play is a battle for influence. And that battle for influence plays out across several plans, but it certainly plays out in the information domain. I think this is a challenge for democracies. How do they engage with threats in the information demand that are strategic and at scale, and that is part of a suite of kind of aggressive statecraft by actors willing to deploy hybrid threat tactics. That’s learning that’s a learning curve for democracies. This is a space that many democracies are not comfortable playing in. However, we’re starting to see frameworks emerge from several democratic states that are beginning to think about how you create ethical, defense, and kind of offense in the information demand. Good examples are the way or how the US defends forward and is quite overt about its willingness to support on. It did so in the 2018 midterm elections and took the internet research agency offline for a period. Regarding China’s at-scale information operations, states are learning to find ways to counter that. China’s kind of longer-term strategic goal is to shape the information environment and influence conditions. We’ve seen that significantly play out through COVID-19 with Chinese state media, Chinese diplomats, disseminating propaganda and disinformation around the origins of the virus, or in China’s role in and offering medical supplies to a range of states, particularly 531 S T R A T C O M P A N E L those in North Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. So, I think states have to learn how to develop situational awareness to get an overview of the landscape and the information in demand. And they’re trying to create the ethical frameworks that democracies can operate within in terms of competing and contesting in the information domain. Ömer Kablan I want each of you to explain the work you’re involved in when dealing with disinformation and how you think all of us individually are going to be impacted by it. Ece, if we can start with you, how are we affected by disinformation separately and collectively? And in terms of your work, where do you see this going? Assoc. Prof. Ece Baban As far as fighting against disinformation is concerned, all I can say is that individually, we need to do our best not to be exposed to disinformation in the future. Let us clarify the distinction between disinformation and misinformation; there may be some mechanisms that we can use to help people to understand that difference or to tell whether the information they’re facing is correct or not. I think public opinion leaders and political leaders share information. There need to be some control mechanisms or some instruments that will enable us to check whether the information we face is correct. At the moment, what happens is that people are trying to be isolated from reality by creating those huge virtual environments, like the metaverse. That leads to lessening the importance of correct information in the real world. We need more influential groups of people working on that in the academic world, and I think we need to develop better versions of role-play. Wasim Khaled We certainly believe that disinformation is the umbrella crisis that fuels every major crisis the world will face in the coming decades. I say that without any hyperbole. I mean, manipulated media at large is no longer just the reputational concern or how your communities are functioning; it is a financial concern. In addition, there are organizational security concerns across health care, government, technology, companies. So we have to battle that kind of harmful information landscape; we have to understand the landscape full of these unexpected risks. And likewise said before, we have to know how to live in this kind of polarized system that we’ve 532 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 20 all built for ourselves. At Blackbird, we primarily study narrative manipulation with an AI-driven platform. This is designed for actual use by communications firms Fortune 500s so that they can get a better sense of how to navigate the minefield that we will find ourselves in. I hope we can help with that with organizations and anyone who may need it in the future and today. Prof. Timothy Coombs I want to echo that I think AI is the key to the future because AI allows us to identify early on, and some of the work I’ve been looking at is AI. For example, how identifying various crisis threats is critical because the earlier you can address them, the more likely you are to affect them. So I believe AI is the future direction to help us try to cope and navigate through this situation. Dr. Jake Wallis Two points from me. One of our priorities is analyzing data with precision to offer a degree of both transparency and deterrence in the information environment and as a way of providing a bit of pushback on those who are willing to manipulate the information environment. But I also think that what we want to do over the next 12 months, our big priority of the next 12 months, is all around building capacity. So, I mentioned how high the threshold I think for this kind of work is. I’d like us to do a lot of capacity-building work to see if we can build societal resilience elsewhere in our region. One of the keys to engaging with this challenge productively is to bring together cross-sectoral stakeholders so that we can drive some real innovation in our policy responses. So, that’s another key strand of the work that we’ll be doing over the next 12 months. Ömer Kablan Thank you so much for a very enlightening discussion, Assoc. Prof. Ece Baban, Prof. Timothy Coombs, Dr. Jake Wallis, and Wasim Khaled. It was very beneficial for all of us, I believe. Thank you very much. 533 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Stratcom Panel | 21 Security and Networks in Cyberspace 534 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 21 Security and Networks in Cyberspace 12 December 2021 • Jaffar Hasnain Anchor and Correspondent at TRT World (Moderator) - Türkiye • Assoc. Prof. Akın Ünver Özyeğin University - Türkiye • Oleg Shakirov Senior Expert at Center for Advanced Governance - Russia • Marc A. Smith Director at Social Media Research Foundation - USA T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 535 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 21 Internet is the new data transfer method. When we look at history, every new technology had encountered some problems when it first came out. Jaffar Hasnain Let us open this panel with a question. Before I turn to our panelists, I would like to ask our participants in the hall here. Do you think your information is secure on the internet? Raise your hand if you think so. Do you believe your information, personal information is protected on the internet? I guess I saw one person, another person, Tarık Ünal from TRT World thinks their data is safe. Yes, most of you believe that your information is not secure on the internet. We will talk about security in the cyber world, cyberspace. First of all, let us remember who is joining us today. Akın Ünver, participating in our panel virtually, is from the International Studies Association; Ersin Çahmitoğlu, a cyber security researcher; Marc A. Smith, Social Media Research Foundation Director and Oleg Shakirov, a senior expert for advanced governance center. First, thanks for your participation. Akın, I want to start with you. What do you think is the best way to ensure security in the cyber world? 536 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 21 Assoc. Prof. Akın Ünver Firstly, I would like to start with whether our information is secure in the virtual environment. I do not think that our personal information is protected from all these archive documents, newspapers, old archive methods, but what is the alternative? In other words, if we are not going to use the internet, if we are not going to share our data on the internet, what other options do we have? Then, how will we send our data at this speed at this scale? Now you have to make a decision here. Internet is the new data transfer method. When we look at the history of technology and civilization, every new technology had encountered some problems when it first came out. Perhaps what distinguishes the internet is that the internet is introduced much faster than other data transfer methods such as FedEx, fax, telegram. When the telegram first came out, the soldiers, for example, wanted to send telegrams to their relatives. It did not work efficiently. In other words, we are talking about safer communication here, about the communication transfer in 1913-1914. Of course, it became safer in time. However, we are talking about an evolving, progressive situation here. Of course, there are hackers. Part of the problem is hackers, but how do governments and companies try to protect these data for the other part? In other words, inappropriate data protection practices can lead to hacking and theft of that data. So, how will we make things safer in the cyber world? We will do this by investing more in cyber security. That is my short answer. There are different parameters in this manner, of course. To set up an infrastructure for better data transfer, both technology companies, and governments, media companies are competing for high-quality, qualified human capital to put forward better cyber professionals and experts. This may be ensured. And it will be essential to increase the awareness of the people here and educate them in this area. Who are they giving out their data to? If they give it out to a social media company, what are the data protection practices of that company? This needs to be known. But as the data gets a bit more customized, as data and personal data are stolen and hacked, and this so- called dark web is more entered, people have become more and more conscious about how data can be used and how we can become more secure in the cyber world. As time goes on, as more scandals arise, as more data is stolen, people will be demanding it from institutions regarding their data storage. 537 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Jaffar Hasnain As far as I understand, investment is an important word here. So, what can we do on an individual level? What can we personally do to protect our data in the cyber world? Marc, I want to ask you. Marc A. Smith My name is Marc Smith. I am a sociologist. A slightly broader scope of security has been introduced, which is excellent. Of course, who has access to the information is a security question. We have another concept related to security: the quality of information. Sometimes this may be public information. In other words, there is no restriction on access for some people, but the quality of the data is essential. We are now going through a period called the disinformation crisis. Our information systems, such as the internet, cannot distinguish between high-quality and low- We have another concept related to security: the quality of information. 538 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 21 We see that many governments put forward their cyber security policies, not only national but also at international scales. These are very progressive policies compared to a few years ago. quality data. It is like someone saying wearing masks does not work in fighting the virus. Although this is substantially complete information, it can spread very rapidly. Here is what we must ask. How can we establish infrastructures that enable good and high-quality data to be shared? In other words, what can we do to disseminate high-quality data instead of low-quality data? We need to look at this. We mentioned the quality of the data. This is important. I want to ask an epistemological question here. How do we know that we know what we know? So how do we know that it is accurate, right? There are no controllers on the internet in terms of data any longer. This is a good thing as well. However, a new method of protection must be developed. A filter should be applied for this poor-quality, low-quality data dissemination. In other words, this control should exist so that the security and well-being of our people, our nations, are not affected. In other words, both the safety and the quality of the data disseminated are essential within the framework of these discussions. Jaffar Hasnain Well, Oleg, I want to turn to you. You are a senior expert. As an advanced governance center expert, can you tell what kind of control governments have in cyberspace? Oleg Shakirov An excellent question. Because we have seen this in the last decade, governments in many countries have been trying to have more cyber control in the world. They are also trying to control what information about their critical systems is spreading on the internet. Of course, they are trying to maintain the quality of this information, as Marc has just mentioned. We see that there are different success criterias. Some interferences are more successful, but some are less. In some countries, we see governments temporarily shutting down the internet in times of crisis. This, of course, means that, in some contexts, governments can control this information environment. But in some places, we see governments have more limited control. Because this control system is against specific ideas, what we call the internet is a globally interconnected system. It does not happen so quickly when you try to control everything going on in this network. And I think the role of governments will be crucial on this basis. We see that many governments put forward their cyber security policies, not only national but also at international scales. These are very progressive policies compared 539 S T R A T C O M P A N E L to a few years ago. There are new regulations in America and Russia. And we see that more detailed rules have been implemented. But of course, what you can do at the national level is limited. It gets harder to do something at the national level. There was a research by a cyber security company. They looked at the online discussions there. They analyzed the talks on the Russian-speaking forums. They saw that some of the users of these forums were worried that Russia would cooperate with the United States in the field of law enforcement agencies. I was shocked when I saw the numbers. Because when we look at the relations between Russia and America, there were much more optimistic numbers in the users’ minds than the actual cooperation between two countries. So, in addition to national regulations, governments can also be successful in this context. International laws also need to be implemented in cyberspace. Now, I want to return to our audience. Would you like to see more government control, state control in cyberspace? If you’re going to see more government control in the cyber world, please raise your hand. Two people raised their hands. The rest do not want to see, no. Many people do not want governments to intervene in cyberspace’s digital environment. Jaffar Hasnain Akın, I want to get back to you. If the general public is against government control, then how will we make cyberspace, the cyber world, safer? Who will implement the policies? Assoc. Prof. Akın Ünver Let us direct this question to the audience again; after a natural disaster or a terrorist attack, we should ask this again to the audience. Because after such things happen, people can be very emotional. There might have been a crisis that would have affected many people, and the assessments of the people about the role of government in social media and the Internet may change. Scientific studies show this to us. For example, after a question asked whether the state should regulate the Internet or not, people can change their answers when they experience a crisis that concerns them. Then, they can say, “no, the state should be more involved in internet control.” The context is so important here. In a context when there is no crisis, and there is no state of panic, people can say, “yes, okay, the government should not interfere in this; the state should not make these regulations.” However, one of the reasons they say so is because many people do not think that the 540 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 21 government comprehends the Internet very well. In other words, people do not understand the regulations brought by many states, almost all states. Jaffar Hasnain You expressed that most people think the government does not comprehend the internet. Is this not a perception? So, how do you think this perception was formed in public? Dr. Akın Ünver I emphasize this depends on the research in the field of political communication. People think the government does not understand the internet domain because they believe the state still deals with internet restrictions and censorship. There is scientific evidence. Neither censorship nor content restrictions on the Internet affect people’s information consumption in digital media. There is also relevant scientific evidence for this. Due to such attempts to make the state look bad, states are also moving away from these policies. Nevertheless, many states have no idea about what to do anyway. I am also talking about conflicts, crises, natural disasters, and protests about the situation. For example, when an earthquake or terrorist attack occurs, people’s perception of the Internet and the state’s role changes substantially. Even though most people think that the government does not understand the Internet because the government is trying to solve it with restrictions and censorship, people do not care about internet issues enough when an event triggers an emotional crisis. They start to support the government, suddenly saying that the state should close this account, restrict that person, so they cannot share anything on the Internet. In other words, it is more important to what extent the state should be involved rather than the question of whether the state should be involved in internet restrictions or not. Let us discuss this. Under which circumstances and to what extent should the state intervene on the Internet? In my opinion, we should be discussing this topic. Marc A. Smith We mentioned that most states do not comprehend the internet very well. When you say most, does it mean that some countries understand? Maybe we should put the question again: Should the state have a role, for example, in ensuring that Neither censorship nor content restrictions on the Internet affect people’s information consumption in digital media. 541 S T R A T C O M P A N E L the water we drink is clean? Or should the state work on ensuring our roadways are safer? Now our answer to those questions is “yes,” correct? But can all states achieve this properly? Can all states keep automobile standards and practices at the same standard for road safety? No, some countries are better, some are worse. If you can sell your car in the European Union or America, you can probably sell it elsewhere. But some countries have higher standards regarding safety equipment. So, in a way, we can say this. For example, the steam engine worked for 150 years, right? Nuclear energy, for example, we know about the disaster in Fukushima. We kept using steam technology even when there was atomic energy. So, technologies are changing, and security methods adapt to them. I want to think this way. In cars, for example, where are the seat belts and airbags? We need to ask these questions. Regarding the information, where is the seat belt of information? We need to look at where the airbag of knowledge is. We are in our early ages. When we first saw the T model of the initial Ford, security measures were different. When they saw Ford’s initial car, people did not ask where the airbag was, right? Decades had to pass before the airbag kicked in. The same goes for the internet and social media. A market of ideas is set forth here. We have to proceed from this point. We need to ask this question: So where is the accounting software, for example, here? What if no accounting software exists in a marketplace? I am asking a rhetorical question here for sure. It would be fraud if you don’t have an accounting system, wouldn’t it? So, having an accounting system is not enough alone. There is still fraud even though we have accounting systems. But in case we did not possess any accounting system at all, think about it. In other words, it is not sufficient alone, but it is an essential condition regarding information systems. There must be an accounting system somehow. Is it enough? Not alone, but definitely, it must exist to reduce fraud. Nonetheless, fraud occurs again. The copy we are talking about here is disinformation and misinformation, and I think governments have a role to play in this. Just as the obligation to provide clean water or the commitment to introduce safe vehicles, there must be a regulatory role here. So, specific standards must be set. People should not die when a car hits a wall at 35 km/h; safety criteria should be that high. In other words, there should be minimum standards to be put forward. Jaffar Hasnain Fraud is so common nowadays that we do not seem to be doing enough to combat it. Let me ask our audience. How many of you have been defrauded on the Internet 542 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 21 or have been a victim of fraud? Did nobody get defrauded on the Internet? See, I mean information scamming also. In other words, I include the fact that you realize that information that you were told to be true turned out to be false. Yes, not many people. Congratulations. I hope no one gets scammed on the Internet because I was scammed. But I want to get to this point. I want to expand this discussion a little further. You are joining us from Russia, Oleg. I have to say that some countries have accused Russia of carrying out cyber-attacks against other countries, including the United States. I do not wish to carry out this discussion by pointing out the nations, but I want to ask this. Is there a usage opportunity in the cyber world to launch cyber-attacks on other countries? Could the cyber world be used for this? Oleg Shakirov The question is indeed straightforward. I can say yes, and we can continue our discussion, but I want to touch upon a few issues. We also call the cyber world information media. It can be used to attack other countries, but this opportunity has been present already for nearly 20-30 years. One of the institutions, which I consulted, published a book in 2001, and I just read that book. This book, which was written 20 years ago, gave many examples, in fact, about how states can carry out cyber-attacks for their purposes. We have seen actual cases too. There is a particular issue here. It was never seen that a state accepted responsibility; it was not seen that it has undertaken such an attack and claimed responsibility for it. I guess President Trump probably said in 2019 or 2020 that he carried out some attacks against Russian actors during elections. But so far, we have not seen anyone taking responsibility at the state level. Of course, it can happen to security companies; we know this. So, there is progress, albeit slowly. It is not very beneficial for the general public, and we see that many countries are now investing in cyber security. I am not just talking about the issues that Akın or Marc spoke about here. I am talking about military establishments. For example, I heard some recent news from Switzerland. They are working on a new cyber system. Every month we hear information about a new country, about establishing a cyber security system. I had called this a “cyber version of a weapon” in a presentation. More precisely, Chekhov’s weapon. What does it tell in Chekhov’s story? If you see that gun on that wall once, we say that the weapon is bound to burst somewhere absolutely. This is the rule. This is how I think about it. The lack of transparency perhaps exacerbates the problem. 543 S T R A T C O M P A N E L Jaffar Hasnain Yes, it’s a serious problem indeed. Akın, we see that since 2016, there has been a lot of discussion about interventions such as interference with the elections, hacking of the servers of political parties, etc. How can a government or a country, a state prevent this? What can they do? Or is there nothing that could be done? Hackers will keep trying. Will it go on like this? Assoc. Prof. Akın Ünver In my opinion, this is a universal problem. Yes, many discussions are going on about China and Russia and what they are doing. But these are not unique to China or Russia. Political competition situations on the international platform are universal. We mention infrastructures for cyber security. They are not very different from cyber-attack infrastructures. Let us suppose we have an air defense system. We call it defense as it befits the name. It is defensive, but you cannot attack another country with a missile system. There is a similar situation with cyber capabilities. Infrastructure capabilities here, such as human capital, software, and hardware, can also be employed for cyber-attacks. When we analyze the practices and intentions, these things do not only happen to Russia. All countries are trying to interfere in other countries’ elections, whether it is cyber or not. In other words, if there is competition between countries, we see these, but the most surprising part for me is that: Why did this suddenly become astonishing? Yes, governments interfere with each other’s elections anyway. This has been happening for years. Ever since democracy began, since the first elections, this has been a universal phenomenon. It is seen everywhere, which means it does not only pertain to Russia. There is no such thing that Russia merely conducts these activities while the others do not. However, we observe that China and Russia have recently made excellent progress in this area and started operating well. Maybe that is the reason why their name is constantly being brought up. Compared to other countries, we see that both Russia and China can now accomplish some things very quickly. For this reason, we see that a state of panic is created about issues such as intervention in the elections. In the context of America, we also saw that the allegations about the intervention of Russia could be utilized as a means of silencing the opposition in some way. So, it has another dimension like this. It could be achieved for that purpose as well. The question you asked is a bit of a technical question. How can governments prevent external actors from interfering in their elections? There is an answer, as All countries are trying to interfere in other countries’ elections, whether cyber or not. The most surprising part for me is why this suddenly became astonishing? 