Public opinion

Information Barents Centre

A PUBLIC OPINION OF THE ARKHANGELSK OBLAST POPULATION

ON THE COOPERATION IN THE BARENTS REGION

ARKHANGELSK 1996

Introduction.

The development of cooperation in the Barents Euro-Arctic Region has already 4-years history, but until now very small attention was paid to a public significance of its results. The programs of cooperation designed with the aims to close up peoples of the Northern regions, to form new public standards, to develop good neighbourhood traditions have faced to some serious difficulties in its public perception and evoked quite unedequate assessment among different social groups of the Arkhangelsk oblast population. This survey was carried out to find the reasons of it and to try to find out the ways of these problems regulation.

The Barents Information Center and the FORIS Center, Arkhangelsk has carried out a survey of opinion on the Barents Region Cooperation in the Arkhangelsk oblast.

The answers distributed as follows:

A figure of respondents who personally know people taking part in the Barents projects was found bigger (2,7%). Thereby, more than 4% of respondents either took part in the project or had personal impressions from their friends or familiars.

The results show that the Barents projects touched a certain part of the Arkhangelsk oblast population. Thus, among 470 of respondents asked by a quotal routin sampling representing different populational groups there were found 8 people taking part in the Barents projects which constituted approximately 2% of the number of respondents. This figure may be evaluated as substantial.

Another comparable group of people are those who having no personal contact to the projects meantime had distinct interest towards these projects and followed with them by mass media aids.

At the same time the results let us say that a big part of population has low level of knowledge about the Barents program. Thus, 36% of respondents had quite vague impression on the programs. 45% are not informed at all. The picture is added by a fact that 10% could not give any answer at all which may testify the absence of a personal point of view on this matter.

Probably the low level of knowledge about the Barents Programs cause the picture of assessment of the Barents Region by the Arkhangelsk oblast population. Despite the fact that a quantaty of respondents considering that the Barents Program brings more harm than benefit does not exceed 0,5%, the positive assessment was made by less than one third of respondents. Among them only 3% consider that a benefit is very high (this figure corresponds to the quantaty of people who have a personal attachment to the programs). 14,8% of respondents consider that the programs are to some extent useful for the oblast, approximately the same agreed that the programs are useful for the oblast but the benefit is rather small. The remaining part of the population (40%)consider that the barents Region programs either do not touch upon their life or they do not have any personal point of view and can not answer this question. Totally this people constitute a figure of approximately 60% and form a group of people who are indifferent to the Barents Region programs.

Evaluating a significance of the Barents projects more than 55% of respondents could not give any answer which shows high percent of public indifference towards the projects and programs of cooperation. The most of the rest respondents (20%) consider that these programs are for the officials. This point of view is very close to a consideration that these programs are mainly for the select people. This point of view, not emphasising its bureaucratic character, stress its non-democratic feature (12%). Only 13,% of respondents consider that the Barents cooperation projects are oriented to a broad public circles and give to the people of Northern Europe a possibility to know each other better.

Evaluating which part - Scandinavian or Russian - gain more from the Barents cooperation, more than a half of respondents did not give any answer again. Only 1,7% of respondents consider that the main profit from cooperation takes the Russian part. 5,5% share this point of view with a considerable degree of a supposition. 15,7% consider these projects mutually benefitial and more than 20% of respondents suppose that the projects are more benefitial for the Scandinavian part.

The comparative results were received in evaluation of what social and professional groups of population gain more from the Barents cooperation. About a half of respondents noted the officials. There was mentioned also a category of businessmen (34,4%). Creative people and youth were mentioned in about 10 % of answers both; 5% - both medical workers and journalists.

Conclusions.

Thereby on the basis of the data received we may say that the big part of population of Arkhangelsk Oblast remained indifferent to the projects of Barents cooperation evaluating them as being designed for some narrow groups of society. This partly could be connected with a general social apathy of the population in the condition of progressing crysis. But it is evidently connected as well with unsufficient informing on the Barents region programs. This is confirmed by a fact that looking at the problem from different points of view and answering different questions the number of well informed and bad informed remain proportionallly the same. Thus, approximately 4% of respondents who took part in cooperation personally or know people who took part in cooperation generally responds to a number of respondents positively evaluated the Barents projects (Question 5).

In this way it is allocated a group of socially active people who treats the Barents cooperation projects very positively, very well informed about them, participate or hope to participate in the cooperation personally. The number of respondents knowing nothing about the Barents cooperation - about 55% (Question 4) is comparative to a number of indifferent respondents (Question 5): 20% consider that Barents projects do not influence their life and 40% do not have any personal point of view which totally give a number of 60%. These figueres allocate a group of people who being not informed in a proper way about the Barents cooperation projects do not understand the aims and tasks of these programs and treat them as somethyng that do not have any relations to their private life.

So not touching upon a question of reorientation and changing the priorities in working out the program policy, there is a necessity to talk about an expansion of public information, elaboration of the Public Relations Program, changing the approach to the ways of informing at least Russian part of the population in the barents Region. (We must also keep in mind that the main part of population do not see a necessity in the journalists exchange). Keeping in mind that one of the main task of the barents cooperation is to continue and strengthen the traditions of good neighbourhood between the Northern of Scandinavian countries and Russia, the development of public relations will afford to make finacial investments to the projects more efficient without an enlargement of a total budget. We see expedient to continue and to go deep into sociological research in this direction to monitor the changes in public opinion. Such research may afford to control and to correct a process of execution of single projects, to make them more democratic and efficient and will give a possibility to evaluate the effectiveness of different channels of influence to the public opinion of the Russian North population, to choose and to create these channels. These reserch themselves could be a very good way of formation of much more positive public opinion.

Organization-executer: FORIS-centre.