20.02.2026
Why institutional trust has weakened, what became the turning point in the shift of public opinion paradigms, and what to consider in reputation management within the energy sector.
These very questions were central to the lecture “Public Opinion,” held on February 19 as part of the first module (“Ukraine’s Energy Landscape”) of the Energy Club course — “Communications and Interaction in Energy: Strategies for PR, Marketing, GR and Lobbying in Ukraine” (2.0). The lecturer was Renata Iaresko, founder and director of the consulting and communication agency CommsTrue; business consultant on strategic communications, risk management, and sustainable development; PhD in Economics; and member of the ESG Liga expert council.
Recent years have shown one thing that is hard to ignore: social reactions arise faster than institutions can respond to and explain them. Support, indignation, betrayal, anxiety, or fatigue appear instantly and only later become covered with arguments, and sometimes remain an emotional form without factual basis. This is not evidence of societal irrationality, but rather a sign of a change in the very logic of public opinion formation.
For the energy sector, this shift is fundamental. An industry that operates with long cycles, complex technical solutions, and a heavy terminological language of figures increasingly faces reputational risks even before a decision has been announced to the general public. Tariffs, environmental consequences, security of supply, or infrastructure projects have ceased to be purely sectoral issues. They are perceived through the prism of justice, trust, and a sense of control over the future.
To understand how to work with public opinion, one must realize that it is formed simultaneously on several levels that interact with and reinforce each other:
The priority of these levels has changed depending on the period throughout the existence of civilization and according to different logics in different historical periods. The classic model (the old paradigm) of public opinion, which institutions relied on for decades, was relatively simple and predictable. Information reached society, underwent rational evaluation, formed a position, and only then transitioned into action. That is, the classic model of public opinion looked like this: Information → Rational Evaluation → Position → Action. Social influence moved from institutions and experts to groups and then to individuals. Even conflicts in this model unfolded gradually, leaving time for explanations, corrections, and negotiations.
During the existence of the classic model, there was a limited number of sources, a clear hierarchy of authorities, institutional organizations held weight, and expertise was recognized as a distinct value. Furthermore, information cycles were slow, a time gap existed between an event and the reaction, and people had time to integrate new information into their own system of values and understandings, generally perceiving information rationally.
The turning point occurred due to a change in the environment in which public opinion is now formed. New information sources emerged without hierarchy or shared context, the time between event and reaction shortened sharply, and the number of interpretations began to exceed the number of facts themselves. As a result, a different sequence increasingly operates: Stimulus → Emotional Reaction → Social Pickup → Consolidation → Post-hoc Explanation.
The cognitive level ceases to be the first; instead, the emotional level precedes everything. Moreover, it is followed by the perceptual level, and as a result, a person may sincerely believe in their own rationality while not fully realizing why exactly this position became obvious to them. Since opinion is formed in a fragmented and asynchronous space where sources are multiple and unequal, there is an absence of a clear hierarchy of authorities, expertise competes with emotional appeal, and information, opinion, and entertainment are merged into a single flow.
All this is reinforced by chronic stress in society. War, loss, uncertainty, and fatigue form a state in which emotional reactivity grows, and the capacity for long-term comprehension decreases. Themes of safety, tariffs, environmental impact, justice, and the future become powerful triggers. Support can quickly turn into indignation, and then into exhaustion. In such an environment, public opinion forms not around arguments, but around states.
In this environment, digital platforms play a special role. Specifically, Threads in the Ukrainian context is ceasing to be just a social network and is turning into a public space for the articulation of states. Here, people write not so much positions as their own emotional experiences. Short formats provoke sharp phrasing, and comments are often more important than the post itself. A collective resonance effect arises — a feeling that “everyone thinks the same,” even if in reality it is just a wave of synchronized reactions.
It is also fundamentally important that the vector of social influence is changing. If previously an individual was formed under the influence of social impact, today an individual signal can launch a social wave. One well-aimed post that accurately hits the emotional state of society is capable of creating pressure on brands, institutions, and experts faster than any official statement.
This effect is further amplified by artificial intelligence. AI does not create emotions and does not invent social moods, but it radically lowers the threshold for producing persuasive explanations. It is capable of quickly generating logical narratives that overlay already formed emotional reactions, creating an illusion of rationality. As a result, a person may be sincerely convinced that they reached a conclusion independently, although in reality they merely selected an explanation for an already existing position.
In such a reality, the weakening of institutional trust is a natural consequence already recorded in international research. In particular, the World Economic Forum Global Risks Report directly points to the trust crisis as one of the key global risks that amplifies social fragmentation and instability. Data from the Edelman Trust Barometer shows that institutions continue to function but no longer receive trust automatically. Formal status and expertise cease to be sufficient. Trust becomes conditional, situational, and reversible.
The key reason for this shift is the speed of change, which exceeds the speed of comprehension. Decisions are made faster than society has time to integrate them into its own value system.
For the energy sector, this means a fundamental shift. Reputational risks arise not after decisions are made and announced, and sometimes not even because of technical errors, but at the stage of social expectations, biases, fears, and interpretations. A change in tariffs, an environmental footprint, or an infrastructure project may be technically justified and legally correct, but simultaneously perceived as a threat or injustice if they enter the public space without considering the prevailing moods.
That is why reputation management in energy can no longer be reduced to the transmission of information. It turns into working with the context of perception. The analysis of social moods becomes not a reaction to a crisis, but a tool for its prevention. Transparent communication in this logic is not about more figures and reports, but about more meaning, empathy, and the ability to explain how complex decisions are connected to people’s real lives.
In the new paradigm of public opinion, technical competence remains necessary but ceases to be sufficient. For sectors of high social sensitivity, particularly energy, understanding social moods becomes as much an element of security as grid reliability or backup capacities. To ignore this is to remain in the old logic at a moment when reality is already living by new rules.
About the Course: The second cohort of the Energy Club course “Communications and Interaction in Energy” (2.0) launched in February 2026. The program will last for 12 weeks. More than 20 professionals in PR, marketing, and GR working in the energy sector have become students of the course.