544 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 21 I expressed in the beginning. Of course, the only way to achieve this is to invest more in cyber security and defense. I think there is a second answer. A slightly more secret answer, actually an implicit answer. Namely, in how many countries do we expect the government to protect the cyber systems of opposition parties? This is the real question to be answered thoughtfully. Jaffar Hasnain Marc, you’re a social media research manager. We have been talking to our listeners here. Social media has now become an indispensable part of our lives. Then, can you tell us a bit about how foreign actors use social media to interfere in the affairs of other countries? Marc A. Smith I can say that it is used effectively. It is used quite powerfully. Social media makes two promises. More precisely, it makes a promise that people want to hear. It promises that anyone can talk. It says that only those who speak are listened to by others. However, those who do not speak are also heard by social media. If you focus on whom to listen to on social media, your message spreads faster. This is the definition of what we call “soft power.” I mean, just like jeans and rock and roll to influence other societies with your cultural values, ideas, perspectives, it is possible to create an impression on social media with tiny budgets. And you can do it straightforwardly. It takes 100 people to share a hashtag for a topic to become a trend, and there are controllers and control mechanisms that we define as “gatekeepers.” If you explain these control mechanisms and persuade them on the subject you want to dictate, your content starts to disperse on social media. The messages, which would not be visible in any other means, spread this way. So, is social media used in influencing operations? Of course, it is used. Of course, it could be a pleasure for some people to advertise to different groups and gather them together and watch them discuss. For example, we see the same thing about the vaccine. For instance, I saw someone in the street who was vaccinated. He developed an adverse reaction to the vaccine, his body reacted. I mean, such false information can be broadcast very quickly. I did not ask if social media could be used because it is already used. Well, let us say to what degree you think social media giants like Facebook and Twitter facilitate the work of these foreign actors. Of course, there are some debates about responsibility. But this is like answering how many people died in accidents caused by a vehicle that does not have the 545 S T R A T C O M P A N E L necessary safety equipment. If the brakes had not worked, the clutch had not worked, or the wipers had not worked, and an accident had occurred, then perhaps it would have been possible to blame the car manufacturer, not the driver, but the car manufacturer. The same thing applies to social media. I wonder if social media producers or platforms implement these control mechanisms. Maybe they do not. So, can they put in place a mechanism for resolving such conflicts? All right, they can. But why don’t they? Because it is not profitable. Nation-states prefer to use it to spread disinformation rather than focus on what the platform should do. The philosophy behind it is transferring the platform’s power to users rather than blaming the platform. We have produced a white document about it. We stated that social media should choose their editors. Not the platform, not the government, but the users should choose their editors. In other words, we say that filtering mechanisms, control mechanisms, those who will control the content and remove false information and low-quality data from social media should be the users themselves. The users should be able to choose their editors. Thus, I think we can give responsibility back into the hands of citizens, individuals, and non-governmental organizations. So instead of anticipating this from Zuckerberg, I think we should give this task to users. Jaffar Hasnain You referred to a critical point. Giving power to users. But of course, that will also cause controversy. Because there will be very naive users out there, there will be people who are too immature to understand the dynamics of the cyber world. Oleg, therefore, I want to ask you this question. Do you think it is a good idea to give users responsibility? Oleg Shakirov First of all, it is an idea worth considering. We even started to see some examples. Wikipedia has its control mechanism within. As Marc tried to describe here, there is an editor mechanism of users. But if we analyze more specifically, there are different methods of eliminating these problems. In general, we live in a complex world, and internet-based systems make things much more complicated. Therefore, there is no final and single solution to such problems. Even things will get more complex, and we will have to solve more urgent situations. Of course, we are not going through a stable process. Everything is very subjective. For some governments, priorities vary, for example. But two years from now, we will be facing different problems, and the agenda will have Nation-states prefer to use it to spread disinformation rather than focus on what the platform should do. 546 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 21 changed completely. We are going through such a process that we constantly encounter a new crisis, and we try to find a solution by moving from one crisis to another. As my co-panelists pointed out previously, the most important thing is that some of these technologies have been put into use without considering safety and security conditions. This, of course, put us in a challenging situation, we must solve these emerging problems. I am sure these issues are on the agenda of many people right now, and such platforms may not be 100 percent secure, but we need to find ways to make them safer or prevent the worst possible consequences. Jaffar Hasnain Do you think it is good to empower and authorize the users concerning cyber security? Assoc. Prof. Akın Ünver Theoretically, yes. Looking at the recent research on political communication, my direct answer would be affirmative. However, we offer everyone an option to create their social media content. Therefore, it may be a good idea to ensure information security. It can also be important in maintaining the health of the social media ecosystem. However, as we have seen in some research and experiments, many people get bored and get away from the platform when such a thing happens. I also want to set up a connection with this reality. People want to be involved in social media because most people already perform civil and regular conversations on the internet. However, they sometimes enter social media entirely for entertainment purposes. It is like going to a football game. When you go to a football match, you discharge some of the feelings inside you. You do not just sit and watch the game in a civilized manner. You use it as an emotional discharge means. When you go to a football game, you do not talk politics with the fan. You scream and shout. This is also viable for social media. That is the balance that many governments or social media platforms are trying to find out. Yes, nobody likes disinformation. Nobody likes uncivilized political discourse. But when you put some mechanisms into action to solve such problems, the users might get bored this time. They do not want to use that platform and turn towards another platform where they can be more comfortable. Well, I think it is a good idea, yes, it can be an excellent solution to solve the problem in the first place, but I think it brings up another issue. In other words, a platform under continuous moderation, a platform with 547 S T R A T C O M P A N E L editors constantly controlling the flow of information, can cause people to deter from that media. At least in our current experiments, we see that social media certainly must be fun. In other words, as soon as it gets boring, people move away from it. If we can find a solution to this, why not? Jaffar Hasnain We are moving on to the last part of the session. In the meantime, let us get back to the audience once more. Have you got any questions? Audience I liked Marc’s idea very much. It sounds good, in theory, at least. But we see some platforms where the polarization has increased considerably, for example, Facebook and Twitter. Some groups join Facebook and open a web page. And like-minded people visit that page and share their opinions there. But Trump has a new platform, for example, called Truth Social. For example, there is no other such platform. It is a new platform. Trump decided to open this platform after Twitter banned him. What do our panelists think about it? Marc A. Smith So far, rival platforms have been established under the leadership of the political opposition; as you know, Twitter bans extremist rightist or violent content, though. There are platforms opened against such bans. But when we look from the past to the present, these platforms have never been so popular. In other words, users did not like it very much and went away over time. They disappeared in time, as they could not develop themselves very much in terms of technology and could not provide security. So your question is like: To what extent such competing platforms can enter the world of social media and receive sharing from the current leaders? I think there is no such possibility. Because as far as we can see, when a new platform emerges and starts to become popular, the big platform immediately buys it. For example, Instagram was purchased by Facebook. Of course, this is just my interpretation, but I do not give them any chances. Oleg Shakirov I want to discuss an example that could work out for both parties. Two different things happened a year ago. First, Whatsapp set forth new security rules, and 548 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 21 some people did not accept them. Then, some people agreed, while many switched to other Chat platforms like Signal or Telegram. Then, in January, many right-wing Americans in Washington were dismissed from Facebook, and many switched to Telegram. And just then, the President of Türkiye became a member of Telegram. But of course, the reason for this is entirely different. But do you know what happened next? Telegram had begun broadcasting stories years ago while promoting itself as an advocate of freedom of expression because the users and governments had begun to pressure the administration of content on Telegram. And then realized that to be a great platform; maybe they had to follow some secret rules. So, you cannot run everything transparently. Now speaking of Telegram, who uses Telegram? In other words, almost 50% of the participants here use Telegram. Audience Speaking of security, I want to ask this question. There is something I am wondering about. Is it an advantage or a disadvantage to allowing governments to use blockchain? Jaffar Hasnain As you know, blockchain has started to appear before us as a security measure. Can we incorporate state affairs into blockchain for data security? Is this an advantage or a disadvantage? I saw Marc shaking his head now. Would you like to reply to this? Marc A. Smith I think it is still trying to find the optimal practice area. Like Bitcoin, for example, it is a high energy-consuming and inefficient industry. So, does blockchain contain some secrets? Will it be able to make countries or state transactions more secure? I think no. Jaffar Hasnain So, let us move on to the final part of our discussion. I will talk specifically about social media for a while more. Every kingdom has some disadvantages and a collapse. Every kingdom, every empire will fall one day. Do you think these 549 S T R A T C O M P A N E L social media empires will collapse too? Will other realms replace them? Or will technological change in the cyber world be realized quickly, and other players emerge? Assoc. Prof. Akın Ünver It seems like a pretty tough question to answer. Companies, like empires or states, grow stronger or collapse. Therefore, it is tough to predict on this basis. Because this situation will depend on the context, it is hard to weigh whether big tech companies will collapse someday. But perhaps, we can make a simulation here. Oil, steel, and coal companies boomed in the late 19th century, and new technologies and new types of companies began to emerge. Some of these companies have become giants, whereas some collapsed. I think any company of any kind can get powerful but collapse later. Even the names of Facebook or Instagram may change. But these ideas will never die away. In other words, other companies that perform the same function as Twitter will emerge. There may even be more than one company, not only one, to take the market occupied by Twitter in the future. Jaffar Hasnain Do you mean that these companies will also keep changing themselves? For example, Apple continuously releases a new iPhone. Will these companies release the latest versions of themselves? Assoc. Prof. Akın Ünver Yes, sure, there is an evolutionary component here. I remember when I first joined Facebook. It was a completely different platform than today. I think it has changed drastically. The same goes for Twitter and Instagram, or Tik Tok. We can say the same thing for other such platforms. Let us think about it this way. Why did Myspace disappear? Because Myspace was very popular once. Everyone had a Myspace account. What happened to Myspace? The answer we can give is this: Maybe it could not change itself as much as other giants like Facebook and Twitter did. And maybe it could not convert into a big enterprise. Perhaps it did now want to. If it had desired, perhaps it could have survived. I think today’s social media giants are doing a better job at this point. 550 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM PANEL - 21 Jaffar Hasnain I would like to relate the topic we talked about, namely cyber security. If we do not react quickly in the cyber world, we perish. So, if we want to survive in the cyber world, we must undoubtedly change. Do you mean this? Assoc. Prof. Akın Ünver Yes, the demands faced by these companies are also changing. Think back ten years ago. No one was worried about disinformation on these platforms, but there was disinformation. Such a thing happened, and social and political consequences in our day indicated that people began to see that social media platforms are also a source of spreading misinformation, and disinformation has become a concern today. 551 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 11 Reaching the Core of the Audience: Communication of Nuclear Energy 552 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 11 Reaching the Core of the Audience: Communication of Nuclear Energy 12 December 2021 • Miklos Gaspar Head of Digital Media at IAEA - Austria T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 553 S T R A T C O M T A L K 11 Nuclear is a technical topic. Some people like, some people against, the vast majority, don’t care. They are not aware of all the potential of nuclear. Miklos Gaspar Thank you, and good morning. I am head of digital communications at the International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN organization dealing with all things nuclear. That ranges from ensuring that nuclear technology is not going to be converted from peaceful use to making weapons and promoting the quiet use of nuclear technology around the world. Now, to many people, let’s face it, nuclear is not very sexy. Some of my colleagues on the panels yesterday from the UN spoke about children, refugees, environment. These are things that many people care about. Nuclear, on the other hand, is a technical topic. Some people like it, some people perhaps against it. But for the vast majority, they are in the middle; they don’t care, they are not aware of all the potential of nuclear. So, my job as a communicator at a nuclear organization is to reach these people, to reach beyond 554 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 11 people who already care about our subject. And talk to them, make them see all the potential and the contributions of nuclear to our lives. So, how do we do that? That’s what I’ll talk about. So, at the IAEA, just like in so many other organizations, digital has become the primary source, the primary method of communication. I spoke about this on a digital panel yesterday; please watch the recording if you were not here and are interested in this topic. So, we reach about 6 million people a month, which is about five times as many as we did a few years ago, by a website, and then our social media channels, some of which are displayed here. So, to catch, grab and keep the attention of people who are not perhaps interested in your topic, you need to be innovative in terms of content creation and distribution mechanisms. So, what does that mean? First of all, gone are the days when people would leisurely browse the internet and end up on your website. There are two ways to get them 555 S T R A T C O M T A L K to your website. One is via search engines. And the other one is via social media. So, here I’m showing you the results of something we put a lot of emphasis on, search engine optimization. We make sure that our website is search engine optimized and hyper search engine optimized. Both, in terms of the content, we repeat main words that people will be looking for in the story throughout. And then also, we make sure that we are compatible with the evolving algorithm of Google and other search engines. So, a result we have achieved through this is displayed here. Not sure if you guys know that PCR, which has become a household name over the last few years, is nuclear-derived technology. And we, like the IAEA, have been helping countries for decades to use PCR to detect viruses. So, when the pandemic started, we produced this article to explain how PCR, or actually, correctly called RT-PCR works using nuclear techniques. And this search engine optimized article has gotten us 1. 3 million new visitors over this last period. So, if you search for RT-PCR in Google, we’ll be the first find; if you search for PCR, well, depending on where you are in the world, we will still be among the top five. Now, it’s not enough to have people come to you and click on you on Google. They also have to engage with your content. So, it’s not enough to optimize for search engines; you also have to optimize for your visitors. So, that’s what we’ve done here. With these articles, we’ve recently launched a series called “nuclear explained,” where we use simple terminology and easy-to-understand content creation to make stories exciting and understandable for a general public who doesn’t necessarily care about technical details. We also have infographics and videos embedded into the stories. These stories are also evergreen, meaning they don’t become outdated. Therefore, if people search for them in six months or a few years, they will still find them relevant. So, how do we do that? Here’s an example of a piece of content that we use both on our website and our social media channels. This is to compare nuclear energy with other sources of energy. So, you see on the left-hand side; this is the Instagram optimized version. We show how much electricity an average person in the world needs in their life. And then we showed underneath, I’ll magnify that on the right-hand side below, how many various kinds of fuels you would need to generate that amount of electricity. So, from uranium fuel, which is what nuclear uses, you need one egg worth of energy to produce the electricity you would need in your whole life. If you use coal, you need 21 elephants’ weights worth of coal to have the same amount of electricity. So, nuclear technology, which already today generates over a quarter of all low carbon electricity globally, could complement renewables. For instance, solar, So, nuclear technology, which already today generates over a quarter of all low carbon electricity globally, could complement renewables. 556 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 11 when the sun shines, the nuclear power plant will produce electricity at a lower rate during the day. And then, at night, when there’s no sun, it would produce a lot more. You see a specific graphic at the top of the slide. These are examples of social media-optimized content. Unfortunately, they’re not displayed very well here. I’m a digital guy. So, I’ve tried to show here some slides that move in and do all kinds of things which were not compatible with the technology here. So, you don’t see those wind turbines moving, and here’s supposed to be an airplane flying in at the bottom, showing you how even air-fuel could be made more efficient using nuclear technology. Anyhow, these are examples of social media optimized content. Yesterday, at the digital talk, we discussed how people’s attention span is shrinking and shrinking. Therefore, you also have to be shorter and shorter to get your message across. So, these sound bites and images get across the main message very quickly. It’s an old story that people use digital-first to content strategy. These days, we now use social media first for content strategy. So, what does that mean? I want to show that to you with an example. The article you see on the left it’s an article from our website explaining how you can use nuclear technology to detect food fraud. Food fraud is like fake food. And you can do that by analyzing the isotopic composition of the food. The article describes how Slovenia researchers have used this technology to identify counterfeit truffles. Truffle is a kind of mushroom that’s the most expensive food globally by weight. It could be up to $200,000 a kilo. In the middle, I’m showing you how we would have tweeted this article a few years ago. We would have taken the same image and just a variation of the lead and put it on Twitter. For any story like this, we could have expected perhaps 10,000 people to then click on it, and we tell the story. What we do these days when we have time is what you see on the right-hand side of the slide. We create a social media-optimized image. Again, it should be moving in this case, which it’s not. And the more social media optimized text. So, you see, this is more catchy for the audience on the next slide, which you won’t be able to enjoy because this should be moving. It’s an Instagram story with gifts. We created a quiz and other interpretations of the same article. So, the same content presented in social media, in different social media optimized ways, would now get us 10 to 20 times as many visitors as the old one would have done a year or so ago. So, another example is for this article. This article is about using nuclear technology to produce improved varieties, in this case of cotton in Pakistan. By the way, that cotton does not become radioactive. So, I’m showing you on the left the website article that we had, and then on the right an Instagram post, and then, I’m sorry, in the middle of the Instagram post and further to the right an 557 S T R A T C O M T A L K Instagram story, which again, should be moving, but it’s not. So, the same content is optimized to the medium. And here is an experiment that we have run using this article on Twitter. On the left, you see this article promoted using a photo that we received from our counterparts, scientists in Pakistan, who applied this technology. It got only two retweets. So, zero engagement. We’ve then looked for another photo switched it out. And we got 47 retweets. For any story like this, which is very scientific, that’s a perfect number. So, speaking of engagement here is another type of content that I wanted to show you that we use to call for action. Social media is not just about us talking to people, but people are also engaging with our content. So, one way to do that is to ask them a question. Here, the question is, nuclear power is “fill in the gap” energy. As I said before, nuclear power generates over a quarter of the low- carbon electricity that we have today. Thanks to this short post, we got 150 new followers on Instagram. Another example of engagement in this post is a quiz. It’s a quiz that we posted on the birthday of Marie Curie. Marie Curie is the only person who received Nobel Prizes in two different scientific fields, physics and chemistry. She discovered many of the radioactive elements that perhaps you’ve 558 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 11 all learned about in the periodic table in your school. So, it’s a quiz about her. It’s also an example of what we call non-promotional content. We want to make sure that we don’t just post content about the IA. That would be like propaganda; people could perceive it as propaganda. So, therefore, we also produce about a third of our content, which we call non-promotional. It is still about nuclear, but it’s not about the IAEA. So, this is an example of this, this quiz on Marie Curie. I’ve got the answers colored on the first two questions. You can try your luck or test your knowledge on the third. Just go to Instagram; if you have a profile, look for iaea.org, and then try to answer that last question there. So far, I’ve talked mostly about content generation. Another pillar of how we try to reach audiences beyond our core audience is by working with others and cross-posting our posts to reach other people’s audiences. I’m showing you three examples of how we’ve done that on Twitter. First, tweets we have created here, run by the UN’s main Twitter account, then by a social media influencer, and on the last example by UN Women. So, this way, we get in front of people who may not know or perhaps not care about nuclear technology, who are not aware of the many benefits that atomic technology offers. I could have also shown you articles from our websites picked up by others. For instance, some of our articles on agriculture are also promoted by FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. This way, we get in front of policymakers, and researchers, scientists in that domain who again, perhaps, wouldn’t have known that nuclear technology has so much to contribute to improving agriculture. So, I’ve spoken about many things; there’s a lot more to say. But if you’re going to remember three things from this presentation: remember to create engaging content, find cool and clever ways to distribute that content through your partners, and don’t forget that nuclear technology is incredible. Thank you. 559 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 12 Understanding Opinion in the Post Truth Age 560 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 12 Understanding Opinion in the Post Truth Age 12 December 2021 • Ben Page CEO of Ipsos - France T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 561 S T R A T C O M T A L K 12 Opinion polling, if done well, will give us a pretty accurate idea, although it’s not perfect. Ben Page Ipsos is one of the world’s largest research organizations. And I wanted to look at the challenges we face in understanding the public in the post-truth age. In an age where the head of the United Nations, the World Health Organization, said we’re not just fighting a pandemic, we are fighting an infodemic. Many people worldwide have got an extraordinary idea about reality in the current situation. I think it’s a brilliant example of the challenges communicators face. In this instance, of course, it means people die. Around one in 10 people believe that the Coronavirus pandemic is a scam. The authorities make it up to control people to force vaccinations on the world. That’s just one example of fake news sweeping the world, and it’s able to clean the world much more rapidly than ever because of all the technology we have. It’s not new to be wrong about things. But it’s a reminder of the challenges we face as communicators. The exciting thing about 562 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 12 this is that very clever people are not necessarily more accurate than the public. This is John Maynard Keynes, a famous British economist who predicted that by 2030, we would be working only three-hour shifts or a 15-hour week. This man in Decca Records indicated that the Beatles had no future in show business, he said in 1962, before they became one of the best-selling groups of all time. “We don’t like your voice sound,” and thought these groups with guitars mainly are finished. So completely wrong. This gentleman, I’m afraid they’re all men. This gentleman predicted that everything that could be invented had been invented. And that was back in 1899. And he was in charge of patents in America. And one of the most outstanding British scientists said that X-rays would prove to be a complete hoax; they don’t exist. So, we can show you the public being wrong, and we can offer you experts being wrong. Here’s a classic example for public communicators or politicians. This is in Italy, where they are having an election. And what are the issues in that election? They are about immigration, the country’s state, and the country’s challenges. The Italians believe that three out of 10 people in their country are immigrants; the actual figure was 9%. They thought when we asked them that half the population was unemployed. There is a lot of unemployment in Italy, compared to some European countries. But it’s only 11%. And Italy is one of the oldest countries in Europe, and Europe, soon, will be one of the oldest countries on earth. And you do see a lot of older Italian sitting around. Still, the actual percentage of the idea that half the population is over 65 and retired when it’s 22% shows that you’ll find that the public has dramatically mistaken ideas on many issues. And I think, particularly with the challenges that we face on the pandemic, but indeed in terms of how governments are to lead divided peoples, means that we need to understand what’s going on here. And the first point I think is that despite their challenges, no opinion polls remain the best way of understanding public opinion overall. It’s a little bit like democracy. Believe what Winston Churchill says about democracy design; you may have gathered that line in Paris, I may be British. And Winston Churchill said, “Democracy is the worst system of all, except for all the others.” And in this case, to give you an example of how opinion polls, despite their challenges, can be highly accurate. This is two days before the UK general election in 2019. And you can see the average error for each party in the polls is less than 1%. Ipsos 0. 