The following is an excerpt of opening remarks to be delivered by Park Eung-kyuk, president of the Korea Institute of Public Administration (KIPA), at an international seminar to be held today at the Korea Press Center, downtown Seoul. The forum, the second of its kind, will examine challenges that the government will face in improving its public relations in a rapidly changing social, economic and political environment. — E.D.
Korea is often globally praised as an exemplary country which has accomplished both political democracy and thriving economy for a short period of time. Despite economic and political success, Korea sometimes experiences a social political division and conflict.
Social disharmony is attributed mainly to increasing public distrust toward government. A lack of communication between the government and citizens resulted in public distrust.
We have witnessed conflicts surrounding government policies such as large-scale national tasks and free trade agreements (FTA). We have experienced a national crisis caused by the American beef import issue.
In those events, the citizens were not properly informed on the absence of publicizing efforts. To achieve social development in a more harmonious and constructive way, mutual understanding through two-way communication between the government and the citizens is crucial.
In response to the urgent needs to regain public trust, since 2010 the Korea Institute of Public Administration (KIPA) has been conducting research on effective government PR that improves the public’s understanding of the government policies and increases policy compliances.
Some of you might have attended the conference here last year. Last year, we had the first seminar under the theme of “Public Relations for Enhancing Government Trust.”
It covered current PR systems from various countries, communication between central and local government, and the relationships between the government and media.
One step further from there, the seminar today aims at exploring government PR using social media from diverse countries. As many of you are aware, the information and communication technology has increasingly significant influences on the people’s access to policymaking processes.
It is deemed timely to analyze how governments could make best use of the information communication technology for effective government PR while identifying the challenges posed by the changes.
Our speakers in the second session will address government PR in Russia and Eastern European countries, which has been rarely known to Korean public administration academia and practices. Other speakers will address equally important and challenging issues, such as international PR on Korean policies.
To conclude, I wish this seminar will lay a foundation for a government PR system toward two-way communication, which prepares us to rebuild public trust.
I wish to take this opportunity to acknowledge staff from KIPA for organizing this valuable event and to wish all participants the best of success in your deliberations.