Overview of the Lithuania

In the northeastern region of Europe, Lithuania was one of the countries that made up the Soviet Union. Lithuania is bordered by Poland, Latvia, Russia, and Belarus, among other countries. With a population of around 3 million, Lithuania has the most people per square mile in the Baltic States (IRVINSKYT, 2014). The country's gross domestic output is $41.24 billion, its per capita income is approximately $14,000, and its life expectancy is predicted to be 74 years. The official language of Lithuania is Baltic, which is spoken by the majority of the ethnic groups there. Lithuania has a small Polish, Belarusian, and Russian population. Currently, Lithuania is among the most growing nations in Eastern and Central Europe thus they have been invited to integrate with other nations in the Europe Union. Industries such as Electronic, metal processing, machine tooling, food processing, construction furniture, light and clothing, and household industry are operatic productively in Lithuania; hence making the country economy stable and growing rapidly (IRVINSKYT, 2014). Due to the numerous industries, a private and public institution in the nation, corporate culture, and the marketing mix were considered part of the public relation aspects.

The culture of Lithuania has six pillars. Ethnicity, language, religion, holidays, architecture and arts are the six pillar of culture in Lithuania. Ethnicity is the major pillar since the nation is made of Lithuanians, Russians, Pole and Belarus (OCDE, 2015). The nation traditions are blended of the four ethnic lines and make the nation cherish its traditions through festivals that are held mostly in holidays. Language is the second pillar that identifies Lithuanian people, and the minority languages are equally preserved and protected by the government. Every nation there is a religion that dominates the citizens, and in Lithuania, Catholic is the major denomination that most citizens lie under (OCDE, 2015). The good morals guide the nation from the religion thus brings peace and harmony due to the worship and the line of faith that Lithuanians have right from the local residential areas to the big cities. Holidays are essential in Lithuania because it is a vacation where people use to interact with the relatives and friends through various festivals. Architecture is based on religions and ethnicities influences thus contemporary Lithuanian cities, towns and villages due to multitude architectural styles. Arts and literature in Lithuania are essential because they pass messages and information embracing love and praise of Lithuania present-day people.



The Communication Campaign “Tell Me a Story.”

The public relation in Lithuania is an essential tool as far as communication in the nation is concerned. Therefore, various media companies are available to help citizens in broadcasting both local and international news that are important for the entire nation. Communication is the backbone for media because media are supposed to communicate to the audience using different platforms and techniques to reach an audience to various audiences across the nation. In Lithuania, communication between the media and normal audient is efficient and effective; however, it is difficult to reach the disabled persons in Lithuania. Therefore, civil rights implementation was made to ensure the national media serve deaf, blind and other disabled individuals via national TV channels and Radio networks (Gorpe, Tampere, Burneikaite, Yamamura, Stacks, Daugherty, & Requena, 2008).

Civil Rights Act is embraced in Lithuania though deaf among other disabled people is not much considered particularly in communication. The media strategized a campaign in Lithuania to bring awareness about the rights of deaf people to access education and information via television, newspaper. Lithuanian Sign Language (LSL) as far as the 1996 native language of the deaf is considered. Lithuanian Government has not fully implemented the 1996 LSL; hence communication campaigns for full implementation (Gorpe, Tampere, Burneikaite, Yamamura, Stacks, Daugherty, & Requena, 2008). The key objective of the campaign is to reach all the people in the nation, particularly the families of the deaf people and people who work for or with deaf people in the society. The reason for reaching families for a deaf person is to make them change the attitudes towards their deaf family members. The tactics used in the by the communication include; making the deaf people problems an issue in national essence and using direct contact with the member of the population in the society.

The campaigners’ first plan based on their objectives was detecting the audience, learning the level of the awareness and importance and detecting the communication media that has potential to reach the audience. The campaigners faced some challenges such as lack of adequate tools for teaching the deaf people. The parents of the deaf children contributed in teaching the children by providing the communication skills to the campaign facilitators.