3%. I’ve got to make a claim there, but not bad. And, despite what you may read about opinion polls and their accuracy, if you look at Professor William Jennings’ analysis of all general elections in all countries from 1942 onwards, he found that opinion polls weren’t getting any worse. They weren’t getting any better, either, which is pretty interesting, given 563 S T R A T C O M T A L K that the internet and even telephone polling did not exist when this time series began. But overall, polls have averaged about plus or minus 2% for each party, on average, across the world, for decades. Opinion polling, done well, will give us a pretty accurate idea, although it’s not perfect. And when 2% matters, you may be in a challenging situation. But overall, opinion polling is accurate to about plus or minus 2%. So, while we are wrong so often, I think the first thing is we are all of us. And this is something that’s been a big lesson. We are all personally biased and include communicators in my work, and we should remember that. So, when we ask people what we need to do to fight climate change, you can see six out of 10 people worldwide say the most important thing they can do is recycle. And they think that will do most to reduce carbon emissions. That’s only number seven. And most people don’t like to confront the fact that having fewer children, flying more minor, and driving, not giving up a car is likely to have far more impact. We’re also expected to be biased towards optimism in terms of the future. So, nearly half of Chinese citizens think that they might win the World Cup in Qatar, in the summer, in the Football World Cup. And I can tell you now that if anybody wishes to come and make bets with me, the Chinese will not win the World Cup in Qatar, that will not happen. But of course, they want to believe that they might. We are all personally biased and include communicators in my work, and we should remember that. 564 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 12 It’s the same with human beings, where we think that we all have a wonderful life and marry the perfect person as we grow up. Divorce rates suggest that this is not happening. The other thing is that we overestimate stuff we’re worried about, and I think this is very important. So, this chart shows you the number of people having teenage girls having babies when they’re aged 15 to 19. And then the actual numbers are here. So, in my country in the UK it’s one, in Argentina it’s six out of 100. The average is about two in 100 people globally. In the nations, we looked at people’s guesses, their estimates of how many people there in the classrooms, in their schools, in their colleges of education are that many more girls will be having babies. In Argentina, they think nearly four out of 10 girls, 37%, will be having a baby before they’re 19. In America, they are 24%, in Britain, for example, 19%. And so, the estimates are massively wrong. And I think the critical thing that research can let us do, qualitative research, whether you’re doing it online or face to face, is to understand why that is. And the main reason, of course, is good communication that you all know. The main reason is how emotional stories affect us. And so, we read about the 12-year-old girl having a baby. We read about dramatic fraud by people, perhaps in welfare systems in my own country. Again, the public believes that one pound in every four spent on pensions and welfare is being fraudulently claimed. One in four of that count, a quarter of all government spending has been fraudulently claimed. But that is actually because newspapers and sometimes 565 S T R A T C O M T A L K politicians have chosen to focus public attention on individual cases that are very dramatic that affect us. We don’t like to believe that millions of people are stealing money from the government. And so, but those vivid stories appeal to us. They confirm something that we think it’s true. And so, we believe that and not the actual data. As human beings, we also tend to focus on negative information. And, of course, so do the media. They need to sell newspapers; they need to get those plates. And so, we all have those biases about the present. But, interestingly, our preferences about the past are far more positive. So, if you look at it, you think of your last holiday, perhaps before Coronavirus, and before you went on holiday, there was a lot of excitement, you were going to go somewhere great. When we got there, perhaps it wasn’t quite so good. The hotel wasn’t as good as we’d hoped, the food wasn’t quite perfect. When we got back, it was raining again. But the exciting thing about our holidays and think now about your youthful holidays, those summers of your teenage years when you went away with your parents. Over time, you gradually edit out the bad bits of the past, and the past seems a beautiful happy place, and instead, much better than the present. So, we have all of these biases. And the critical challenge for communicators is to understand those. There’s no sign at all, no sign that our preferences are worse than in the past. But the evidence is that the online environment threatens our view of reality at scale. It’s obvious when we look at people who believe that the coronavirus pandemic is a scam designed by Bill Gates to force microchips into people’s arms; for example, it is highly concentrated among people who make heavy use of social media like YouTube, or what particularly WhatsApp or Telegram. They’re in private circuits; they don’t engage with mainstream media. And they’re able to build their echo chambers and find other people who support their views. So, unless public strategic communicators can engage in a meaningful way, telling people they are wrong is not worth it. I know this - to my cost - a close friend actually also was a -- He was a Jehovah’s Witness. But he didn’t believe in the pandemic. And I kept trying to say, “Look, I work in a data organization; you’ve got to have the vaccine.” He’s, “Look; I’ve seen this stuff online; I don’t believe it. I’m afraid I will have to disagree with you, Ben.” But he’s dead. He died on the 15th of September, having refused to get the vaccine in months and months and months. And that’s because of that online environment. So, I think the critical thing finally is to focus on communication on what drives the perception of the issue you’re focusing on. So, make sure that your research lets you understand how people make decisions about the problems you are trying to communicate about. As human beings, we also tend to focus on negative information. And, of course, so do the media. 566 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 12 I will give you one example because it’s good to be brief but understand those issues. Because once you do, you can be disciplined and focus on the messages that will cut through; you can stop wasting time defending yourself from the issues that don’t matter. And you can sometimes stop worrying about certain things. So, this is an example from hundreds of studies in the UK, where we looked at a critical national issue in the UK for any government communicator, which is what makes people happy with the health service, the British health service in the UK, the National Health Service? And the critical finding here is that the thing that has the most significant impact is not how well health services, operations on people’s knees, treating cataracts, you name it. It’s actually whether you like the government. If you want the people in charge, you will feel more positive. If you’re old, you will be much more positive than young. And those things have more difference than anything happening in a hospital. Part of the service drives perception, which is the emergency room, accident, and emergency. It is essential to get that right because that’s where most people will have experience of it. And then a key point for communicators, because doctors and nurses in Türkiye and the UK, and all over the world, are some of the most trusted people on the planet. One of the challenges for anybody running a large health service is ensuring that the staff is not telling the public that it’s terrible because they will be far more believed than any professional communicator or politician. In the UK example in the past, doubled the pay of health service staff and their pensions, the expenditure on that was doubled. And yet, because of how communications were handled with those people, those who met doctors and nurses felt worse. Then, of course, we have media and social media coverage. You’ve heard from my colleague earlier about how we need to get that right; you have the service’s communications directly. So, it does still matter. But it’s much weaker than other than verbal communication. And only after any of that do we have what happens in a hospital, all the things where we spend nearly all the money, and all of our time. So, if you’re interested in perception, it’s not necessarily precise about the service itself; it may be about several other factors. So, we need to be clear from our research what will affect perception. I think the challenge is that looking at past data only gets us so far. There is a lot of empirical evidence, a little of what I’ve shown you this morning that we can use, but overall, it will only get us so far. And if I were to leave you with nothing else, I would say, really examine your own bias as a communicator and as a researcher. There’s a significant role for having lots of different data points, not just one type of survey, not just social media data. Anybody who thinks Twitter 567 S T R A T C O M T A L K represents the world needs to go and go back to bed and have a long sleep because it doesn’t. But it’s still essential. Use intelligent analysis. But we also need a range of analysts because we’re all biased to what we want to happen, what our life experience and our memories suggest will happen. And indeed, in my career, when I have been most wrong in my predictions, often it’s because I’m allowing, when I look back at what happened, I’m letting my own biases to mean that I had selected, and I’m a guy who’s entirely based on data. But I have used my preferences to determine pieces of data that confirm what I want to happen. So, we need to look at the bias and the data itself. But the evidence is that if we can get the best datasets that we can find, we can see that data and then try and remove our personal bias, sometimes by making sure that you’ve got a group of people looking at it who are not all from the same political views or not. You may; I might want to, if I was going to communicate about the Coronavirus, I might want to employ an anti-Vaxxer on my team and all the health specialists and scientists to help in the communications. I’ve got practical examples of where that has made a difference in making better decisions. Those who have read Philip Tetlock’s books on forecasting will know that the most accurate forecasters do not live in Ankara, İstanbul, Paris, London, Rome, New York, Washington D. C., or San Francisco. Instead, they often have retired professionals who don’t care what happens. They don’t care about your problem anymore. And they are able, therefore, dispassionately to examine the evidence without bias one way or the other. And from that evidence, therefore, pasts are often better than those who are professional analysts who care passionately about the issue. So, choosing a diversity of approaches and a variety of analysts matters. We also need to get better at living with uncertainty. COVID-19 is a brilliant example. We knew that the pandemic was likely to happen, but somehow, we forgot it. This is a forecast exhausted 13 years ago, as part of work for the UK Government. And we said the emergence of a new and lethal virus strain that is highly adaptive, capable of human-to-human transmission, resistant to available vaccines and treatments could swiftly result in a global pandemic. Nearly all predictions of the future did that. But we didn’t pay enough attention to them. And so, we need to be ready for those unforeseen events. And I think that is what will help give us resilience. So, in terms of what we have learned about the prediction from the two years of the pandemic and the infodemic that we have seen, I would finally say. The first thing is that we cannot leave information backings where people get educated through one side perspectives. It can be okay in political communications if you have decided that one group of people will never support you. But in terms of 568 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 12 public communications, where we have to communicate to a whole population, you cannot assume that people are rational. I hope I’ve shown that everybody is deeply irrational very often. And you cannot imagine that people will listen to official information. That means that we need to be part of the public conversation. And again, we’ve seen examples of using Instagram and Twitter to do that. As I hope I’ve shown you today, we need to understand what to focus on. Specific messages will cut through; research can tell you that. But there are also other things where you can keep communicating and sharing, and it will never make a difference. Focus on the issues where your communications, you know, when your evidence shows, your communications can change people’s perceptions. And don’t worry about the things that you will never be able to change. And finally, understand those channels as being used by different audiences, the measures that work, and above all, stick to them. Again, one of the things that are very, very clear, in strategic communications, so clear, is that where you have a discipline, simple message that cuts through, you win. And where you have ten messages, twenty messages from different inconsistent actors that change day by day, you lose. So, simplicity, repetition, and consistency, as always, matter. I wish you all the luck in the world. I wish I were there with you today. Thank you. 569 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 13 Shaping the Future in the New Era With Consumer Insights 570 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 13 Shaping the Future in the New Era With Consumer Insights 12 December 2021 • Yuneeb Khan Global President of Consumer Insights at NielsenIQ - Netherlands T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 571 S T R A T C O M T A L K 13 At the heart of strategic communication, there are always people. We need to understand people’s behavior. If we can understand them, we can develop an effective communication strategy. Yuneeb Khan I’m Yuneeb Khan. At the Nielsen IQ department, I deal with global consumer insights or intuitions. And today, I want to focus on people. At Nielsen, we wear the consumer lens and study people. They can be consumers of products and services or banking, insurance, or government services. In other words, we examine and investigate people in general. I will talk about that today. Why did I choose this topic? The title of this session is strategic communication. At the heart of strategic communication, there are always people. We need to understand people’s behavior. If we can understand them, we can develop an effective communication strategy. Now I will build my presentation on three different postulates. I will talk about consumers in the pre-pandemic period first. Then, I will talk about this change, 572 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 13 which we have seen and gone through at a grand scale during the pandemic. And I will talk about some of the elements we keep in mind to assist our customers. How do we support our customers in recalibration so that they can communicate with consumers in the future? I will talk about it. I want to talk a bit about Nielsen. How many of you now know Nielsen? Can you raise your hands? One, two, three, four, five. Maybe six, seven. First of all, thank you very much for participating in this question. And we excitedly look forward to connecting with those who are not familiar with Nielsen until now. It was founded about 100 years ago, to be precise, 98 years ago. A young engineer named Arthur C. Nielsen founded the company we know today as Nielsen by borrowing money from his family and friends in 1923. His purpose was actually to comprehend the concept of the market share at the time he founded the company. Now let us think about the idea of market share. It is a very reliable unit of measurement. And it serves as an adhesive that allows the entire commercial ecosystem to communicate with each other. We call market share, which enables all parties in the ecosystem to understand each other. In 1923, when people asked him why he was doing this job and told him why someone would pay for it, he gave a simple answer. “The price of light is always lower than the cost of darkness,” he said. When we handle this in today’s context, we live in a radically different world. The population is much larger, the economies are much more complex, and the society is much more complicated. Technology is very advanced. Even Nielsen is much more difficult. We now operate in more than 100 countries. But the meaning of this statement is still the same in our day. I want to talk about that too. Let us take a step back and consider the consumer. Yes, let us think about the pre-pandemic period. Suppose that it is early 2019-2020, and let us play a fun game. For example, let us give this consumer a name, Mr. Happy. The average consumer lives around 2019-2020. The world is changing around him, but at least he can understand the change. We have been working on this change for decades. Mr. Happy likes to try new things; he wants to try new restaurants, new clothes and Mr. Happy is also environmentally sensitive. More importantly, he tries to understand what is incumbent upon him about those environmental concerns and what he can do it. At the same time, Mr. Happy is having a “Fomo,” meaning he fears missing something. There are many trends around, and he does not want to miss any of them, and he is very close to digital media. Let us take a step back. Let us look at Mr. Happy. He looks like you, all of us, doesn’t he? When people asked Arthur C. Nielsen why he was doing this job and told him why someone would pay for it, he gave a simple answer. “The price of light is always lower than the cost of darkness,” he said. 573 S T R A T C O M T A L K That was what we had always been looking into; we had norms, we had databases, we had benchmarks, and we could understand. We were able to follow the change with a few mathematical calculations. Now let us look at the life around Mr. Happy. It was never static. Why? Because the only constant changes, right? In the last few decades, we have experienced tremendous changes. But we could understand; we could follow the waves of change. For example, in an average year, sales commence low, increase in the second quarter, and stabilize in the third. But then, with 11/11, a huge question mark emerged. It was thought by many people how many billions more Alibaba would earn through this e-commerce festival. Then came Legendary Friday or Black Friday. As soon as the doors opened, people rushed in. They tried to catch these special prices. And all the festivals such as New Year’s Eve, Chinese New Year, and Eids. Although each year was different from the previous year, we could still make sense of it within the framework of a particular norm in all shopping trends of these special days. But everything 574 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 13 changed in 2020. Now I will not tell you about 2020. Maybe you all know more than I do at the macro level, but it affected us all. It directly affected. And it affected all consumers around the world. It has been a very rapid change. It was a profound and widespread change, and our understanding of the ordinary was no longer valid. The things that were seen as alternatives, such as video conferences and working from home in the past, took their places in the middle of our lives. Weddings, funerals, classes, even first dates started to occur on the Internet. New economies, new channels emerged, and all this happened in less than one year. Instantly, our sense of normal got lost. And then followed a fluctuation process. Now, we have more information than ever before. We have more processing power than ever before, and we live in an era of too much volatility and too much reactivity. And we are now in an age where a simple tweet can create an impact of trillions of dollars in finance. We can see that the travel industry worldwide has collapsed due to a virus. When the world gets over the pandemic, and everything becomes routine, although many things will perhaps return to the old normal, 575 S T R A T C O M T A L K some things will never change, and they will have permanent consequences. One thing is sure that technology is having a significant impact on consumers’ mental health, and on the other hand, we see something like this. There are jobs available, but people do not want jobs anymore. Everyone wants to get retired and want to get away. Then, there are severe challenges in the supply chain. There is also the problem of inflation. The commodity prices have soared. Although it varies from country to country, all these are critical issues right now. You all know these. So why have I been telling this for 10 minutes, right? Because I want to paint you a picture. We’re all Mr. Happy that we mentioned earlier. We have all gone through a considerable change. Now let us take a step back. Now Mr. Happy has become Mr. Not So Happy because now he has to consider many things. While he already has a lot of concerns in mind, now he has to adapt to technology, and he needs to change his lifestyle. He should cope with the challenges of uncertainty. At the same time, he has no idea what macro-economic impact it will have on his own life. In other words, Mr. Happy’s behavior and perception are entirely different from 18 months ago. The data and norms that we have collected no longer help us understand Mr. Happy. We, as NielsenIQ, monitor all this. We also monitor the changes and trends. The situation also appears in data, and I will show you some data points to see the difference. A study called the global shopper or consumer trend index that Nielsen performs every year. For example, Malaysia is a traditional developing market. We saw in our surveys that 86% of respondents’ shop in a hybrid manner. It’s just about shopping. I meant last year, 2019; these percentages were just the opposite. 86% of people in Malaysia were not shopping online; they were shopping in physical stores. Even I was shocked by this data. But then we saw another data in which my astonishment diminished. Look, we see here how much sales are achieved through e-commerce. Almost all of the essential commodities are sold online. The only place where online sales do not work might be the category of fresh products in 2020. And furniture; no significant change was observed in that category. We have another survey study. We ask people what they think will be most important in the post-pandemic era. They responded as mental health and physical health. While 56% of them underlined the importance of mental health, 57% highlighted the importance of physical health. And at the same time, the issue of financial and occupational safety appeared as necessary with a rate of 46%, and saving for the unknown conditions and putting money aside came up with an importance of 53%. So now, we all need to take a step back, stop and start thinking. What does this change mean? And what kind of methodologies and norms should we develop to understand the consumer as effectively as before? There are jobs available, but people do not want jobs anymore. Everyone wants to get retired and want to get away. 576 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 13 We need to recalibrate our marketing strategies and redefine what type of data and insights we will require in the new world. Yes, we may be coming out of the pandemic, but we are still in it. Now let me answer that. Not more data. We do not need any more data. We have a lot of data already. We have to sit here and think. We need to recalibrate. We need to re-understand markets consumers and re- establish our ties with Mr. Happy. Here, the combination of three things is essential: reliable data, reliable technology, and deep expertise. These three components need to come together for recalibration. In other words, the data is derived from reliable sources, processing these data with technology that has already been proven and analyzing your work by people. That is what I call extensive recalibration. This should take place at all levels. Maybe I put on a consumer lens here, but it can be applied to anything. We need to redefine the experience. We need to redefine what people like and dislike. What are the building blocks of a good experience? We need to identify these. We need to recalibrate our marketing strategies and redefine what type of data and insights we will require in the new world. Yes, we may be coming out of the pandemic, but we are still in it. Here we need to determine our norms with a recalibration. Let me go into some details. Let us talk about customer experience, for example. We know what this experience looks like in the offline domain. We have been visiting physical stores since childhood. There is an interaction; you touch the product, try on new things, maybe you like the color, taste something, or smell something. There is much interaction when you go to the store, and when you walk around the store, fill your cart and go to checkout, you end up making a purchase. So you don’t just fill the basket and run away. Even if you decide to do this, you will do it in fear by hiding because leaving your cart at the cashpoint and escaping is a little embarrassing. On the online side, many products are very convenient. Can you make secure payments? You are paying attention to this. And I am sure you’re all doing this because I do it too. I spend two hours on an electronic retail website filling my cart but close the page before I end purchasing. Now, 86% of Mr. and Mrs. Happys shop online and offline. Therefore, effective marketing strategies are required. In other words, a 360-degree reassessment is needed. We need to look at how the Omni consumer, which is the consumer shopping from every channel, behaves and how we can address him. Isn’t all we do to connect with our target audience? The traditional marketing strategy was broadcast-based. What do I mean? You were creating a concept with an advertisement. Then, you blew it up. In newspapers, television, and billboards, you hit people’s heads quasi with a hammer. This does not work anymore. Because 577 S T R A T C O M T A L K people have so much technology, talent, and data in their hands, so they can see your bluff. 