Chair: Dr Neville Bolt, Reader in Strategic Communications Education

Speaker: Elīna Lange-Ionatamišvili, Senior Expert, NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (COE) in Riga, Latvia

 

This event is part of the School of Security Studies Society, Culture & Law research theme seminar series 

 

For over a century, film has been a powerful medium for representing and constructing memory. Due to its aesthetic qualities, it is particularly influential in creating the effect of reality and presence, thus shaping viewers’ understanding of the past, present and future.

Film that speaks to traumatic events like war can be of particular interest because memories and meanings attached to these events by different groups are highly contested. Equally, it is of crucial importance for political elites to consolidate and enforce agreement that helps them retain positions of influence.

This presentation will outline the approaches used in constructing a documentary about the life of internally displaced persons in post-war Georgia and discuss the theoretical findings that are relevant to guiding the current PhD research which uses film as a proxy to explore the insufficiently researched, yet pivotal role of memory construction in national strategic communications.

 

Bio

The greater part of Elīna’s career has been concerned with security, communication, public diplomacy, training and research. Elīna has been a defence civil servant for eight years, four of which she spent in Georgia running a NATO trust fund for professional development and reform support. Her previous jobs involved heading the Public Diplomacy Division at the Ministry of Defence of Latvia and working on public diplomacy projects under the NATO Riga Summit 2006 Task Force.

Elīna works at the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence since its establishment in 2014. Her current portfolio covers Russia’s information influence activities in the Nordic-Baltic region and Georgia, narrative and target audience analysis, and strategic communications terminology.

Elīna holds MA in Communication Science from the University of Latvia (2006) and MA in Audio-Visual and Stage Arts, specialising in documentary film directing, from the Latvian Academy of Culture (2020). In spring 2021 her full feature documentary on post-war Georgia will premiere at the international ArtDoc festival. In 2021 she became a PhD student at the King’s College London, War Studies Department, focusing on memory construction and strategic communications.

Elīna is also a founding member of NGOs Baltic to Black Sea Alliance, The Clue Cluster and Strategic Communications Laboratory Georgia where she contributes to various projects promoting democracy, security and media development.

Elīna has received the award of the Latvian Minister of Defence for successful conduct of the NATO Riga Summit (2007) and the Order of Honour from the President of Georgia (2010).