During the campaign, transmissions were made using different forms of the communication. The information regarding LSL, the importance of LSL, the deaf community and relevant information about “Tell Me a Story” program was among the tactics which were used to communicate during the campaign (Gorpe, Tampere, Burneikaite, Yamamura, Stacks, Daugherty, & Requena, 2008). During the campaign, various personalities such as media, institution, and endorsement of third parties were involved. The media relations was important during the campaign because most people had created a negative attitude towards the media with the reason that media was not concern about the deaf community. The press release which was made in the media changed the minds of many people in the community due to the reason that media showed the seriousness of the problems faced by the deaf community. UNICEF and Lithuanian Deaf Association were the third parties that were used to pass the information through media. The media aired the conference held regarding deaf community thus attracted the attention of national and regional levels. After the release people had been aware of the training, thus they subscribed and attended the training. The empowerment of the deaf children regarding civil rights was among the broadcast made via media; hence the media contributed to the success of the campaign.





Connection between Lithuania profile and aspects of the campaign

Lithuania is a growing nation since it had its independence in 990. The nation is rich in culture, value, and structure. A nation with one major ethnic group and four minor ethnic groups can face communication issues. The LSL is much concern about the major group (Lithuanians) and less concern to Russians, Poles, and Belarus. Therefore, the campaign made for the interest of the deaf community was advocating the use of LSL in training because the national language in Lithuania is Lithuanian because it is a common language (Gorpe, Tampere, Burneikaite, Yamamura, Stacks, Daugherty, & Requena, 2008).

The campaign did a thorough research regarding the interest of the deaf community by addressing the problems of the deaf people in the nation. Addressing civil rights which are not fully implemented is important because it is one way of showing value towards the minority in the society (Breakenridge, 2012). It is the responsibility of the government and private sectors to perform social services as a way of showing value and concern towards the less fortuned people. The right to information is the right of every citizen. The campaigners some up with strategies for reaching target community and empower them with education and information.

The solutions provided by the campaigners among other third parties will let the government realize their weaknesses regarding education and civil rights to the less fortuned people in the nation. Considering the state of economy Lithuania, it is important for the private sectors in collaboration with non-governmental organizations to help government do research that benefits the entire society because the government of Lithuania is not well-developed as compared to other nations such as the USA (Hayes, Hendrix, & Kumar, 2013).



Effectiveness of the campaign

Considering the success of the campaign and the public relation principle it is clear that campaign was well planned (Breakenridge, 2012). Knowing the audience is the PR key principle which was considered in the campaign due to the reason that the campaigners targeted the deaf community. The second principle which was well observed in the campaign is the realization of the problem faced by the deaf community especially deaf children. The desired results of the campaign were to bring awareness and empower the deaf community which was achieved through the campaign which supported by the media and UNICEF.

The campaign was not fully equipped because there were inadequate facilities for gathering and educating the children because there were no enough funds to acquire equipment used in teaching deaf children. Moreover, the campaign did not address the future approaches for having more teachers and other facilities in the nation.





References

Breakenridge, D. (2012). Social media and public relations: Eight new practices for the PR professional. Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press.

Gorpe, S., Tampere, K., Burneikaite, I., Yamamura, K., Stacks, D. W., Daugherty, E. L., ... & Requena, J. C. (2008). The evolution of public relations: case studies from countries in transition.

Hayes, D. C., Hendrix, J. A., & Kumar, P. D. (2013). Public relations cases. Boston, MA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.

IRVINSKYT, V. I. K. T. O. R. I. J. A. (2014). DEVELOPING THE SOLAR ENERGY SECTOR IN LITHUANIA: Solar energy sector development strategy for... lithuania based on the experience of the european. S.l.: ANCHOR ACADEMIC PUBLISHIN.

OCDE, O. E. C. D. (2015). OECD Reviews of Regulatory Reform: Regulatory Policy in Lithuania - Focusing on the Delivery Side. OECD Publishing.