70% of people compare prices between retailers. And again, a considerable percentage of consumers, equivalent to 70%, favor retailers that include product reviews on their pages. You see, they can see your bluff. Therefore, marketing through mass media no longer works as it used to be. We need to do more personal, customized things using data and technology. That’s why artificial intelligence and machine learning kick in here. And this needs to be done using the latest technology. You need to be able to interact with the future in the virtual world. Finally, we need to adopt a strategy that includes the purchasing journey of consumers, which is very important. In this context, there is a different journey now compared to 18 months ago. According to our data, on average, All Mr. and Mrs. Happys visit the store nine times a week. This is based on the data from the audiences we spoke to, and at least one out of 9 store visits in a week takes place to a new store. By the way, the nine store visits which I mentioned here are both online and offline. This data is different. This number is equivalent to a third of total store visits achieved in the past, and the demographics are completely different. There are both online and offline visits here. So the paradigm is entirely different than it was 18 months ago. Hence, we need to look into this shopping, or instead of purchasing journey, or the trip to service consumption differently. We need to handle this not with conventional data but with a wide variety of reliable data, and this needs to analyze. These experts should not only give you insights but also support you with the capabilities to manage the interaction there. And, now I move on to the last part of this session. So what are we doing about it? At Nielsen, we have always had applications related to consumer insights. But last year, we gathered all these products under one umbrella, and our motto here was to concentrate on the consumer in detail. In other words, it was necessary to conduct a thorough analysis and understand how their mindset worked. What affects their brains? How is your brain influenced by the brand, reviews, your hearings from friends, family, social media before you plan any shopping journey? First, programming occurs in your brain. Then, you take this programming with you and go to the store, whether physical or online. And that is how you walk around and wander there. Then, consumption takes place. What is more important than what you consume there; is where, how, with whom, and on what occasion you consume it, and finally, what kind of experience you get from this consumption. Marketers consider this the moment of truth—all 578 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 13 moments of truth matter. So we have been working on them and inferring each moment of truth in depth. We connect the dots in between. We use data coming from 100 markets and 80 million different conversations. We have worked in this business for 50 years with experienced experts, and we interpret data collected from global markets. Yes, the consumer or shopper experience is changing at an unprecedented speed. As a result, analyzing what currently happens no longer creates reliable data to predict the future. However, 65% of the shoppers still love to shop in-store, and to understand how they would react to a new scenario; we need to study shoppers by placing them inside the store. At this point, our NielsenIQ SmartStore product offers a 360-degree online virtual solution. You can test your entire store, departments, and shelves and examine your new strategies through our SmartStore application. In addition, you can maximize your growth in retail, and ours is the unique application offered in this sense in the industry. You can conduct your work in all product categories and complete all your work within as short as six weeks. By thinking like a shopper, you can understand why the consumer does shopping. It is pretty cool. Thank you very much for this opportunity. I want to invite you all to learn more about our products and capabilities. Understanding the consumer and especially consumer behavior plays a vital role in developing a marketing and communication strategy in every sector. At the same time, our world is changing very rapidly, and I do not think that this speed will decrease. So, never forget this. No matter in which era you live, the price of light is always lower than the cost of darkness. 579 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 14 Rising Popularity of Streaming Services? 580 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 14 Rising Popularity of Streaming Services? 12 December 2021 • Pelin Mavili Public Policy Director of Netflix Türkiye - Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 581 S T R A T C O M T A L K 14 As long as we keep the authenticity in telling our local stories, there is a huge potential to get closer to other parts of the Pelin Mavili I want to extend my gratitude to the Presidency’s Directorate of Communications, for the invitation to speak at such a distinguished event. Today I’m here to talk about the importance of streaming services, the increasing importance of streaming services. And maybe, let me start talking very briefly about how Netflix is different at this pace. Then I’ll move on to the opportunities it brings in the space of communications that would interest most of the audience. Netflix is an innovative entertainment service that uses the internet to provide service to its customers. Netflix is not a platform. It doesn’t have user-generated content, there is no user interaction on the service, and there is no in-app purchasing in Netflix. It’s a service provided by the internet, and it has editorial controls and ratings and signatories to inform its audience. You can leave Netflix at any time; you can come back. No commitments are required for being a 582 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 14 subscriber. And It fits the zeitgeist today, which made it popular among all the subscribers. Today, you can watch wherever you want, whenever you want and for as long as you want. You can leave and come back any time. And this agility and flexibility make these kinds of services in tune with the zeitgeist, making it a preferred choice among customers today. And I just said, it’s an innovative service, and let’s have a quick look at what’s innovative. The Netflix business is transformed with the digital transformation itself. It started as a DVD rental company, most of you may know about it. The company was sending DVDs to its customers via post without any commitments and penalties if you do not return the DVD on time. At the time, it was in itself innovative as well. But then, with the digital transformation, the company could transform its way of business and adapt to using the internet, marking a milestone for the company. And that is where Netflix made a difference. Another milestone was when Netflix started producing its content. What makes its services innovative is that they are adaptable and flexible in keeping up with the needs and requirements of the time.And that is tempting for the customers. Today, perhaps the most important thing is the ability to bring local stories together with a global audience video on-demand services. I think local storytellers are now more powerful than ever. They can appeal to an international audience—the important thing here, which I believe to be very critical for communication managers. When we look at our subscribers, they always love the original, authentic local stories. So, okay, we are talking about internationalization when we say storytellers, but the authenticity is essential. Stay original. In doing so, reach international standards in your service quality. This is very important and significantly strengthens the communication of local storytellers. This already enables our services to be loved by millions of subscribers. In the meantime, I would like to mention three essential elements; on-demand video services and how they contribute to the community. First of all, I will talk about the economics and communication aspects; I think it will be interesting for you.. First of all, the video-on-demand services and the fact that there is an international appetite for local stories create a substantial economic growth potential. In general, creative industries are really at the heart of economic development nowadays, especially at the time of COVID when there were some economic challenges worldwide. The video-on-demand services and the productions around video-on- demand services turned out to be an essential source of economic development throughout this process and continue growing every day. 583 S T R A T C O M T A L K Deloitte conducted a story very recently about the power of creative industries. Of course, the production of films and series is part of video-on-demand. But it’s beyond that. Deloitte proved that in a bit of study, in 9 different countries, including Türkiye, the creative industries today are growing faster than the local economies’ average growth. And they are expected to grow by 40% until 2030. So, there is a huge growth opportunity in investing in creating local content and, beyond that, in the creative industries. And when we look at Türkiye’s findings of the same report of Deloitte, it reads exciting stuff for Türkiye. The employment growth in creative industries in Türkiye is again faster than the average employment growth in the country. And it is expected to have 1 million employments until 2030 in Türkiye, and the share in employment will grow from 2% to 3% by 2030, which also proves that it will grow faster than the average employment growth in the country. And then, looking at these data, we decided to analyze: where is Netflix in this picture? How do we contribute to this picture? And we conducted a study with data from our productions about Netflix’s contribution to triggering economic growth in Türkiye. So, this is different from what we are directly paying to our production partners. And beyond that, what we are starting in the supply chain. We think it is essential because any economic sector generates value, but the value chain is even more critical. So, we wanted to look to what extent we trigger that circle around the Netflix business. And what we find out is impressive. Until today, you have seen Turkish shows on our service. I hope you have seen the Turkish shows on our service. But there are also shows that are finalized their shooting in the post-production process that you haven’t yet seen; with all of those shows that we completed their sets for, we contribute to the supply chain. Whether it be restaurants, hairdressers in the vicinity of our sets, or transportation companies, construction companies for the sets, all of which impact the supply chain, amounting to 583 million TL. So, it’s not what we directly spend. It’s what we triggered to be paid in the economy. So, yes, the creative industries have vast potential. And SVOD, the subscriber video-on-demand services, become a flagship in that economic growth. And on-demand video viewing services subscription also makes a very significant contribution to this economic growth. When we look at the employment figures, it is imposing. We have provided more than 3 thousand jobs for any Netflix series shot in Türkiye so far. In other words, these services now serve as a driving force for economic growth. Moreover, they are beneficial for the whole Turkish economy from its communication and its broader impact on the supply chain. 584 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 14 Then speaking about the economic contribution on one side, now I’d like to move on to a specific area for the audience the communication executives might be even more interested. The SVOD services -subscription video on demand services- create a substantial cultural affinity that connects the people, countries, and cultures. And that power comes from the authenticity that I was talking about a few minutes ago. As long as we keep the authenticity in telling our local stories, there is a huge potential to get closer to other parts of the world. And the bridge is built by this video-on-demand service. So, using the power of connectedness via the internet, leveraging technology today brings us the ability to be more able to communicate globally and get connected globally. And there is a report actually by the UN World Tourism Organization to which Netflix also contributed regarding cultural affinity and screen tourism, and which seems quite similar to internet-based entertainment services in general. And that study also shows that the likelihood of listing that country as your top destination 585 S T R A T C O M T A L K to travel increases by 2.4% if you watch local content from that country. So that tells us if you are on an international service as a local storyteller, then you are contributing to the potential of your country to gain more tourism attraction, to get more attention for your culture worldwide. And I want to underline a specific point here because Turkish films and series have been strong for a long while. It’s not a new thing. This is why Netflix chooses to be producing even more in Türkiye. The creative community and the stories of Türkiye themselves are already robust. And as Türkiye, we have been telling those stories; we have been exporting those stories worldwide with pride for a while. But what comes with these new services is the opportunity for the subscribers of video-on-demand services to have more than one and a half times the chance to see local content, besides other benefits. So, we can take Turkish stories to homes that are not usual followers of Turkish accounts. So, it’s 1. 6 times more chance to reach an audience that you wouldn’t usually reach if it was traditional TV. So, the connectedness of the internet and the agility of these services open up new doors for our storytellers. This is a significant opportunity. And are we capturing it as Türkiye? Let’s have a look at this. We were interested to see if Türkiye is an exception or if Türkiye follows this trend. And we conducted a study in 8 countries with 8000 Netflix subscribers. So, we asked them if they were watching Turkish content or not. And we find out that among those who care about local Turkish content, the cultural affinity towards Türkiye, and the feeling of closeness to Türkiye, their love for Türkiye grow twofold. This is impressive. This is a significant opportunity to be more relevant the rest of the world. And we see a similar trend not only in their interest in Türkiye as a whole but also specifically in the Turkish language.Considering the tendency to listen to Turkish via the service and even to learn the Turkish language to learn Turkish history, it is even beyond the study. It’s almost three times the interest in Turkish history with Turkish content. And I don’t only mean Netflix content because we are licensing precious Turkish content. And you may know our international audience very much follows the Turkish historical dramas, which triggers interest in Turkish history. But there is one impressive piece of data I want to tell precisely, which can be a massive opportunity for Türkiye. The willingness to travel to Türkiye doubles when you see a Turkish show on your service. So, it means there is an enormous potential, post-COVID, hopefully, for tourism. And I hope we can capture it with bringing our fascinating stories from Türkiye to our service. As I come to the end of my words, here is what I want to say. I hope you are interested, but I’d like to reiterate a few points. 586 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 14 Today, on-demand video and online services have created a highly competitive market. There are almost no market entry barriers. As a result, there is a lot of competition. This is an advantage for both subscribers and the market. In front of the audience, there is a choice of online content that they have never encountered before. This has become a turning point. And in addition to the opportunities offered for the subscribers, there are also many options for the countries. It can have a severe economic impact on the supply chain, on the economy of the country, and another factor which will be more attractive to our viewers today, is the ability to increase connectivity, offering you the ability to tell great local stories in a unique way globally. This creates a cultural affinity and connection, and people worldwide meet around our stories. We strongly believe at Netflix that stories can come from anywhere and can be listened to and viewed everywhere. And it’s a massive opportunity for communications executives like yourselves, and I hope I was able to trigger more interest in the potential of the communications field, which is an excellent opportunity for the societies to come to a better understanding and get to know each other better. I’m grateful to have this opportunity to address you all today. You can always reach out to me on my social media channels and my email, which reads “P,” like my name Pelin, I’m always happy to hear your comments hear your feedback as a communications executive. That’s valuable for us. Thank you very much for your time and attention. 587 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 15 Communication and Photography 588 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 15 Communication and Photography 12 December 2021 • Fırat Yurdakul Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Visual News Department at Anadolu Agency - Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 589 S T R A T C O M T A L K 15 Which criteria and elements effectively engrave a photo in our memory and never leave our minds? Fırat Yurdakul My name is Fırat Yurdakul. I am the visual news editor-in-chief of the Anadolu Agency. We have a 20-minute presentation. Our presentation is “The Relationship between Visual Interaction, Visual Disinformation, and Photography.” So here is what we are going to talk about. What are the contents that affect us? What are the visual contents in digital journalism? What are the things that affect us? What is the extent of the power of the visuals in influencing us? And because of which titles are we influenced by visuals, it is in our memory? I will share them with you. I start with a very classic photo: the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph by Kevin Carter. You all know it is a photograph engraved in our memories. Why is this photo engraved in our memories? Which criteria and elements effectively engrave a photo in our memory and never leave our minds, hearts, and minds again? A visual content, a photo, or a video has three key strengths in influencing 590 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 15 us. Technical, aesthetic, and content. So, if a photo affects us, it affects us because of these three main elements. Those three apply to news images too, but the content comes first among them. There is a process going on, respectively, as content, technique, and aesthetics. It is generally thought that not all of these are in news images. Yeah, most of them don’t. News photos are featured only because of the content. But the visuals that include technique and aesthetics are always more powerful in our memory. This is a photograph taken by Douglas Martin in 1950. It tells about the first day of Dorothy Counts, a black student at a high school in the US where only white students attend. Here is what we are saying. Each news image, video, or photo is a document. It is just a visual document. That is the difference. So, here we go again with Nick Ut’s important Plutzer award-winning photo. The Vietnam War, which lasted from 1955 to 1975, caused great controversy. And after this photo of Nick Ut, the war was over. We are saying here that a framed photo is often far more effective than pages of text. It is a classic phrase we all know. But now we will see better why. This is the basic message of my presentation today. People now believe in what they see more than they hear and read. In other words, it is not enough for everyone to present it without showing anything in journalism and digital journalism. Yes, people’s reading habits continue; we read newspapers, printing continues somehow. There are podcasts, but the thing that makes something strong in our memory is the photo or video that makes it the strongest. I will now list the headings for you. I would like to bring this to everybody’s attention who can see this and is curious about it. Photographs or videos are not very technical. So, you cannot be a good photographer just by learning concepts like diaphragm, snapshot, ASA very well, or you cannot shoot things that affect people. You do this by memorizing and learning the criteria that I will present to you in turn. Our first criterion is impacted. How many people will be affected by visual content? That is the most important thing we have to ask in a photograph. Yes, the photograph of Aylan, as you all know, has affected thousands of people. One of the visual contents that imprinted the refugee crisis, the refugee problem, the immigration problem in the memory of the whole world and enabled steps to be taken for this. Another photo from Gaza. This is a very well-known photograph of Anadolu Agency photojournalist Elif Öztürk. One the photos of the July 15th we all know. Here is the opening ceremony of the international Olympics. Yes, we move on to our second criterion. What are the things that affect us? What’s striking for People now believe in what they see more than they hear and read. In other words, it is not enough for everyone to present it without showing anything in journalism and digital journalism. 591 S T R A T C O M T A L K us? Affinity. If we can feel that the photo and video were taken closely and the person who made that production was very close to the event, this affects us very much when we see the image. It becomes the second most important title. In every photo, we feel like we are in the business. This is a photograph by Salih Mahmut Leyla. He was also one of the significant photographers of the Anadolu Agency. Unfortunately, he lost his life trying to photograph one of these moments. If he were alive today, he would have been a prominent photographer qualified to receive the World Press award. Yes, intimacy is essential. We are constantly trying to pass this feeling on to people more and more while in business. But in doing so, it is also important to preserve our lives. One of the important topics is emotion. It could be a photo or a video. I express it this way because I made the presentation through photographs. The emotion reflected in the photographs affects people. The expression of visuals that reflect emotions such as sadness, joy, love, enthusiasm, anger is always stronger. We are more affected by photos with emotion in them. By the way, you see an Istanbul Photo Arvas logo on 592 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 15 the top right. Let me talk about it very briefly. Istanbul Photo Arvas is the only international press photography competition in Türkiye, which has become one of the most important brands of Türkiye today. In other words, it is one of the most well-known press photography competitions in the world today alongside other competitions such as Pulitzer, World Press, Picture of the Year. This photo became one of the press photos of the year in Istanbul Photo Arvas. Why? Because it takes its place under the ‘emotional’ title, standing out directly. Yes, each frame can reflect emotion strongly. Our fourth headline. Extraordinariness. We are also very interested in visuals with great content. If you can have a photo looked at for more than three seconds, it is accepted as a successful photo, a successful visual content in media. Here is another award-winning photo of this year. This photo was the winner of the World Press Photo. The work of an Italian photographer. It is a picture of a program for cancer patients to have a good time with horses. Yes, extraordinariness. I mean, something interesting that we couldn’t always see. This is also one of the photographs of the year at Anadolu Agency. Let me 593 S T R A T C O M T A L K sum up for you. If something surprises you, it means you are also attracted to it. So if you say “Wow” to something, this is a good photo; it means that you can produce a good video at that moment. Yes, a photograph from Istanbul. Image of a mouse trying to get rid of the battlements after a flood in Istanbul. We look at this, and we are impressed. Because it is extraordinary. One of the photographs accepted as the greatest caption. The sixth criterion is contradiction. If there are contrasting elements in the same frame or the same video in a visual, this affects us very much. And this is a photo of a little girl in Idlib who was partially burned by a bomb. Yes, the opposite. Look here; there is a contrast in colors, the contrast in themes, contrast in behaviors. So the photos with the contrast always affect us. By the way, when you look at all those titles I’ve been talking about so far, I want you to know that the more an image incorporates them, the more it is likely to come to the fore. Our seventh title is fame. Photos of well- known people and places inside buildings have attracted more attention. Here is Muhammad Ali and Liston’s most famous match and knockout moment. An image that will never be forgotten. At the same time, if we go to our previous title, there is intimacy, there is impact. Because boxing is a sport that concerns many people. There is an extraordinariness. You can see that all of our previous criteria are included in the photo taken by our friend İsa Terli from the Anadolu Agency. It is just that people are supposed to be famous. Famous objects, famous buildings, the combination of every famous element affect us visually. It is one of the things we are attracted to. First achievers. We can say that the first photo or the first video of something is alwaysvaluable, even the most precious. Here is a photo of Neil Amstrong going to the moon. The Event Horizon Telescope first viewed the Wright brothers’ first flight or the black hole. One of our main titles is timeliness. Thetimeliness criteria significant in news photography. I mean taking, capturing, and presenting a photo or video timely.This is a photo of South Vietnamese police chief Eddie Adams. It shows the murder of a teenager suspected of being a Vietcong by a South Vietnamese police chief. Of course, I am showing you heavy photos. Not everything is creative. Because we are talking about media and communication right now. A photo must be taken at the right time and presented at the right time. This picture is from the Vietnam War, taken way back. Imagine being presented to the people five years after this war. It wouldn’t be in anyone’s best interest to do so. That is what we want to say. Yes, these are these are examples of timeliness. Another important factor is compliance with the subject. If we are curious about news content, when we have entered the related search terms we are interested in the visuals suitable for that subject. For example, we investigate news about a If there are contrasting elements in the same frame or the same video in a visual, this affects us very much. 594 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 15 tourism season, tourism intensity. It is essential to present that news with the right image. In other words, the image needs to create one-to-one content. Or what you see here is an image of a power outage in Gaza. Another visual, and this is a picture of mine. So how to describe the content relating to a land purchase taking place? Here you can think of it as planting a flag. The other title is vitality in the narrative. Being non-static, reflecting the movement, expression, and vivid colors is the factor that makes the image valuable and attracts our attention. Now let me summarize this for you. Journalists know when a head of state speaks, when he raises his hand, it is the perfect time to take a picture; as you see, everyone is doing the same. No one takes the leader’s photo when it is like this. Because movement and vitality describe the expression. And it is more striking, more interesting. In other words, those who deal with visual works always aim for the peak moment. This is so that we can catch you. A general, local framework. Here is what we mean by the general. I am just saying. They are images whose content is accepted by a wider audience and does not age over time. As you can see, this photo was taken in Türkiye. No matter which city in which part of the world this photo is taken, it is always worth something. Because it is a general, universal photograph. It is a photograph that can entice people. If I were to ask you, which one of our previous criteria you see in this for example, you would see emotion. There is emotion; there is intimacy; there is extraordinariness. Think about our previous titles. You can better analyze what makes an image strong and what affects us. Similarly, these are photographs taken in Türkiye. But these are such images that can arouse the interest of the entire globe beyond the local. And now we come to one of the most important titles. Persuasiveness. Especially in the media, communication, and journalism the credibility title is most important. Your content should be appropriate to the subject and should not contradict the subject you explain. If you are talking about torture, you should be able to express it clearly. That is what we want to emphasize here. For example, one does not have any doubts about the credibility of these photos. Özge Elif Kızıl is one of the female photojournalists of the Anadolu Agency; let me talk about this very briefly. In news photography and visual work, women grew stronger and stronger. There are serious advantages. Their communication with people is stronger; they are more naive, they can take part in journalism