STRENGTHENING THE ROLE OF PRESS SERVICES IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE COMMUNICATION POLICY OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IN UKRAINE

Abstract

The communicative policy of local self-government bodies in Ukraine began to undergo significant transformations during the years of the global COVID-19 pandemic and actively continued to change already in the conditions of a full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war. External challenges led to a transition from one-sided coverage of information in the «government-citizen» format to a two-way process of interaction, which in some territorial communities reached a more or less stable partnership. Among all the factors that had a significant impact on the mentioned changes, it is worth highlighting the active development of strategies for the development of territorial communities in Ukraine and communication strategies, as their components, and the appearance of press services and press secretaries in the structure of local self-government bodies. The latter replaced divisions and individual specialists, for whom the performance of communicative functions was often far from the main area of responsibility.

The main task of the press services of local self-government bodies is to create a friendly attitude of the population towards state, socio-political, economic and other institutions of society (informative and representative functions), as well as functions related to processing information and requests from citizens and monitoring functions public sentiments. However, provided that their ability to influence the implementation of the communication policy of local self-government bodies is strengthened, they can become a full-fledged subject of information policy.

The activities of press services of local self-government bodies in Ukraine are regulated by a relatively large number of normative legal acts (from the Constitution of Ukraine to the relatively new Law of Ukraine «On Media»), which together form a solid legal basis for their implementation of the communication policy of local self-government bodies.

Attention is drawn to the fact that local normative legal acts can expand the competence of press services and, depending on the specifics of the communication policy of one or another community, supplement their functions. And under the condition of forming a communicative strategy in the community in addition to the development strategy, the list of functions of press services can be supplemented with the following: communicative function, organizational function, ideological function, educational function, monitoring function. The performance of such a wide range of functions requires the press services of local self-government bodies to carefully plan their activities, which is a natural task after the adoption of the community's communication strategy. Such planning can be strategic and ongoing.

Strengthening the role of the press service in the implementation of the communication policy of local self-government is ensured by the development of the ability to manage crisis communications, which is one of the priority goals of the communication strategies of all territorial communities of Ukraine without exception, regardless of their distance from the front line. Key steps in crisis management are prevention, preparedness and response, and recovery.

An equally important factor in strengthening the communication policy of local self-government is the introduction of measurable indicators of the efficiency and effectiveness of communication. These indicators are conditionally divided into quantitative and qualitative. The role of press services is, on the one hand, to assist in the development of these indicators, and on the other hand, to monitor their implementation.

It was concluded that the implementation of modern communication policy is impossible without the effective work of press services of local self-government bodies, which very quickly went from a simple communication link between the authorities and citizens to a subject of information policy. Therefore, the ways outlined in the study to strengthen their ability to implement communication policy have important theoretical and practical significance both for individual local self-government bodies and for the entire system of public administration of Ukraine.