Ethics And Ethics Of Ethics In Public Relations

The goal of communications is to make ethics a live, ongoing conversation. If ethics is something that is constantly addressed, referenced frequently in company meetings, and in personal conversations among managers and employees, then people are more aware and more willing to defend the company’s policies when they see or hear of problems. Employees will hold other employees responsible and accountable for living the company’s values.

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines ethics as, “the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation” (Merriam-Webster, 2017). In the field of Public Relations, ethics is a determining factor in reaching out and building relationships with audiences. Often times, people will choose whether or not to place their trust in a campaign, business, or company based on how they portray themselves ethically. However, there have been several instances where people have acted unethically in the field of Public Relations and still became successful. In the case of Edward Bernays, acting ethically was not a point of emphasis. In fact, Bernays’ unethical public relations tactics and use of propaganda brought him fame and

The PRSA’s Code of Ethics designates the principles and guidelines that uphold the core values and the ethical practice of public relations. Including advocacy, honesty, loyalty, professional development, and objectivity. The Public Relations Society of America is committed to ethical practices. PRSA members seek a high level of public trust, and members pledge to serve the publics best interest. PRSA have taken on a special obligation to operate ethically. The value of member reputation depends upon the ethical conduct of everyone affiliated with the Public Relations Society of

Early PR practices were deemed "press agentry" and were thought of a group that fell into a comparison with propaganda. This was because of the use of hype and manipulation of information. For the most part during development of the practice, there was little to no ethical boundaries. In the early 1900's however, there was a major focus on using factual information and labeling it public information, though somewhat manipulation, in order to help gain the public's interest or trust. This factual information however, was based solely around one-way communication, where the information was published simply for the knowledge of others, and not necessarily with the expectation that any action would come of the information. Of course the name of the game in public relations was always to convince someone to change or solidify their opinion on a topic or issue, in the

Although codes of ethics have become part of the public relations profession, Newsom et al. (2013, p. 49) state that not all practitioners adhere to their respective standards. Bernays (1998, p. 29) notes that unlike most other professions, public relations lack an ethical code that gives the state the power to restrict the practice of those who breach any such code. Bernays (1998, p. 32) believes the public relations profession should have ‘…registration and licensing by the state…’ so that both the practitioners and publics can be confident in the profession’s ethical standards. The Public Relations Society of America’s code of ethics was first implemented in 1950 but is essentially unenforceable (Fitzpatrick, cited in Sha 2001, p. 122).

This paper was prepared during the Spring Semester of 2016 for COMM 226-003 - Introduction to Public Relations.

Ethics are vitally important in the field of Public Relations. PR practitioners are often called upon to serve as the “leader of ethics” for their company, organization or on behalf of their client.

Due to the world's rapid change through advanced technology public relation became more and more a global activity. Nowadays it is one of the fastest-growing

Social media is a collection of user-driven, web-based technologies including blogs, social networks and video-sharing platforms. Together, these media have revolutionized the way we communicate and share information. Because of its relative newness, and its vast and continually evolving nature, social media presents as a complicated and multi-faceted issue. Social media sites are infinitely diverse, ranging from wikipedia, the online crowd- sourced encyclopedia, to digg, the social bookmarking site that allows users to “like” or tag websites as well as sort through other users’ tags. The

Press agentry, public information, two-way asymmetric public relations, and two-way symmetric public relations are four models of public relations theory devised by Grunig and Hunt (1983). In this essay, the author goes on to identify an example each from current public relations business practices that goes on to show the four public relation models in action. Further stress is provided to ensure that the examples have all been taken place within last twelve months in the Australian media and justification of selection is to be done by comparing it with real world examples that are chosen.

Media relations can be defined as one of the most significant areas of the practice of public relations. (Shaw&White, 2004) It enhances the practice of public relations by serving a systematic, strategized and mutually beneficial relationship between journalists and the public relations practitioners to build credibility, understanding and respect between the two parties. (Supa&Zoch, 2009) It is essential to cultivate a positive and healthy relationship between public relations practitioners and journalists because journalists tend to look at public relations practitioners in a negative way where they believe that they spin information to get free publicity which making it difficult for journalists to report legitimate news and at the same time, against the basic rules of news writing. (Fedler and DeLorme, 2002) Another study by Kiranjit and Halimahton (2006) also suggests that public relations practitioners and journalists are very much sceptical about each other’s role and the relationship between two of them is doubtful and uncertain. From the point of view of public relations practitioners, they complaint that journalists do not understand the role of public relations. On the other side, journalists tend to think that public relations

Serving the public is the best thing in the world . For the sake of serving people Advertising, public relations, marketing communications, news, and editorial all share a common objective of truth and high ethical standards. Research suggest that consumers do believe in honest and ethical advertising. Now the industry has started growing and they have committed to highest standards of truth and accuracy. Professionals have to build and maintain consumer trust so that they can

The theory explains that the value of public relations in organization and society lies in socially responsible managerial decisions and quality organization to public relations. Organisations must behave in ways that solve the problems and satisfy the goals of the stakeholders as well as the management in order to be effective. Good relationship with organisation’s strategic publics is helpful in developing and achieving goals desired by both the organization and its publics, reducing costs of negative publicity, and increasing revenue by providing products and services needed by stakeholders. Practitioners identify publics who are affected by or affect organizational decisions and communicate symmetrically with them to build high quality long term relations.

The public relations tactics in relation to the corporate context will now be examined. Customer relations can be associated with the monitoring of attitudes of key publics and stakeholders especially in regards to any negative incidents that have the potential to effect the organisation’s reputation and consumer trust (Wilcox, 2013, p.312). For Malaysian Airlines, this is evident given the potential for consumer boycotts with the missing aircraft’s (Crossman Communications, 2015, p2). Having over 12, 000 employees, employee relations are important for the organisation. Employee relations consist of monitoring employees’ attitudes and beliefs towards the organisation (Wilcox, 2013, p316) as there is potential for negative word of mouth by employees essentially damaging the company’s reputation. This is evident as according to Malaysian Airlines, they offer a “dynamic exciting environment that nurtures a diverse talented team that work to make great things happen” (2017). Finally, media relations are vital in a corporate context as “negative coverage can cause a corporation’s reputation to plummet” (Wilcox, 2013, p. 310). Having said that, it is important as public relations professionals to establish positive relationships with those who operate in the media industry. Kimberly Blessing argues the two fields (public relations and journalism) have an important working interrelationship with “60% of PR

Only recently being recognized as a discipline in itself, modern day professional public relations practices can trace its roots to the early 1900s where the first public relations firm, the Publicity Bureau, was founded in Boston. In 1923, Austrian-American public relations pioneer, Edward Bernays, identified three fundamental concepts of public relations. In 1984, American theorists, Grunig and Hunt, conceptualized the now-famous four models of public relations and the excellence theory that were generally adopted by public relation agencies across the globe. With so many significant milestones and theories of public relations established in the United States, it stands to reason that public relation practices would naturally adopt a western perspective.