and actions more easily. Özge Elif Kızıl, who took this photo, a friend of ours who traveled from here with the immigrants to one of the Greek islands, then to Athens and finally to Germany, and told her whole story. Proper perspective. Diversifying our visual perspective increases the power of content. It is just like the news. Think of it as a bit of a scoop. So it is like a story presented 595 S T R A T C O M T A L K We say that visual content can respond to what, how, when, where, why, and who questions without requiring any subtitles or information is always stronger. to you in the same sentences, in ordinary words. It is the same in the visuals. Visuals taken from everyone’s point of view do not attract any of your interests. Visual content shot to show something different from different channels attracts your attention. If it hadn’t been for the drone, this heart wouldn’t have come out. Again, a perfect example. This is one of the photos I took in Libya. In summary, we say this. A photo must have the the 5W1H (the 5W1H method) rule as in the article. We say that if its content can respond to what, how, when, where, and who questions without requiring any subtitles or information, it is always a strong visual. I will also talk very briefly about the role of smartphones in media and visual communication. Today, 15-20% of the visual content offered to people by many agencies such as Reuters, AFP, and AP, including AA, one of the global production agencies, has started to be shot with mobile devices. Can you imagine that huge giant agencies are now producing visual content with your devices? I took this photo during a pilgrimage. It is already forbidden to use a camera or photo camera there. Although it is not forbidden, people can be uncomfortable, 596 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 15 but you can easily take a photo that can be included in Time magazine with your mobile device. I’m quickly moving on to visual disinformation. Photography and image are among the most important sources of evidence in communication. What did we say at first? It is all documents. In our age, every visual content should be questioned sensitively before it is accepted in our minds. I’ll give you an example. Kurt Eichenwald, a New York Times columnist, shares a photo of a mother standing over dead children. And he says it was done during a military operation, a military operation by Türkiye. That is from the New York Times writer. The next image is a photograph that everyone in the photograph knows very well. Because the World Press won the first photo in Türkiye. Why did he win? This is a photograph taken after the 1983 earthquake. What did we say at first? Now we have to question every visual content we watch in this age, in this digital world, friends. Visual content that is incredibly manipulated, incredibly misinformative. As Anadolu Agency, we have conducted a study on the contents that may not be true for the Peace Spring Operation. I took a few samples from there. Again, it is disinformation that an agency, ANHA, is doing. So these are examples that I showed you, not social media accounts, but big agencies, and look, this is a post made by a very familiar account. It says that this is where the chemical weapon is used, but underneath it, the photo was taken in 2017 during the US operation in Mosul. It is irrelevant. And these images can take thousands of interactions. Tens of thousands of people can have a conviction by believing this. So you have to be very careful. Let me conclude with the final example. One of the most-watched televisions in the world. The American ABC channel. It says here that a bomb like this was dropped during the Peace Spring Operation, and people lost their lives. The image was recorded at a gun show in 2017, and there are viewers whose phones are even visible when attention is paid at the bottom of the screen. There is a fascinating story about that, too. Trump, who was the President of the United States, does not like this channel and files a lawsuit against it after the Anadolu Agency reclaims the reality of this image. So he uses it as evidence. Every visual document I want to say here is a document. And a precious document. A document that must be analyzed and evaluated very well. That’s how I’m going to end my speech. Finally, here is what I want to say. Multimedia studies consisting of photographs, videos, or their refinement do not matter; the visual is now one of the most used elements in digital communication and convinces us the most. It needs to be evaluated and analyzed very well, and every element of it needs to be carefully researched before it can be judged by visual content. 597 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 16 Storytelling And Storytellers 598 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 16 Storytelling and Storytellers 12 December 2021 • Bianca Ghose Chief Storyteller, & Head of CEO Communications, Wipro - France T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 599 S T R A T C O M T A L K 16 Those who work in the field of diplomacy those who work in communication have to look back more than ever before. But we also have to look forward. Bianca Ghose It is a great privilege for me to be invited here and share this platform with many global leaders worldwide. Yesterday and this morning, we spent time together. We listened to different perspectives. We looked at different futures ahead. Of course, the future will depend on the steps we will all take, personally and collectively, as institutions and nations. Speaking of taking a step, I want to get you going on something. I don’t know if my numbers are right, but maybe there is a 1-2% margin of error. I think we had about 90 male speakers at this summit. We had about 30 female speakers. About a third. However, it is better compared to many global conferences. I attended such events before the corona all over the world. So I would like to thank the Directorate of Communications. They took the time, really struggled, searched for these important voices, women’s voices, found them, and made it possible to represent more women on the stage. That 600 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 16 is why I am talking about it. This is a matter of major importance to me, of equal representation. At the same time, I believe in this. Women need to be twice as competent to be as successful as men. They need to fight prejudice twice as consciously or unconsciously. They need to tackle structural barriers twice as much, whether at home or in society. But do we get twice the credit for it? I hope we do. I have a favor to ask of all of you. Now let’s think for a minute and notice this change. Each of you is all the women who are sitting here on these seats today; you are representing the change that we are experiencing in the world right now, you are representing the future, you are representing my thoughts, you are representing everything that has changed, and the women you see on this stage yesterday and today, the speakers you will see after me, are each ground- breaking people in their respective fields. I was hoping you could think about it for a minute and give them a round of applause and appreciation. Let’s give them a round of applause, each of you, the women in these seats, the wonderful women who work here, the people who help with the check-in, the recording. Let’s give a round of applause to all the women in the room, in the living room, and contributing to this event. Thank you. Those who work in diplomacy and those who work in communication have to look back more than ever before. We have 601 S T R A T C O M T A L K to look at the old processes, the past products. But we also have to look forward. We need to prepare for innovation and technology. The human challenges here will determine our future. We have to work hard, don’t we? On the one hand, we need to be free-thinking, free-thinking entrepreneurs, and on the other hand, we need to work very meticulously. At the same time, we need to reveal objective balances. Of course, we need to do everything with originality; we need to use empathy, which is not an easy job. And when we look at these balances, we see that some of them become very important when we look at concessions. Things that cannot even be negotiated. I will talk a little about these in this session today. Yesterday Simon Anholt mentioned the nation brand, didn’t he? He talked about the concept of the brand and how brands are established and live? And towards the end of his speech, he talked about the countries. He said that countries are known for the good they do for their people and the good they do for the planet. It is the only way reputations work. You are getting a reputation. I want to say something about this. First of all, environmental, social, and corporate governance. Today, this issue is at the heart of the study on all kinds of reputations and dignity globally. In part, the studies on this environmental, social, and corporate reputation are also linked to the pandemic. Still, I think that even if we had removed the corona from this equation, we would probably reach the same point. Some of these changing expectations result from intergovernmental, international, and national frameworks, such as sustainable development goals. The Paris Agreement, for example, the Climate Agreement. These are the tools that have been put forward to tackle the critical challenges like climate change and inequality. With these ambitious concrete frameworks, severe changes are waiting for us; these frameworks change everything. Where public and private capital goes is changing. How to market interventions are directed; these are changing. Policies and schedules are changing. There is also a new business risk; in fact, challenges are coming for companies, brands, and nation brands, which many of you represent today. There is a compulsion to reconsider, rethink some issues, and evolve towards more stakeholder-oriented corporate governance studies. We see this among the brands worldwide, multinationals, the company I represent, and the national companies, the companies you represent. There is an ever-increasing expectation. Brands have to reduce their environmental impacts and increase social and societal impacts. We see this every day, don’t we? There is such a thing as truth. Today’s consumers now want those brands to be sustainable when they buy brands. For example, I always look at the carbon footprint of the products I prefer. When I go to a hotel, I always expect Today’s consumers now want those brands to be sustainable when they buy brands. 602 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 16 them to make sustainable practices from the hotel. People now want travel to countries where sustainable travel practices are adopted when traveling to a country. Now we have reached such a point that we see a serious change in how reputation, dignity is formed. The planet has reached a point where it is warming up more than 1.1 degrees. There is an opportunity now or never. We have a chance to move to a more sustainable future. We have a chance to move on to a more sustainable discourse. We have the opportunity to do this in all our communications and brand studies in the future. And as they move forward into this future, many smart, forward-thinking companies have realized this and are using this change to root themselves extremely strongly in the market. Let me give you an example. I work for a global tech company. It is a $10 billion tech company. It employs more than 220,000 people and operates in 66 countries worldwide. We are NYSE and quotas on the Indian stock exchange. Our CEO is French; our president is Indian. We celebrate our 75th anniversary as Wipro this year, like the United Nations. Apart from all these elements, such as all these services, the skills we are known for, automation, cloud, design-oriented thinking, our customers have an idea about us in their minds. There is one thing that makes us different. That is the general purpose of the company. That is how we are all 603 S T R A T C O M T A L K known. 67% of the company’s economic revenues are dedicated to a foundation. One of India’s biggest problems is education and health. And 67% of our income is expended on this. Let’s put it this way. Sixty-seven cents of every dollar we make as a company goes back to society for health and education. We work in more than 350 schools in the poorest parts of India. Thousands of people benefit from Wipro’s basic health services. During the first period of the pandemic, when we first heard the word Covid and the borders began to be closed, Wipro and our foundation spent millions of dollars on humanitarian aid between March 2020 and April 2021. Well, not just that. We transformed the technology and opened a Covid hospital in Maharashtra province with a capacity of 450 beds. Working with the government for a year or even longer, we undertook the treatment of completely free corona patients. The founder of the company, Mr. Premji, donated 20 billion dollars to charity. Warren Buffet is known as one of the most important philanthropists after Bill and Melinda Gates, but you don’t hear his name much. Look, he was awarded the greatest human prizes. He has received many awards from all over the world for his charity work, but you don’t hear much about him. Why? Because our brand believes in what it does and believes in its impact on society, we provide services to our customers, but beyond these services, we also care about our charities. Our founder’s vision and approach drive our business. It makes us different in the market. Of course, we are not the only companies that do this, but let me give you one example that I love. We have seen a lot of increase in social media comments recently, don’t we? There is disinformation at work. It was mentioned at this summit. I hope that people like us, people who work in the field of communication, will improve this use of data so that we can deliver the good news to people with data based on facts and science. We know there are rumors on a lot of social media. Comments are made about the social issues and companies we live in. But can companies somehow turn these, that is, these people’s feelings into a reputation? Can they turn it into advocacy? Like Starbucks. Baristas who work at Starbucks have only one job; it is straightforward. You present your lattes and coffees to the customer with a smile, and you want everyone to be happy when they leave Starbucks, right? It is that simple. But in many cases, the CEO of Starbucks, for example, has given his baristas, his coffee service employees, another job in the United States on issues related to institutionalized racism injustice. He said he wanted to give your cappuccino, your latte, to the customer, and he wanted to make an effort to get the people working with that glass to think, talk, and discuss important issues related to racism. This is a significant example. It is important to make you think about all these feelings, these negativities. There 604 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 16 are other examples. Global companies, for example, Timberland, Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s are doing studies on the environment. That is why we start shopping for these brands now, right? I’ll wrap up a little. We have reached such a point that what we call dignity and reputation does not care how beautiful we are as a country and how advantageous we are. If you are a company, it looks at how you treat your employees or your people, how you treat the public. Where do you stand on your commitments to sustainable development? Where are you on your carbon emission commitments? He’s looking at these. Of course, as company brands or country brands, we are doing these studies now, and therefore people like us come into play, right? We are working, and we hope that we will take advantage of each marketing opportunity, take advantage of the opportunity to reveal each stakeholder interaction, start these conversations, discussions and make the voice of the brand we represent heard. It is important to present our brand as showing interest, caring, and standing by humanity. As we move into the next century, we will get to the point where companies are bound to do that. Rather, companies that can do this will continue to be companies that remain in the market. 605 S T R A T C O M T A L K STRATCOM KONUŞMALARI 15 Stratcom Talk | 17 NATO’s Strategic Communications Priorities 606 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 17 NATO’s Strategic Communications Priorities 12 December 2021 • Amy Trillard Deputy Head for the Strategic Communications Unit at the NATO Public Diplomacy Division - Belgium T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 607 S T R A T C O M T A L K 17 One of the things at the heart of our strategic communication is a strategy for the target audience. So we prioritized the issues that are especially relevant to our target audience. Amy Trillard From my point of view, I would like to tell you a little bit about the strategic communication elements of NATO today and how does NATO approaches this both from a civilian and a military point of view? We work in the field of information within NATO. On a civilian and military level. How do we define strategic communication in NATO? How have we changed this in recent years, and what kind of adaptation process have we undergone in our strategic communication? I will address all these issues. And what are our new priorities for 2022? And I want to talk about these. Because NATO’s 2022 strategic communication document has just been prepared. Before we go into this, I would like to talk about NATO’s strategic communication plans in a more general framework. What is the status of NATO today, and where is it heading in the future? What is the NATO 2030 608 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 17 initiative? I’m going to talk about it. In what direction will NATO move in the coming years? This is an important framework for us to be prepared by 2030. And of course, this document is important to us in terms of putting forward the concept of the next strategy. This strategy concept was the second most important document of the alliance after the Washington agreement. Because of this document, all activities related to NATO’s basic duties are revealed. NATO has continued to produce these documents over the years. Now I am on NATO’s strategic team, the public diplomacy unit. It is in its headquarters. I am responsible for strategic communication in NATO. All communication activities and capabilities of NATO are carried out in coordination. We call these activities and capabilities public diplomacy, public affairs, military public affairs, information operations, and psychological operations. And we try to put forward NATO’s policies by using these different activities, and capabilities together. In particular, we strive to support the efforts to achieve their goals. In other words, we are trying to be useful in achieving NATO’s wider political and military goals. From the point of view of the public diplomacy unit, if we ask what our role is at headquarters, we are responsible for coordinating civilian and military communication workers here. Thus, we want to reveal NATO’s strategic communication in every field we make, and we are working for NATO as a more consistent single voice. I have been focusing on adapting how NATO conducts its strategic communication in the strategic communication team for a few years. I have been working in this field for five years. I am the vice president of the unit now. Over time, we try to transform and change the way NATO conducts its communication. To work more effectively and efficiently, we are trying to ensure that communication is included in the policy discussions from the beginning. What does it mean? In other words, we do not want to see communication as an element added later. After NATO has put forward a new policy priority, we are not saying we should send it to the communication unit and let the world know about it. This is what we used to do. From the very beginning of the policy debate, we sit around the table with the strategists and decide the communication strategy here. Here, we are talking about what kind of strategic communication can achieve the goals. This is one of our most important efforts on the road to transformation in recent years. Another issue is that we strive for improved planning and coordination with NATO member states, our allies in the alliance, and NATO military officials. In this way, we try to adopt a more integrated approach. We have had more research capacity From the point of view of the public diplomacy unit, if we ask what our role is at headquarters, we are responsible for coordinating civilian and military communication workers here. 609 S T R A T C O M T A L K and financial flexibility during the crisis period, and, of course, crisis management is critical. It has become one of the main tasks of NATO, and since NATO has been struggling with crises for a long time, we need to have some flexibility here in terms of communication capacity. We need to be able to be more flexible when a crisis arises. Another area again is to further coordination and cooperation with other international organizations. One of them is, of course, the European Union. We are in very close contact with the European Union, and communication and cooperation are areas where we are perhaps the most successful with the European Union. A representative from the IEES told me yesterday. He made explanations. We deal with a person daily, work together, and work with his team. Here, we are also working to achieve specific goals and conduct communication campaigns in this direction by providing more coordinated communication. Five years ago, NATO did not have such a communication campaign approach. We have just brought it in, and we are also trying to put forward the NATO brand, which is stronger and clearer. However, we also strive to ensure that our communications are based on research with the target audience. 610 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 17 Another issue I would like to emphasize is where are we going in the communication framework on the way to 2030? NATO is preparing itself with a wide range of priorities for 2030. But we are also looking at what must be considered, especially in terms of communication. I think we have to consider the changes, especially in information and intelligence. NATO needs to adapt itself in an agile manner in the face of the changing landscape in this area. We need to conduct our communication in a more integrated way. NATO needs to carry out the communication unified. As we move forward to 2030, we need to become better at carrying out integrated, multi-channel communication campaigns. In this way, we should better communicate with our target audience, both in the countries that are part of the alliance and beyond, and with our potential enemies. Of course, communication in defense will continue to be one of the front lines of NATO. One of the most important tasks of NATO is a collective defense for the members of the collective defense alliance. However, new areas are also emerging. There are other issues that NATO will now have to deal with. Security issues related to climate change, for example. Of course, the issues that many members of our target group attach importance to. In other words, we are trying to shape the communication strategies to address the basic work of NATO and the emerging issues. Another area I want to emphasize is data science. It will be essential for us. As we continue our work and try to adapt to change, this is crucial for data-driven decision-making. In particular, it helps us better understand the field of intelligence, the field of knowledge, and position NATO itself in the best way. Now let’s look at our priorities for the coming year. We have just prepared and finished our 2022 communication strategy. I was also at the beginning of this study, and we decided in coordination on how to shape our new strategy. In our strategy, our goals for the next year are determined, and where NATO’s resources will focus and the priorities to be realized are decided. Likewise, we have prepared the issues of coherence, coordination, and guidance in communication to work with our communication teams at the national level in different channels and within the whole alliance for both our civil and military communicators. And again, one of the things at the heart of our strategy is that it is a strategy for the target audience. Here, we prioritized the issues that are especially relevant to our target audience. So we said, what are the interests of our target audience? At the same time, what are NATO’s policy priorities? We looked at these and in which areas there are overlaps. We wanted to explain what issues NATO has been working I think we have to consider the changes, especially in information and intelligence. NATO needs to adapt itself in an agile manner in the face of the changing landscape in this area. 611 S T R A T C O M T A L K on in our target audience in these overlapping areas. And within this framework, we plan to increase the support of the target audience to the alliance. Again, if we look at the studies and research we carry out about the target audience, we carry out many research studies within NATO. We conduct surveys with the target audience, citizens, all member states, we do research, and we see that there is comprehensive support for NATO. Citizens care about the partnership between Europe and North America. To continue to be a member of NATO, for example, if a referendum is held, people answer yes to “Would you say yes?” very highly. Many citizens also think their own country should help the other NATO country in the event of an attack. Under Article 5, this is important in the field of defense. We received such positive answers to our survey questions, but we also noticed this. Over the years, there has been a change in the number of young people. The figures for women and young people remain much lower than other groups. Therefore, we will prioritize reaching young people and women in our communication. Because they’re less knowledgeable about NATO. For this reason, as a target audience, we decided to prioritize them and create the right content for them. Yet another priority area for this year is to further simplify our strategy and mak it more focused. That is why we’ve identified three communication sheet pillars. We say NATO protects, unites, and strengthens. Within the framework of these three pillars and strategies, we will try to facilitate the processes for our communication employees and communicators. We want to communicate straightforwardly and convey the right message to the right people in the right way. We said NATO would protect the first metal foot. As a defense alliance, of course, it is NATO’s core mission. We are talking about peace and security, which Europe has been doing in the Atlantic for more than 70 years. We say NATO unites. This is a little more about NATO’s multilateral political and diplomatic work. And, of course, the importance of the transatlantic bond for the Allies’ defense. Finally, we say that NATO strengthens. This refers to NATO’s work in the face of emerging risks to strengthen interventions. We need to prioritize telling the story of NATO to the right target group within the framework of these three sheet pillars. Especially our priority audiences. So to reach young people and women, we have to carry out these studies, and we have to do it right. Of course, we cannot reach these billion citizens from NATO headquarters and other NATO units alone, right? I am talking about the population living in NATO member states. What have we been doing in recent years? We have adopted a communication campaign approach for NATO member states and a framework. Thus, they can 612 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 17 inform their people and citizens about NATO in their languages and important issues that attract their attention. One of these campaigns was “We are NATO.” It was a communication campaign directed directly at young people, and I mentioned the importance of NATO’s advantages, especially when the security environment was shaken. Again, we have had studies in Türkiye. We have been working in close cooperation with Türkiye since 2019. As with other allies, we continue to work with campaigns within the framework of our communication efforts. It is