The political strategist thinks so
On April 8, the Armenian-origin reality show’s celebrity Kim Kardashian’s visit shocked the Armenian press. The publications about Kardashian will still lead the news feed of the mass media for a few days. More important political and the issues thereof on the threshold of the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide were pushed to the second plan, including the occurrences with Zhirayr Sefilyan and other members of the Founding Parliament, of which the most relevant topic was the Parliamentarian who had a dinner with Kardashian and has paid 300 000 dollars for the dinner, as well as the list of politician-oligarchs, who are still in the queue. Why the mass media covering Kardashian and keeping the subject in stock is criticized, which was the right thing to do, to cover the visit with the foreign journalists with great fanfare who have arrived in Armenia especially to photograph Kardashian, or to neglect it by keeping yourself with more important national issues.
In the conversation with “Aravot” political strategist, Vigen Hakobyan expressed an opinion that from the PR perspective our media, as well as the world’s most leading media covered the visit, and our media coverage is very natural, which proves that our press has adequate attitude towards the importance of this event, “It is a reality and a fact that Kim Kardashian has a fairly large audience and is influential not only in the world of the show business, but also in the political field; and it is not coincidence that everybody wants to have a picture taken with her; a lot of celebrities, politicians, for example Obama, Cameron are looking for kinship with her. Regardless of the fact whether someone in Armenia likes Kardashian or not it is a reality that she has a large audience.
Pragmatic nations are trying to use such phenomena, show-business stars, sportsmen and others in their state PR. Within a half-day Kardashian’s visit to Armenia made the resonance of Armenia as a brand deeper and the brand rose higher than we could have voiced within decades.” To the question whether Armenian beauty’s visit will contribute to the recognition of Armenian Genocide Vigen Hakobyan answered, “It is a fact that Armenia as a brand and recognition of Armenian Genocide are not in the global trend and are far from Holocaust in terms of its recognition. During Kim Kardashyan’s visit her every step, especially if she continues to voice the issue of genocide will reach a much greater resonance; the issue of Armenian Genocide will become more recognizable abroad than if we tried to promote it in our traditional ways.
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In this sense we will have serious benefits also from this visit, I think there will be speeches, visits to the Armenian Genocide Museum, Memorial Complex. We should try to extract the maximum from this visit. The nervous reflections existent among some circles do not contain any pragmatic thinking, whereas in the whole world people try to make the most important issues recognizable through such popular phenomena. Fortunately, in Kim Kardashian’s case the personal PR coincides with the state’s PR interests. The black PR is also a PR though.”
To the question would it be right for the President to accept Kim Kardashian the political strategist said, “If I were the advisor to the president, I would not recommend it to be at the reception level, because there are statuses, while Kim Kardashian is not striving for that at the officially level. There could be a format for organizing their meeting, for example, let’s say, they meet in a jazz club or somewhere else just by chance; I mean this trick could be used to arrange a meeting without ties. It’s one thing to officially meet Spivakov or a rock legend and a different thing to meet a temporary prominence… I have read that the Prime Minister is going to receive her; this is also not right, but in case of the Prime Minister one can understand, because this visit will contribute to the recognizability of Armenia as a tourist country and Armenia will be recognized by several million people not as Armenia, but merely as Kardashian’s country. In case of the Prime Minister one can imagine an agenda for the meeting while in case of the president – no.”
EVA HAKOBYAN