one of the last areas I haven’t mentioned to give you a little bit more general information. Hostile information activities and our efforts to combat disinformation. Here is our approach to doing this in NATO. First of all, we try to understand the information and environment here, then try to make more sense of it. We observe what is going on in this area of knowledge, so we are working on how our communicators can interact and correct them, especially if they are given conflicting information. Again, we carry out our work in the eyes of institutions such as the European Union, in which we work in close cooperation with both NATO member states and partner countries. I want to close by saying this. In the coming year, our communication work, our 2022 work, will focus on three main areas in particular. First of all, to raise awareness for NATO 2030 decisions and support them. Secondly, to ensure that the new NATO strategy concept is understood and to carry out studies on this summit and the decisions to be taken to the Madrid Summit. And finally, to ensure that NATO is strengthened against all threats through ongoing military adaptation, thus contributing to the protection of the Euro-Atlantic Region. Finally, here is what I want to say. NATO is part of the road ahead. We want to work more with like-minded partners who will pursue this path by adopting a more global approach. We want to be able to appeal globally to wider audiences. Isn’t that the point of our panels today? To learn from each other within the framework of all these works and to contribute to the field of strategic communication. Yusuf Erim I am going to ask you two questions. So my first question is going to look something like this. The alliance has 30 members. Everyone has different perceptions of threats. When the Strategic Communications Unit prepares a message, for example, it could be a message about decisions at a summit, or you mentioned the 2030 strategy concept. Everyone is waiting for it for the next six months. How can you reflect everyone’s different perceptions of threats while doing this? How do you manage to use a language that will make everyone happy? Do you get to that 613 S T R A T C O M T A L K point? Do you reach a situation where you understand that you cannot make everyone happy, but you say that it is more than enough to make the majority happy? NATO goes beyond its primary responsibilities and is interested in climate change, for example? Are we going to see a more ambiguous NATO in the process? How will it be? Amy Trillard Now, let me mention the threats. First, of course, we have 30 different members. They all have their interests. When we look at our communication strategy, we can say that there is a point where we have difficulties. This is because everyone wants to multiply their different priorities. They want to emphasize their policy priorities. For this reason, we adopted this new simplified approach and decided on it. We said NATO protects; NATO unites, NATO strengthens. For example, in preparation for a message, you said that it is impossible to please everyone. I think the important thing here is this. Communication is a process involved in policy- making, and here we always make decisions with consensus and consensus in policy-making in NATO. Therefore, most of the policies are already adopted with a 360-degree approach. Ideas from different strategic orientations are taken into consideration. In terms of our policies, we are at a point where everyone gets unanimity and consensus within the framework of our work and is satisfied with the policy decisions. Therefore, when we move to the communication part, we work based on that consensus. In this way, we act in a framework where everyone agrees on a particular area with all the allies. But of course, when we communicate and prepare our messages, we need to become as local as possible. When we think of more local audiences or when we speak to specific nations, we focus on those priorities, their priorities. But we also do it with the member state. Because they know their target audience, they know their preferences better. Therefore, we partner with our member states in their communication campaigns. They prefer to tell NATO’s story in a way that makes the most sense for their populations. As for our primary responsibilities, of course, NATO will always continue to work in security, but the easiest things to show for our communication are often military elements. NATO has been active in politics for a very long time. It is a political and military organization. But when you are communicating, you always try to put the right picture, the right video, you want it to look impressive, and somehow you want it to be easy to communicate. Tanks, boats, airplanes can be easier to show. However, look, we 614 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 17 work in communication with our partners and interact. Because when we say that this diplomatic element is essential, you usually see someone shaking hands around the table. It is not very impressive, either, compared to people, tanks, planes. Therefore, we want to reveal different elements of NATO. We are also trying to uncover the characteristics of the target audience that they know less about, and thus we are trying to show the values of NATO. When issues such as climate change and security are on the agenda, we are happy as communicators. Because at some point, our research shows that one of the most critical concerns for our target audiences is climate change. And if NATO is doing something in this area, we can announce it to people. If we can communicate it, if we can say that we are working on something that you are worried about, that you care about, then this will be a very positive thing for NATO in terms of communication. By showing this, we are setting the right priorities. We are trying to do this within the framework of people’s concerns, member states, and citizens, crucial for the future. Yusuf Erim You showed us what Brussels thinks about strategic communication. Amy Trillard is a strategic communications policy and plan expert at NATO. Thanks so much for attending our Stratcom summit today. 615 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 18 More Public for More Diplomacy: Challenges and Opportunities 616 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 18 More Public for More Diplomacy: Challenges and Opportunities 12 December 2021 • Dr. Nancy Snow Professor of Public Diplomacy at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies - Japan T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 617 S T R A T C O M T A L K 18 Reputation is one of the fundamental and dynamic concepts in strategic communication. Reputation may be diminished or increased. Dr. Nancy Snow As I begin my speech, I would like to give a comparative sample analysis of what has happened in the last year. As you know, Tokyo and Japan were more prominent than the rest of the world. Because on the one hand, there were delayed Olympics. We had to host such a large organization in the middle of the pandemic. Japan was one of the countries most affected by Covid-19. By 2020, however, the Olympic Games were about to be held and had to be postponed. I want to return to the winter of 2021 and tell you a story. I’d say it is the story of two prime ministers. One is the former prime minister, and one is the new prime minister of Japan, Kishida. In the meantime, I am an excellent advocate of putting public opinion into public diplomacy. When I say public opinion, I focus on the public sphere, public opinion, citizens, voters, and their relations with those elected to serve the public, also known as politicians. I think that leaders, 618 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 18 elected people, should be accountable. One of the most important elements of this accountability is the parliament. Reputation is one of the fundamental and dynamic concepts in strategic communication. Reputation may be diminished or increased. According to the behavior of the person, according to the location. It may even vary according to the state of a country such as Japan. Japan is lucky. Because it can be considered as a superpower in the cultural sense. Many people want to visit Japan at least once in their lives. They want to see how Japan combines both traditional and modern culture. However, not many people know about Japan’s policy or its politics. Especially in Japan, there is also a large gap in terms of gender in the parliament or among the elected, and in this sense, Japan sometimes appears in the news. At a meeting of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games organizing committee on 3 February 2021, the chairwoman of that committee, former prime minister Yoshiro Mori, had to answer a question like this. They asked why you didn’t bring more women to the organizing committee for the Olympics. So there was 40% female representation. And the former prime minister said, “If we increase the number of female members on the board, we need to reduce the speaking time they are given.” Because women just won’t shut up. There were seven female members on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic organizing committee. We all know how much these women talk, the prime minister replied. Of course, what he said spread everywhere. He did what was expected of him within 24 hours and apologized for what he said in public. He said his comments were inappropriate and contradicted the spirit of the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games. Only he didn’t quit. He said he’s considering resigning. He said he only said what was in his heart out loud, but he would not resign because the important thing was to complete the Tokyo Olympic Games. Prime Minister Sugo said that Mori’s comments were not in the national interest. Later, Sugo, the new prime minister, continued to say some things about the Olympic Games, which again played with the people’s feelings; of course, it got some reaction from both Japan and the international community. The International Olympic Commission received thousands of complaint calls immediately after these statements. And women began to wear white clothes to represent the women’s movement. Human Right Watch has launched campaigns to prevent discrimination against women. The female athlete who will light the Olympic torch said, “If you have such a position, you need to think about what you say before speaking. I don’t know what kind of state he was in when he said those things, but what he said was Many people want to visit Japan at least once in their lives. They want to see how Japan combines both traditional and modern culture. However, not many people know about Japan’s policy or its politics. 619 S T R A T C O M T A L K completely ignorant. This has brought Japan to a much lower ranking in the gender ranking, where it is already bad. These are the figures from the 2020 global gender December report. And it resulted in Mori’s resignation. Seiko Hashimoto has taken his place. And the head of the Japan Olympic commission was now a woman. Of course, strategic communication comes into play here once again. Bernard Shaw said: “The most important problem with communication is the illusion it creates.” Yes, when Mori apologized, he thought he had made a communication, or when he thought of resigning, it was as if he had made a communication. Or, when he said that the success of the Olympics was more important than anything else, he thought he was conducting a good communication campaign. But the waves it created were much larger and would continue to reverberate internationally in the communications community. Of course, this caused a decrease in Japan’s soft power in public diplomacy. You have to smell the air here, of course. The people of Japan were already exhausted by the ongoing pandemic and the lack of dissemination of vaccines. Mori, the former prime minister, but the success of 620 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 18 the Olympic games above all else, further weakened his reputation in the eyes of the people who had to withdraw. Here, the public played an important role in the re-shaking and rebalancing diplomacy. Strategic communication is an ideal concept for all of us. It is about planning, calculating, and communicating after making a certain prediction. However, sometimes unexpected communication results may arise when presented to the public. We need to start by calculating that everything here may be wrong. Steinbeck wrote a novel in 1937 about Robert Burns, a poet. Many situations will manifest in ways we didn’t plan, no matter how much we plan to show how smart we are. So you cannot please everyone in public, or you cannot please everyone in the foreign press. When you encounter an obstacle, you should be ready to overcome these obstacles. And I want to share a success story. Because the new prime minister is a very experienced politician. Prime Minister Kishida faced communication disasters again last month. On 27 November, Omicron closed its borders due to the increase of its variant. And he said to a journalist, yes, I am open to criticism. I know that I am very cautious. And he said you can criticize me. Only 18 months later, three weeks after he opened his borders, would you think making such a decision again would reduce Kishida’s popularity for the Japanese people. Still, his popularity in the public eye increased due to this move. Yes, of course, sometimes being overly cautious can be interpreted poorly in the public eye or reduce your popularity, but how you describe it the way you convey it can also reverse the situation. Kishida said that it is always useful to be cautious when facing an unknown risk. In other words, he said, we plan to eliminate the worst scenario with strict measures. And by allocating 36 trillion yen from the 2021 budget, he created a package to support businesses and people affected by the pandemic. For the new prime minister, this was a critical step. Because it showed a more personal approach to diplomacy. He showed that he would attach more importance to public-private cooperation. It showed that he cared about entrepreneurship. And that is how he continued to get public support. Of course, we do not know how long this public support will continue for the new prime minister, but we can now see the difference between the former prime minister and the new prime minister. In other words, when we look at the new management, we see that things have changed compared to the old management. Sugo remained prime minister for just one year, and during the Olympic Games, which were postponed due to the pandemic, he was prime minister, and we saw that he learned from the mistakes Strategic communication is an ideal concept for all of us. It is about planning, calculating, and communicating after making a specific prediction. However, sometimes unexpected communication results may arise when presented to the public. 621 S T R A T C O M T A L K of the previous prime minister. In the second case, the prime minister guided the communication campaign well, using public support, and ensured that the public accepted his decisions as a leader. Kishida measured and weighed what he said well to avoid negative feelings for the people. He planned his public messages very well and prevented a total disaster. I just gave these two examples. Because strategic communication is essential. Yes, I have been an academician for 30 years, but I have always paid attention to basic elements when it comes to communication. No matter your communication issue, you must support it with research, no matter how effective it is. And of course, you need to use your communication skills. I wish I had been in front of you. I was planning to come, but the omicron variant has made it difficult to get out of Japan. I cannot travel, but I’d love to take it if you have any questions. I think we have a lot to learn from each other. I think it is useful to remember the basic elements of communication again. What was that? Listening, paying attention, smelling the air, and constantly following how people receive and interpret information by catching these basic clues. So, I will end my remarks here, and if there are any questions, I’ll take them. Yusuf Erim Of course, we would like to benefit from our experience. But I would like to ask you a somewhat controversial question on social media or Instagram. It is now straightforward for states to interact with foreign public opinion. Where should we draw the line between public diplomacy and intervention in foreign states? Because we know about the Russiagate scandal. We know about conditions interfering with each other. I wonder where we should draw the line here? Because we know that many governments are now communicating with groups that are seen as opponents in other countries or do not support the government. Yes, you say that public diplomacy should be proactive, but don’t you think that public diplomacy plays a destructive role in some cases, significantly when it interferes with the policies of foreign states? How should other countries react to this reactive behavior? Dr. Nancy Snow We don’t have any guidelines on this. A manual is being prepared. I am on the editorial committee. In Japan, we are publishing a magazine about strategic communication in defense. As you said, you may think that some foreign leaders are interfering in the affairs of other states. So it is often necessary to believe in the context of the army. We do not need to think only in the context of 622 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 18 communication. We are constantly faced with these questions, are not we? This year, for example, when I saw the Nobel Peace Prize nominees, it touched me. Maria Ressa, for instance. I met him on Facebook in March 2019. We met with a small group of academics, and it was Facebook at the time, and now it is Meta. We had a small workshop on how to eliminate the negative consequences of propaganda, telecommunication, and disinformation. Now, if you listen to Ressa, she won the Nobel Peace Prize because she didn’t back down on these issues. The great hegemonies, where much information such as Facebook is carried, have now wholly influenced the public. And they have a lot more influence than peace organizations. I don’t know where to draw the line on this, but at least I think there will be good people in the academy world, and we can help the politicians. I know that many politicians in the political world only want to turn to their own national public opinion and want to think again before taking international action. My students have embraced the United Nations’ sustainable development goals in Japan very well. As you know, there are sustainable development goals in many areas. One of these areas is education. In connection with this, I think it is necessary to ensure that the international communication movement is also combined with the global environmental movement. In the 1980s, in the early 90s, we started the cultural, ecological movement. For this movement to become more widespread, we have campaigned too much to make it more visible in the media, and now there are too many companies around the world. They’re holding back a bit. We cannot make them accountable. But when it comes to climate change, the climate change movement has grown much more significant. On the other hand, we have to look at the climate of the mind. When we look at public diplomacy from the perspective of propaganda studies, everyone needs to make themselves and others accountable and question everything they see on the screen before accepting it as accurate. Knowledge also has a visual effect, of course. This is a tangible generation of TikTok. The only things that impress the new generation are what they see, what they watch, and what makes them laugh. Maybe we, as an older generation, don’t understand it. But we need to understand and ensure that the values related to accountability are disseminated through these visual media elements. Yusuf Erim I have one more question. In your comments, you said this. You mentioned three major social media companies, and you said they have a lot of power now. Do they have that many capabilities? Are they too strong? 623 S T R A T C O M T A L K Dr. Nancy Snow Yes, they’re very powerful. Yusuf Erim Should the power of social media channels be limited? Do you think states and governments should limit social media channels or draw certain boundaries? Dr. Nancy Snow Not only me, I think the public, in general, feels that social media companies no longer have borders; they become mighty. And the people in charge of these companies are treated almost like gods, even though they are no different from us. So they have become monopolies, and I think these monopolies need to 624 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 18 be broken. Yes, I still use Facebook, Twitter, Google, but we have become very dependent. But, on the other hand, we need to question them. Why are they so strong? Why are they so big? Before all these companies could communicate, we could share more ethically and responsibly. Look at Zuckerberg. He went to the fourth Congress, and when he addressed the members of Congress, he said that the company would never answer. Yusuf Erim I am sure that this international order will change, and perhaps governments will develop the best methods to limit this unlimited power of social media companies. Yes, Mr. Snow, thank you so much for joining us. 625 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 19 Electricity and Flow: The Future Design of a Boundless and Autonomous Enterprise 626 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 19 Electricity and Flow: The Future Design of a Boundless and Autonomous Enterprise 12 December 2021 • Vala Afshar Chief Digital Evangelist at Salesforce - USA T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 627 S T R A T C O M P A N E L 19 When I think about what will impact future economies’ electricity, I think about artificial intelligence. Vala Afshar I’m the Chief Digital Evangelist at Salesforce. I’m going to talk to you about electricity and flow. When I think about what will impact future economies’ electricity, I think about artificial intelligence. And when I speak to you about flow, I think about design thinking principles based on optimizing flow and minimizing friction. This picture I have on my title slide shows light and flow. And it’s a reminder of AI. This is an image that was produced by a machine learning algorithm. So, even the most creative work today can be done through advancements in technology. My presentation is about movement. Nothing happens until something moves. So, please think about a mindset organizational structure in how the private-public sector will be shaped in the future motivated by optimizing movements. Since the beginning of the business, we’ve had silos in terms of our mindset in philosophy and structure. And silos is chattering 628 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 19 resources, protecting resources, and trying to extract value from those resources. And every industry in every geography, with businesses of all sizes, has been shaped by the silo mindset. And in my belief, it’s the silo mentality that limits stumps our ability to grow as organizations and companies. Now, you represent the first example of large-scale social and cultural innovation. Göbekli Tepe, 13,000 years ago, with incredible, over 20 acres, 20 circles, 200 structures, inviting flow of communities and social activities, is an excellent reminder of the history of innovation. When I think of a critical moment in our history, I think about 28 years ago, when particle physicists, scientists at CERN, worked on a project that ultimately led to the invention of the web, the World Wide Web. And this was 1993 in our lifetime. And this was the stunning flow of technological advancements that grew the birth of the internet era due to these enhancements that leveraged the internet, specifically the World Wide Web. The web is an example of this incredible acceleration of advanced technologies and adoption rates. Suppose you look at a function of time and the adoption of new technologies. In that case, it’s almost a vertical line that we’re experiencing in our lifetime with artificial intelligence, genomics, quantum computing, big data and analytics, and so on. This pace of adoption and acceleration will only continue, given that most of us with our smart devices are carrying a computer in our pocket. This has led to an intelligence revolution, from guided to predictive to proactive to prescriptive use of analytics. When I think about digital transformation, it’s all about data maturity. How quickly can you look at data and use insights to improve decision velocity to create value at the speed of need for your stakeholders? Due to the pandemic in the last 22 months, we’ve also seen success from anywhere, imperative. In a light switch, around the February-March timeframe of last year, the world went wholly decentralized and digital-only for an extended period. Today we’re decentralized, continue to be decentralized, and digital-first as a mindset. So, an incredible acceleration, in my belief, a cultural and technological acceleration of a decade is what we experienced in 2020. Now, the most private, public sector still struggles with this challenge of digital transformation and optimizing movements. There are these privacy, security concerns, and legacy systems. Data silos and the average enterprise today has over 800 enterprise applications. Only 24% of those applications are integrated. And of course, health and safety, the social distancing, the decentralization, and working from home, for some of us we can afford to do that, has led to safety, now being a brand pillar for our company. Now, we will continue to see advancements in how we leverage digital to engage with our employees, customers, partners, 629 S T R A T C O M T A L K and communities. Unlike any other time in history, this evolution uses advanced technologies to connect. I wanted to show you what 60 seconds of the internet looks like. Ultimately, what this chart shows you is that data never sleeps. It’s never at rest. So, when we’re thinking about communicating effectively, being relevant, and timely, we have to recognize the world of data around us and the incredible pace of acceleration and growth in this space. This is my company. I work for a company called Salesforce. This is one day in the life of Salesforce. And what I want you to know is that we are now making almost 130 billion predictions of machine learning. And Einstein is what we call our artificial intelligence per day. Only two years ago, this was 8 billion. So, we’ve grown more than an order of magnitude in just a couple of years. And I suspect, if I’m in front of you next year, this will probably be close to a trillion predictions a day in terms of how we leverage insights to communicate with our customers. Now, MIT study this year said that executives in the private and When we’re thinking about communicating effectively, being relevant, and timely, we have to recognize the world of data around us and the incredible pace of acceleration and growth in this space. 630 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 19 public sectors are looking for value from data, making smarter decisions, a better understanding of customers, and better products. The lessons they’re learning, due to the digital transformation and monsoon that you’ve experienced in the last 20 months, 20 plus months, are to look at more sources of data. We need to evaluate machine learning. We need to help act on data. You have insights, but you’re not promptly taking action to create value at the speed of need. You’re not meeting your organization’s full potential. When you look at companies over the last 100 years, the most valuable companies by market cap, typically, like ten years ago, there was only one technology company amongst the top 10 most valuable companies globally. 61% of the Fortune 500 companies have disappeared in this century since 2000. When you look at the most valuable companies, in December of 2021, almost all but one of the top 10 are technology companies. And these technology companies are leveraging data, optimizing the flow of insights, and improving decision velocity in real-time. When we look at the most valuable companies shortly, by the end of this decade, of the most advantageous top 50, I believe, all will be technology companies. So, we need to think about how we leverage data to improve our ability to meet our stakeholder’s needs. Now, because the most valuable companies were oil companies in the past, some would say data is oil. I believe data is like water. It’s essential for life. It needs to 631 S T R A T C O M T A L K be clean and accessible. Every company that will succeed in a hyperconnected, knowledge-sharing economy has to think about becoming a data company and creating a data culture. So, how do we reach our full potential? I like to think about athletes, human beings who reach their full potential because we all need to operate in business-like athletes. And we need to continuously work on our ability to grow our strength in terms of how we deliver value to our stakeholders. Success is based on movement in this next-day, decentralized, digital-first world. I think about Amazon. Amazon didn’t have any robots in their warehouses in 2011. They started using robots in 2012; from 2012 to 2019, there were 200,000 robots. In the last two years, they’ve added another 150,000. Right now, there is a worth of 350,000 robots. So, the future of work and communication will be combined based on algorithms where machines and people coexist. So, we also have to think about what that means for movement and adding value. Now, quick biology lesson: when I think about trends and autonomy and automation, I think about you and human beings. We have pumps. Of course, we have a circulatory system. But we have lungs that breathe in oxygen. You have a heart sometime between 60 to 100 beats on average. Nutrients are sent through the oxygenated blood through our arteries and deoxygenated through veins. When I think about lungs and heart, these are pumps. We also have pumps, sales, and service marketing; we capture information, analyze information, disseminate information that we think is good for the company and our communities and ecosystem. We have filters. AI is a filter in business. In our bodies, we have filters to make sure we remove waste. As organizations become more complex, I believe they start to resemble living organisms. And living organisms are flow-based. They circulate resources throughout the organism in an environment to live and thrive and grow. My company, I believe, has been building the world’s most intelligent circulatory system to ensure information leads to improved decision velocity and action. So, we think about how we describe healthy individuals; we talk about relationships based on flow values, learning based on the flow of knowledge, we use flow in a language to talk about a healthy individual. In business, we also have flowed. We have internal flows that speak to our culture, talent, and process. We have external bidirectional flows in how we engage with our customers, partners, ecosystem, and communities. So, flows are all around us. And we have to make sure we don’t find unnecessary ways to disrupt the flow to maximize the speed of value. Now, there are seven principles of flow. I’ve written extensively about this; I’m not going to detail, but I wanted to share what those seven flows are and a couple of the research from 2021. For marketing organizations responsible Every company that will succeed in a hyperconnected, knowledge-sharing economy has to think about becoming a data company and creating a data culture. 632 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 19 for communication, the first principle is connection. We have to establish trust and value in long-lasting relationships. When we look at the top challenges and priorities for marketing leaders globally, these are our priorities in terms of improving automation and attribution improving collaboration. In 2021, we saw new challenges and opportunities, and preferences, speaking to a need for better connections with our stakeholders, employees, customers, partners, and communities. Next is distribution. We talked about distributing insights in real- time that are relevant that’s personalized. So, it’s about networks and vision. And when we talk about marketing in 2021, it is all about data. A typical marketing organization in 2021 had ten resources that they had to look at to build their communication strategy. So, they’re looking for quality, hygiene, completeness, and accessibility. And unfortunately, 1/3 of marketing organizations don’t have an optimistic view of the data that they have from their stakeholders. Integration is key. As I mentioned, only 20% of enterprise applications are connected. So, integration and having a 360 view are essential. You saw video integration; social media is becoming part of how we communicate during the pandemic with our stakeholders. So, integration of digital assets. Autonomy. Autonomy is about automation. It’s about ethics. It’s about intelligence. But you can’t talk about independence unless you talk about skills and training. We need critical skills in this modern world of digital-first and decentralized, which includes creativity, content creation, and communication, and these skills continue to challenge businesses in terms of making sure their workforce is ready to meet your stakeholders’ demands today. Mobility. Mobility is obviously, in my company all our work can be done on a mobile device. But it’s not just mobility from smart devices. It is the mobility of understanding and data and analytics and insights. Today, marketers are now speaking to the ability to work from anywhere. So, mobility is not extended to a boundless organization. The boundaries of your organization are no longer the walls of your headquarters. You and I, and everyone else working from home and anywhere to connect and add value. Continuity. This is a fast-speed video of a martial artist. And you look at the continuity of flow for a master martial artist. But when you look at the micro-movements of a martial artist, you realize that continuity is about delivering excellence at the micro-moments, those moments of truth, consistently to achieve continuity. Of course, holistic success. Holistic success is about, again, trust and well-being, and experience. And that’s key for organizations and individuals. Holistic success. This is orthogonal to silo thinking, which is typically success about the individual versus success for the group. And you see, communication organizations and marketing organizations are now 633 S T R A T C O M T A L K capturing new key performance indicators that speak to customer acquisition and retention in a lifetime. It’s beyond just marketing metrics. It’s metrics that speak to the entire organization’s health, with a holistic view on how to measure success. So, silo-based versus flow-based. It’s important to understand these characteristics and the juxtaposition. So, you see that this is a lot about a shift in mindset. It’s about culture. It’s about people. It’s about the process. And lastly, technology. But it’s essential to think about technology. My title slide was a machine learning GANs classification, creating that beautiful Van Gogh-like drawing. This is a drawing by a person, Keegan Hall. It took him 250 hours to draw this pencil drawing. This is a pencil drawing of the famous Michael Jordan Dunk. And although there’s beauty in this as well. So, it’s art and science that will define the future. But AI will accelerate flow. Machine learning, deep learning, intelligent robotics, natural language processing, and computer vision there are about 13 classes 634 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 19 of AI sciences that will accelerate flow. The founder of my company believes AI should be a human right. That’s how strongly we think about the importance of machine learning, deep learning in AI sciences classes. One of the most successful AI companies in the world, in my opinion, believes this is the most important thing humanity has ever worked on. So, when we think about the flow of talent and value and communication, we have to think about AI in the future. Another company that’s an incredible AI, as in extraordinary AI achievements, is Amazon. And the shareholder and the founder of Amazon talk about what we do with AI behind the scenes in forecasting products recommending products. It’s not just the drones and the robots and what we think about when we first think about AI, but all the algorithms behind the scenes that create this incredible magic from these remarkable technologies. When you look at Gartner’s Trends for 2022 and beyond for the next ten years, these are the strategic technology trends. And I would argue half of these trends speak to the quality of data you have and the workflow automation in your business using that data. 50% of these incredible strategic trends say to machine learning, speak to data and advanced analytics, in my opinion. When you look at McKinsey’s technology trends that will shape the next decade, I would argue the three of the seven technologies they reference speak to data and the use of AI. And the benefits that they talk about are automation, improvement of following generation programming, and all the various touchpoints in the future, in the next ten years that will be digitized. These are incredible, essential takeaways. When I look at the AI startups, companies that are working on bleeding edge technology right now, as of December 2021, there are 13 categories. There’re almost 4000 companies that have raised 174 billion dollars of investments in startups. This is a hint to me regarding how much work is happening in this space. I recently tweeted that AI will add $16 trillion to the global economy by 2030. Elon Musk, who, as you know, is the founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla, responded that it’s going to be much more than that increasingly, rapidly. So, I would suggest you listen to Elon Musk versus my tweet. And the reason I say that is when I think of autonomous vehicles, to me, that’s the best example of an artificial invention of a living organism. You have all those capturing data and insights in real-time, making life or death decisions incredibly autonomous. And there is sensing perception, this decision actuation logic that’s in an autonomous vehicle and the future of business, of boundless business is a self-sustaining enterprise. There will be a cognitive download from humans to software-hardware applications that are helping augment our ability to create value at the speed of need. Now, there are flow principles that map to those autonomous designs: sensing, perception, 635 S T R A T C O M T A L K decision making, and specific technologies supporting those capabilities. So, again, in the enterprise, you’ll see four principles; you’ll see design principles very much like a car and technology to support those capabilities. Now, what companies like Tesla and autonomous vehicles have to do is they have to modify their technology stack to include existing capabilities, which is in gray, modified capabilities which is in the dark blue, and then invite new capabilities like cloud computing, like the internet of things and machine learning engine. So, combining these modifications existing and new stuff allows this living organism, this autonomous vehicle, future autonomous business live and meet the stakeholder demands and needs. So, what’s the takeaway in all of this? I would say that futurist Alvin Toffler said that the illiterate of the 21st century would not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. And the unlearning part 636 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 19 is hard for business and government leaders. The ability to look at things in a new way and put aside methodology and processes the system that used to work, but frankly, don’t work in this new future. Think about this hyperconnected, decentralized, digital-only world. And some of those constructs and the theses that we developed in the past may not be best suited for us as we advance. So, we can unlearn and relearn what matters most in business, in my opinion. Now, I showed you, athletes. And again, living organisms, the ultimate professional athletes and Olympians. I want to share a story of the British rowing team. These eight men in 1998 would row and always come last or not be able to place in the first, second or third. They would lose in competitions. And a 2000 Sydney Olympics was coming. So, the team captain said, “We have to change our habits. We have to change the way we live to be able to respond to the competition.” So, they came up with one question to guide their everyday training and habits in life. And that one question was, will it make the boat go faster? So, before you skip your exercise before you eat more than before, you don’t sleep as much as you should; ask yourself, will it make the boat go faster? And they asked this question for two years every day. And in the Sydney Olympics, they won gold. The most significant influence on life is habits. So, if you want better outcomes, you need to develop better habits. And patterns mean you have to capture new knowledge and use that knowledge to grow yourself and share and help your companies and organizations grow. So, I’ll ask you, what’s the question we should be asking to improve communication, the flow of talent, and the ability to create value? Maybe one question that we can ask ourselves is, will it increase the flow of value? The next time you invest in technology, the next time you hire someone in your company, the next time you choose a strategic partner, ask yourselves, will it increase the flow of value? If it’s yes, go for it. If it’s no, reflect, think about it, and iterate until you can answer yes, to this question. My name is Vala Afshar. I’m the Chief Digital Evangelist at Salesforce, and thank you for your time. 637 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 20 Fighting DAESH on Front Line 638 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Fighting DAESH on Front Line 12 December 2021 • Maj. Gen. İlkay Altındağ Republic of Türkiye Ministry of National Defence - Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E STRATCOM TALK - 20 S P E A K E R S 639 S T R A T C O M T A L K 20 Türkiye provide shelter to millions of Syrians coming to our border and started to also fight against DAESH, PKK-YPG to the attacks the terrorist organizations. Maj. Gen. İlkay Altındağ Distinguished director, ladies, and gentlemen. This is day 2, and I would like to carry you to a different field again. So, we’re going to talk about fighting against DAESH on the front line regarding the fight against terrorism. After the 2011 period, the Syrian crisis was triggered by the Arab Spring. With the increasing violence and internal conflicts, the northern part of the country was, in a way, affected, and there was a void of control. And this gave rise to the operations of terrorist organizations such as DAESH PKK-YPG in the northern part of Syria, especially benefiting from the chaotic environment in the region. PKK-YPG started a corridor of terrorism; they dared to create a terrorism corridor on our border. Türkiye was following up on the developments and against the rising threats. It came up with some solutions, which are unfortunately denied. As a result, the terrorist organizations’ attacks increased against our country. On the other hand, 640 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 the regime and the terrorist organizations imposed oppression on the civilians who started to run away from the region, escaping to the countries in the region mainly to Türkiye. 1.5 million Kurdish brothers and sisters were rerouted, uprooted and DAESH started oppression against the civilians in the area to the locals. Türkiye started to provide shelter to millions of Syrians coming to its border and fought against DAESH, PKK-YPG, and was subjected to the attacks of cannons and missiles of the terrorist organizations. We share a very long border with Iraq and Syria, and Türkiye became the most affected country by these terrorist attacks. We have many civilians, more than 600 civilians, who lost their lives. Then, without any specific target, civilian settlements, marketplaces, streets, hospitals, worship places, and mosques were bombed with missiles, which caused many civilian casualties. Many people were injured, and material damage was caused in many buildings, hospitals and schools; education was interrupted, and people were even afraid of going out in the streets. They were even afraid of sitting at home, which turned into a trauma, unrest prevailed, and the welfare of the people was also damaged. Türkiye, since the outset of the crisis, together with its allies and coalition forces, started to find or look for solutions. Operation plans were prepared, the creation of a safe zone was offered. However, there was no agreement in terms of implementation. And the steps taken were not at all satisfactory as a result. In the face of these events that threatened our national security, our country was left alone, and our country had to take its measures. And the national plan was put into force inevitably, in the form of an operation. Upon the instructions of our President of the Republic, in line with our international rights: in line with article 51 of the United Nations agreements and line with the Adana Pact, to create rest in the area to make sure that the Syrian brothers and sisters would go back to their countries, to avoid the formation of a terrorism corridor on our border. In line with the territorial integrity of our neighbor, Syria, we carried out an operation. Within that framework, operation Euphrates Shield was initiated on the 24th of August 2016, and we had critical phases of the operation. Dabık and Akil Tepe operations became the turning points of this operation because they were critical points for DAESH, and DAESH’s existence- threatening our country was eliminated due to these operations. Dabık is the Turkmen city, and DAESH seized that city on the 16th of October 2016. Terrorist organization was raging terror in the city. Imagine people who are afraid, and also the terrorist organization attach particular importance to the city in terms of its religious ambitions; even its propaganda publication was named Dabık. On the 16th of October 2016, our heroic forces seized Dabık back, and the neighboring STRATCOM TALK - 20 641 S T R A T C O M T A L K settlement areas were cleansed of the rule of DAESH, and the area was secured. However, as we had these developments, DAESH was defeated, and the PKK-YPG terrorist organization tried to take advantage of this. They joined their forces in Afrin and Münbiç. On the 14th of November 2016, PKK-YPG terrorist organization, to prevent their emerging from the east and west and control Al-Bab, which was like a stronghold of DAESH, an operation was initiated. On the 21st of December, the operation took force, and as of the 24th of February 2017, a heroic victory was received, and the region was taken under control. As a result, on the western part of Euphrates, from Azez to Afrin, to El-Bab to our southern border, identified targets were neutralized, their settlement areas, defense areas, weapons, and vehicles were destroyed. In seven months only, success was achieved with this operation. The terrorists, cannons, missiles, and rocket attacks were also prevented from our border. The formation of a terrorist corridor right at our country’s southern border was prevented. As a member of NATO, we have neutralized more than 4000 members of DAESH in Syria and Iraq, and we have seen our ambition and determination to fight against all terrorist organizations, including DAESH and PKK. And of course, for normalization and for establishing the safety of the civilians, we started our activities which are still ongoing. On the other hand, as Türkiye, our fight against DAESH, which does not represent Muslims, continued in the western and eastern parts of the Euphrates during the Operation Peace Spring. The PKK-YPG terrorist organization released certain members from prison, we have identified them, and they were also neutralized when necessary. This situation contributed to the fight against the lame PKK-YPG terrorist organization and DAESH abusing our fight against the terrorist organization. Nine thousand five hundred members of DAESH were expelled from our country, and our operations On the 21st of December, the operation took force, and as of the 24th of February 2017, a heroic victory was received, and the region was taken under control. 642 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 are still ongoing. Now, I would like to draw your attention to other operations in the region in Raqqa, Aleppo, Eastern Ghouta, and Mosul. As you can see on the screen, cities were devastated by these operations. These operations took attention to civilian life, and on this slide, you’ll see the city’s situation right after the operations of our country. Thanks to special equipment, we could avoid civilian casualties, and unlike other cases, cultural heritage was not destroyed but rather preserved. Since the outset of the crisis, our country has hosted 4 million Syrians within its borders and 5 million Syrians outside its borders in the northern part of Syria. So a total of 9 million civilians were hosted, amounting to over 40 billion US dollars, which is a huge burden. But in the framework of normalization of life, fourteen hospitals were constructed and put into service, providing services to more than 3 million people. We had many buildings, more than 500 mosques and churches, destroyed or used by the terrorists, and they were restored and opened for use. One thousand three hundred twenty-five schools destroyed by the terrorists were reopened, providing more than 300,000 students educational support. For long years, the region’s electricity infrastructure was neglected, it was renewed, and roads were maintained and repaired. For instance, Ras al-Ayn, which did not have electricity for years, provided electricity and power services. Within the framework of normalization activities, more than 1 million Syrians, 470,000 of them from Idlib, were able to go back to their homeland. As the Turkish Armed Forces, we are carrying out operations. As was the case in this operation, and all our other operations, we always pay attention to international law, the right to life of civilians, the cultural, historical, and religious buildings, and the environment and the elements of brotherly and allied countries. We only targeted the terrorists, and we paid attention to the safety of the ethnic groups. As a result, thanks to our efforts so far, in the northern part of Syria, the creation of a terrorist corridor was prevented. If we had not destroyed this terrorist corridor, there would be many more interesting and different threats in the region, mainly in our country. This environment of peace and safety in the region has further prevented the creation of a new migration wave. Children and women were protected, avoiding a humanitarian tragedy, and life returned to normal. Ladies and gentlemen, taking this opportunity. I want to emphasize that we have always made sure that our martyr’s blood was not left on the soil, and against all threats against our country, we will continue fighting with determination. We have done that in the past, and we will continue to do that in the future with the indivisible integrity of our country. Our soldiers, veterans, and martyrs made great efforts; we would like to commemorate them. We want to send our respects to those still living, the veterans; I would like to greet you all. Thank you. STRATCOM TALK - 20 643 S T R A T C O M T A L K Stratcom Talk | 21 Communicating in Times of COVID 644 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 Communicating in Times of COVID 12 December 2021 • Anthony Gooch Director of Public Affairs and Communications at OECD - France T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E STRATCOM TALK - 21 S P E A K E R S 645 S T R A T C O M T A L K 21 Communication during the Covid-19 pandemic is a common problem that we have all faced for almost the last two years. Anthony Gooch I’m delighted to join you to participate in the International Strategic Communication Summit 2021. And I’d like to thank the Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye and its Directorate of Communications for the invitation. I will talk about communication during the Covid-19 pandemic. This is a common problem that we have all faced for almost the last two years. Covid has become a global challenge that affects all aspects of our lives. Nearly all sectors of society have been affected. We all have to adapt to the Covid, which has a devastating result. When the world turned upside down, the OECD didn’t have a line or a section in its 2020 communication strategy to confront pandemics. As the saying goes, the most carefully prepared plans can go wrong. And we had to seize a once-in-a- 646 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 lifetime chance to turn this challenge into an opportunity. Today, with hindsight, I can show you the different steps of our crisis communications plan. We were agile and reacted in a moment of heightened pressure, ensuring that no matter the exceptional circumstances, we achieved our mission, better policies for better lives. But this was a story with many challenging chapters. And as the COVID crisis unfolded, strategic communications became a matter of vital importance. So before I take you through this journey, I want to tell you that the elements that I’ve set out here, in the slide that you can see, look very carefully planned; they look very organized. And I think this is the 20/20 hindsight, in part. The story I’m going to tell you does reflect what’s in front of you, but it wasn’t something that we had been able to plan for. And in those crises, I think we would all recognize that we have to roll with the punches, adjust, and adapt. And I think that’s one of the critical elements that any effective professional communicators need to have in their armory. Let me begin my story. Chapter one, getting the timing right. Our communications response to COVID-19 at the OECD started in earnest on the second of March, with the decision to advance the release of our primary economic projection, the economic outlook of the OECD. And this gave us a head start as we became the first international organization to forecast the impact of the global financial crisis. But this was a risky business because in advancing our forecast, would we be ready in time? So we follow some stringent timings for these elements. First, we need to get all of the economic data from our countries. We need to analyze it. We need to be confident that we’re putting our best foot forward in terms of what will happen. And you can well imagine, being the first international organization out there to say what the impact of COVID was going to be on our economies and our societies was not an easy thing necessary to do. But we went ahead and did it. And as you can see there, the impact was noted, it was known whether it was on the front page of the Financial Times whether it was on major networks, for example, in the United States, in many other countries, including Türkiye, where we enjoy massive coverage, Türkiye being a founding member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development that I represent. Let’s move to chapter two now. In any situation like this, you need to outline a vision and implement a strategy. And it’s not the vision and strategy you had coming in. The analysis of COVID’s impact on the economy was followed by a clear call to action by the OECD for a global response with the ambition of the Marshall Plan. This evoked a key historic milestone, not just any landmark; it was the milestone that created the OECD. So, talking about the Marshall Plan had even greater STRATCOM TALK - 21 647 S T R A T C O M T A L K resonance. And it helped to frame the pandemic as one of the most significant shocks of the 21st century, highlighting the urgency in addressing its multiple ramifications. In addition, we developed a crisis framework. Over the past year and a half, we have experienced a pendulum swing between crisis and recovery with many waves of COVID that we’ve all lived. I think we’re up to the fifth now. But it’s meant that we’ve gone from phase one to phase two to phase three, sometimes back to phase one. And so even this framework that we developed while we were in this situation, we could see how the proportions were very, there was no linear pattern here; it was something that we had to adjust and adapt to. And there is no question that COVID acted as a catalyzer of the digital transformation. Now, we’ve talked about the digital transformation so much, but I think we’d all recognize that it was really with the COVID crisis that everybody went digital. It wasn’t just a buzzword. It wasn’t just people saying it. And of course, again, in the communications world, we were always digital. But how many of us had to grapple with big organizations, governmental bodies, international There is no question that COVID acted as a catalyzer of digital transformation. 648 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 organizations, where that actual walking, the digital walk, was taking a long time? And so according to McKinsey global survey, companies have accelerated the digitalization of their customers, supply chain interactions, and their internal operations by three to four years because of COVID. So, we’re ahead of the game four years than we would have been otherwise. And let me now move to chapter three. This is moving to Action Stations. What happens when you put yourselves effectively on a war footing? And let’s remember that we did use that language around the fight against this pandemic to draw those parallels. The need to strengthen our digital presence was a key priority for the OECD. And this is why in the Communications Department of the OECD, we led the way by deciding to create a digital hub to centralize the OECD’s work related to COVID rather than risk having it distributed in many different places. Why? Because we put ourselves in the shoes of people managing this crisis, people STRATCOM TALK - 21 649 S T R A T C O M T A L K at the heads of governments, legislatures, companies with very little time. They needed something that they could easily access that would be relevant to them, where they didn’t have time on their hands. And so, we created this one-stop- shop to be as helpful a resource for those seeking evidence-based analysis and policy recommendations to try and help mitigate the crisis and, subsequently, to help build the recovery. We understood that policymakers and citizens needed the essential, easily findable information in accessible formats. This also required adopting a multilingual approach. In a saturated information environment, having the capacity to connect with audiences in their primary language is vital to forging trust, respect, and meaningful relationships. Those who assume that everyone speaks their language commit a cardinal sin in communications. We produced interactive data visualizations, showing topics or data or issues that populated public debates. You can see here acute care, hospital beds, tourism, the teleworking capacity of countries. Effectively what we became were frontline information providers. The hub we created hosts over 200 policy briefs with adapted recommendations. Different sectors and businesses confront other challenges, requiring distinct policy approaches. And this is an example of how collaboration and strategic communication, enhancing synergies across areas of expertise towards a common cause, can deliver. If you are in a battle or a war, you need to know who and what you are up against. And beyond the vast health challenge that we were all up against, that COVID-19 virus that had never hit humanity before, containing the spread of COVID-19, required a sense of individual responsibility and collective consciousness. In a climate of distrust and knowledge gaps, it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between sound advice based on facts and unfounded claims that seek to confuse or confound. Just as the pandemic exposed the extent to which our societies rely on the services provided by frontline health workers, the infodemic that accompanied the pandemic uncovered the importance of frontline information providers. Conspiracy theories on the origins of the virus, fake remedies, and misleading health care information have been our enemy in this battle, in a war in which accurate information can save lives and false news; well, we know the consequences. What can we do when scientific advice competes against anonymous users on Facebook? Take a look at this visual here. It’s intended humorously. But what has happened to expertise over time, and what may happen to it in the future with the onset of artificial intelligence? This is something that bears excellent scrutiny. Now to make sense out of this complex situation and its multiple ramifications, we created didactic infographics and initiated communications campaigns on social 650 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 media, like the one you see on the screen here, “No trade, no vaccine”, to make clear to the world, that international cooperation was fundamental to achieve our goal. There was no way that we were going to get a vaccine if we didn’t have all those countries working together. And it was news that Türkiye is the third biggest supplier in the world for adjuvants which are fundamental ingredients for the production of vaccines. And look at the rest: antibiotics, stabilizers, preservatives, we need needles, dry ice, and you could see that the list of countries that are significant suppliers is endless. This health crisis also exposed multiple facets of inequality, whether amongst workers, within health systems, regarding access to digital communications and quality housing. We also witnessed how we can be greater than the sum of our parts when we unite our forces and build alliances. At the OECD, we strengthened our role as a forum for dialogue and exchange of best practices through the OECD Forum. In virtual format, we convened voices from academia, the private sector, science, legislators, international organizations, and civil society to understand how we could find solutions to common problems. And for example, in 2020, in November 2020, we organized an event entitled “Communicating on Public Health and Vaccines in a Climate of Misinformation.” What we wanted to do was make policymakers and policy shapers aware of the fact that perhaps we were on the cusp of getting the vaccine. But if we thought that was the end of the story, not only did we need to get the vaccine, but we needed to get it into people’s arms. And if we were confronting a situation already before COVID, we knew that the anti-vaccine movement was a strong one. Imagine what we might be up against when we were asking the entire world to get vaccinated in rapid time with a vaccine that had been produced quicker than ever before. Let’s remember five times faster, the fastest we have ever had a vaccine globally was five years, and we had it in nine months. That, of course, naturally, could also increase people’s understandable hesitancy. We have to understand that the one hand is hesitant, and then there are those who whatever vaccine you produce will never be satisfactory for them. That’s a difference if you like between misinformation and disinformation. We also observed new partnerships blossoming to support those on the frontline of the battle. Companies came up with creative campaigns to encourage social distancing. Here are some examples of BMW talking about flattening the curve; rather than trying to sell cars, they were in the business of actually trying to get our citizens to follow the right path. And the same goes for a well-known sports brand that you can see here. From the US to Japan, restaurants mobilized the resources to help families that rely on schools for children’s meals. And the well-known Spanish chef based in STRATCOM TALK - 21 651 C L O S I N G R E M A R K S Washington D. C. was on the front page of Time Magazine, giving an example of retail. And transport companies helped governments, using their products and logistical infrastructure to provide more medical supplies and ventilators. Take a look at that mask from Decathlon. Usually, you would use it on holiday, on a beach somewhere; it turned into a ventilator. And the ACT Accelerator is an inspiring example to illustrate what could be seen as the restructuring of international cooperation before our very eyes and unprecedented collaboration between governments, health organizations, scientists, businesses, civil society, philanthropists to speed up efforts to end the pandemic by supporting the development and equitable distribution of the COVID-19 diagnostics, vaccines, and treatments. No one is above anybody else in a situation like this. Everybody needs to work together. If any of those actors is missing, we can’t do it. We all need each other. So this was a perfect example of teamwork. And to my mind, I think it’s also an example of how international cooperation could evolve towards collateralize, where we can recognize the roles and the functions of the different actors involved in these types of situations, not only in a crisis but in normal circumstances. And now to chapter six. I want to tell you a little bit of a story about the importance of monitoring and evaluating what you do. Our impact since the hub launch, the COVID hub I mentioned, is a testament to our efforts. The OECD is now a top online reference on COVID-19 policies appearing on the top of Google searches. This is like getting to the top of Everest. So, if you search Coronavirus policy, the OECD comes up in numbers two and three out of 2. 5 billion searches right now. And that is for us; it’s certainly an extraordinary achievement. How many visits have been growing exponentially? Since we went live with the hub in March of 2020, we have seen a surge in audience reach, engagement levels, and interest in the OECD. As you can see, interest continued to grow throughout the year. We’ve now reached five and a half million. And in the last three months, we’ve had the biggest audience ever. We’ve seen that we’ve earned global attention and reach going well beyond OECD countries. Indeed, 50% of the top 20 countries visiting our COVID hub are from countries beyond the OECD. And our self-surveys tell us that our work is being used, particularly by the public and private sector. And on this point, I recall how Türkiye’s representatives at the OECD told us how Türkiye and the Turkish Government had found our hub beneficial during this period. All this data encourages us to continue providing timely and evidence-based insights and reminds us of our responsibility to continuously nurture our social license to operate. 652 INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 STRATCOM TALK - 21 And now, every good book has a little epilogue. To conclude, I wanted to say that all this work wouldn’t have been possible, without some unique critical ingredients: a clear sense of purpose, flexibility, and teamwork. This communication story has many protagonists. Some of them are unseen and unknown. People who have been working very hard while facing an overwhelming sense of uncertainty themselves, working from their homes, families, loved ones, and anxiety, all things that we all felt. And this was a real test of resilience for my team. And they came through with flying colors. There’s no way we would have achieved what we achieved without a fantastic group of people who were willing to work every hour God sends. They were sometimes ready to do this, and I think it was driven by their sense of purpose and motivation to be first responders to information. We felt useful. And we knew that we needed to do things quickly. And that’s the silver lining of the story, the incredible energy solidarity that emanated from it. And while we struggled to fathom the ramifications of this outbreak, we can safely predict that care and strong social bonds will be vital during and beyond crisis times. Thank you very much. 653 C L O S I N G R E M A R K S CLOSING REMARKS 654 CLOSING REMARKS INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 CLOSING REMARKS 12 December 2021 • Gökhan Yücel Head of Strategic Communication and Crisis Management Department - Türkiye • Serdar Karagöz CEO of Anadolu Agency - Türkiye • Prof. Dr. Fahrettin Altun Director of Communications of the Republic of Türkiye T O W AT C H T H E V İ D E O S C A N Q R C O D E S P E A K E R S 655 C L O S I N G R E M A R K S We are well aware that cyberspace technologies present opportunities but also challenges. This summit, STRATCOM, has successfully identified this reality and the critical areas where we need to work more. Gökhan Yücel Welcome, distinguished Director of Communications of the Republic of Türkiye, Prof. Dr. Fahrettin Altun, ladies and gentlemen. We had 21 talks and 22 panels, and we hosted speakers from all over the world, broadcasting to the world as a whole and creating an actual amount of interaction on social media. In strategic communication, we talked about the different topics under the framework of this international Strategic Communication Summit. This vast organization was carried out, and I would like to thank everyone who contributed to this organization. Now, we open the 43rd session of the Strategic Communication Summit. We can say that all these 43 sessions addressed specific topics. While everybody talked about data speed and everyone had something to say on the increasing speed CLOSING REMARKS 656 CLOSING REMARKS INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 of data and the technological companies acting in line with their commercial interests. Everyone was talking about data and speed, while everyone was emphasizing how technology companies were violating the privacy of our users in line with their commercial interests. How these violations could be remedied, especially the duties of public institutions, were discussed. The measures taken by the Republic of Türkiye, especially regarding disinformation and perception operations, are described again. Heidegger’s famous concept of Gestell perhaps frames the transformation; a table was drawn showing how technology communicates human life and becomes a bio algorithmic order. And while all of this was being discussed, there was some discussion about the direction, speed, and method of this transformation, especially in a few panels on publishing. How they violated the privacy of us, their users, and we also talked about how we can eliminate these violations and the role of the public institutions in that regard. And, of course, the Republic of Türkiye, in terms of the measures taken against disinformation campaigns, as mentioned here. We talked about transformation, which was the mainframe maybe. How technology frames human life, turning into a bio algorithmic element. Heidegger said, “Technology is fundamentally Enframing (Gestell).” So, we drew the picture accordingly. When we were talking about this, there was some discussion about the direction, speed, and method of this transformation, especially in a few panels on publishing. I think experimentation is essential here. How do you see this transformation within the scope of the experience and story of the Anadolu Agency? What does the direction and speed of change mean to you? I want to ask this mainly because you are a publisher and manager who loves experimentation. Serdar Karagöz Okay, first of all, thank you very much. For the last two days, we talked about different dimensions of communication. As we are closing this summit, we don’t have much left to say, but I would like to provide you with my perspective to contribute to this crucial summit. Of course, the transformation is the reality. Communication is present in all walks of our lives, in all moments of our lives. It was the case in the past as well; people were drawing on the walls of the case. That was the communication. Then they started to communicate through smoke and sound also. Using the technologies available at the time, people transmitted a sound from one place to another, which triggered the radio age. When we say, 657 C L O S I N G R E M A R K S communication means sending a message from point A to point B. Between the two points, there are communication instruments that transmit the message: smoke, radio, TV, newspapers, journals, and magazines. And this entire system or order, up until the 1990s, was an order that we could much easily describe, but starting from 1991, around that time, we began to see the active involvement of the World Wide Web. Then, the order turned into chaos. They were no longer media, not 10, not 15 media, but we had hundreds and thousands of media. And every single medium now brings along its own culture. When we look at it, a person at point A sending or transmitting a message to the person in the end B, it might be any message saying that your life is in danger, or the minimum wage will be announced in the upcoming days, for instance, it might be a message about that. A trade union might be sending this message from point A to its target audience in point B. They’ll use any of the media to transmit the message. The government from point A will send a message to people in point B, or the opposition; for instance, they want to spread the message regarding 658 CLOSING REMARKS INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 the minimum wage announcement to their followers or the entire country. They will be using many different media. That’s when we understand the importance of communication. In the past, we maybe did not need such professionalism, but when looking at today from the past in terms of making a comparison, every medium becomes essential. Well, the minimum wage announcement will not be announced through TikTok. But, of course, some users use TikTok, and those people that target audience will receive the message from there. Users of Facebook, Instagram will get the message from them. Billboards will be used to spread the message. Each one of these now requires specialization. We need to transmit the message correctly. In the everyday routine, we are sending messages. For instance, a person who wants to declare their love to their loved ones, design a message, and maybe they will propose to their loved ones. And they would say it’s snowing, so let me go and write “I love you, will you marry me?” on the snow. So, the communication instrument here is the snow. In the past, we maybe did not need such professionalism, but when looking at today from the past in terms of making a comparison, every medium becomes essential. 659 C L O S I N G R E M A R K S The person is writing in the snow. Is that a good idea? Yes, it’s a good idea. The motivation is excellent, the internal cause is good, the argument is strong, and the person believes in this. He used the snow as a medium so the other person will open the curtains in the morning and see the message. Still, the communication strategy- If you don’t set it in a comprehensive and methodology way you might create, have some problems. If it rains in the morning, that medium used will no longer be there, and your message will not be transmitted, and you would call it an unsuccessful, a failed communication. The target was good. Everything was planned, but a mistake was made. It’s the same thing for the Khashoggi murder or minimum wage announcement. For instance, after the Khashoggi murder, there was a strategy made. Maybe it would put us in a difficult position, but the communication strategy was very well made by our Directorate of Communications by choosing the suitable media. We might be right; we might have a strong message and a very high internal motivation; you still need to make good use of your communication tools. Otherwise, you will not be able to reach your aim and purpose. When we take the Khashoggi murder incident to a communications level, we see that the proper methodology was used. The goal was to reach the message of the person or the institution in point A use the right strategy to transmit the message to point B; you might call point B anything you want, the global public opinion, the domestic public opinion, international countries, ambassadors, United States, foreign missions, United Nations, relevant departments, human rights courts, anything you name it. If you put them on point B as receivers of the message, then the message is transmitted with the correct argument with high, internal solid motivation the message would be sent. So, this is the transformation we see today, all the mediums need to be calculated well, and the right strategies must be established. And this comes in front of us as a new business line. Maybe, when students graduate from communications faculties, they will also have to see this. The faculties need to update and adapt themselves for this. So, every medium in social media has to become a field of expertise today; in Anadolu Agency, we are trying to recruit people from different expertise areas. When they told me that they know social media, I asked them some questions: Do you have any experience with TikTok, who are users of TikTok, and users of Facebook? As this is an area we can measure, we need specialization, and regardless of your strong message, you have to have expertise in these fields. And finally, I would like to talk about three reformist principles we have as Anadolu Agency as I end my remarks now. At Anadolu Agency, we have three new implementations introduced; one is what we call the Green Line. In the upcoming 660 CLOSING REMARKS INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 days, the Green Line implementation will be in place. So basically, there will be a lot of environmental news reports, and we will be providing this free of charge to our subscribers. And as Anadolu Agency, we want to be a news agency that comes to the fore in this area. So, we will have both Turkish and English services, publishing news in this area. Another one is a fact-checking line. So, to the news lab of Anadolu Agency, anything heard on social media or in conventional media is sent into this news lab, and we will be fact-checking. If we can analyze this at the lab, get an outcome, and prove the results, then we will publish the results of this fact-checking activity. Also, we will have a monitoring unit about discrimination. It will be for all prejudices, I mean, gender discrimination, Islamophobia, antisemitism, everything, and racial discrimination will be one of the critical issues. So, we will be looking into all of these issues through the discrimination line, and we will follow those stories. If there is a discrimination incident in any part of the world, we will follow them with our news reporters. Again, this will be provided to our subscribers free of charge. So, these three new implementations were the things I wanted to share with you here at this Strategic Communications Summit. Now, I believe that the summit was very fruitful. When we look at the panels, they all featured experts from their respective fields speaking and presenting. And the pulse of communication, the pulse of the communication world was beating here. I want to thank the Directorate of Communications and all participants who took part. Thank you. Gökhan Yücel Thank you very much for your good wishes, and thank you for being here with us. Now, if I may, I know maybe it’s not part of the schedule, as we are approaching the end, if our director permits, I want to invite the Director of Communications up on stage for his remarks. Prof. Dr. Fahrettin Altun Thank you very much. Mr. Gökhan Yücel and Mr. Serdar Karagöz, and I would like to thank all the participants of our International Strategic Communications Summit. I want to thank all of my friends who contributed to organizing this summit. Congratulations, and thank you very much. For the past two days, we focused on various dimensions of strategic communications. We had discussions, dynamic content, and very efficient talks, and on common ground, we discussed different opinions and heard the different perspectives. I believe we did come 661 C L O S I N G R E M A R K S together on some common denominator; that was our most significant win. And I would like to state how happy I am about this. We talked about public diplomacy, nation branding, public relations. We talked about new media with its various dimensions. In all these areas, we handled the challenges that we were facing, and we also talked about the opportunities and how we could increase the number of options that we have. There were some very tangible project and partnership proposals. All these concrete proposals, I believe, will have actual outcomes. Shortly, we will have new partnerships, new grounds created. I also hope that this summit will be marking an important start, both as a summit in itself, with even greater participation, it will continue after the pandemic. Also, We talked about public diplomacy, nation branding, public relations. We talked about new media with its various dimensions. In all these areas, we handled the challenges we were facing, and we also talked about how we could increase the number of opportunities we had. 662 CLOSING REMARKS INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION SUMMIT ‘21 with its side products, with the publications, and with these smaller events that will be organized throughout the year, this project will continue. Of course, we talked about individual rights and society’s rights and how we could seize the opportunities provided by strategic communication in this regard. We talked about the security of particular communities and nations, and I saw that we came together at a common denominator. We look at it from that perspective, with different contents, with various examples from other countries. We all realize that new media and new technologies are rich in opportunities, but they also negatively impact democracies; we emphasize this all together. Once again, we all reached a consensus that new media, a new communication technology, and the communication medium created by these, unfortunately, are leading to an increase in hate speech and hate language. Also, hate crimes are coming into play. Xenophobia, Islamophobia, racism, such adverse developments, and negative trends are on the rise, unfortunately, due to these developments. We are all suffering from this, as we saw throughout these two days. 663 C L O S I N G R E M A R K S On the other hand, new media, new communication technologies, and unique cultural realities are entering our lives, and the legal mechanisms need to be used within the democratic framework to apply a series of regulations. We also discovered the need for this. Of course, safeguarding democracy, negotiation culture, and public space is our top priority. And in this context, it is critical to fully utilize strategic communication capabilities and fight against systematic disinformation campaigns. In this regard, we’ve seen that a framework has been outlined. During the opening speech, our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, made an important statement. He said, at the point, we have reached, disinformation is not just an issue of national security, but it is a global security threat. We saw the tangible examples of that here today. I hope that this summit at a universal, international and global level act as a source of solutions to this threat. In the 90s, when the internet was becoming part of human lives, it seemed as it would be serving democracy, and the aspects of how it might contribute to democracy were being discussed. However, today, we are talking about the destructive effects of the internet more. Especially during this global pandemic, during this COVID pandemic, we are feeling this more clearly. I hope that we will use these new media tools and new technologies to promote freedom in the shortest time possible. On this occasion, I would like to congratulate all the participants and organizers of the summit. I’m glad to see that the event has been a great success in highlighting today’s global and national challenges. The richness of the debates through these two days has been very impressive. We all see here that we need mobile engagement and collaborations. Thus, we can overcome the adverse effects of emerging new technologies while celebrating their opportunities. However, I believe this is only the beginning. We hope to continue this conversation. So, we can serve to have a safer, more transparent, and democratized cyberspace for all our citizens. We are well aware that cyberspace technologies present opportunities but also challenges. This summit, StratCom, has successfully identified this reality and the critical areas where we need to work more. Türkiye will be a crucial partner in this process. It was an honor to have you all here at the summit these two days, and I would like to thank you all for your contributions to this international communication summit, StratCom.