It's Time for a Universal Code of Ethics for Public Relations

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

Public relations serve many positive functions, to radio and television announcements of school closings and community events, they make us aware of what is happening around us. This type of public relations is needed and benefits the public without personal hidden agendas. However, there is a darker side to public relations that seeks manipulate an unsuspecting audience for their own personal gain. It is this type of public relations that the film Toxic Sludge is Good for You is unraveling. Through use of every kind of media communication and technology, public relations firms have set out to convince people that what they are saying is good for us (Toxic Sludge is Good For You [video file] Access to Restricted Library Resources, n.d.).

In an interview with Richard Weiner, “The Practice of Public Relations,” he argues that that the top management of an organization will often contract help from an outside agency. Weiner, chief executive of Richard Weiner, Inc., a major public relations agency in New York city, contends that an outside agency is more likely to be proficient in media relations, and thus, more capable of attempting to achieve significant publicity in major media. Management is more likely to respect, and act on, the advice of an outside counselor as compared to their staff (270, 271).

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

During the twentieth century public relations operated with a ‘thin’ understanding of ethics, which caused complex problems for society. To understand why and how this happened we must first understand what ethics and public relations are and how they work together. Public relations is ‘the management of communication between an organization and its publics’ (Tench & Yeomans 2009, p. 5)); its role is to establish a positive relationship between an organisation (or individual) and society. Public relations has power – with that power comes a responsibility to be ethical, accurate and aware. Ethics is ‘the study of individual and collective moral awareness’ (Grassian 1992, p. 3); ethics allow people to identify what is ‘right and wrong, good and bad’ (Breit 2007, p. 309). Making ethical choices in public relations means to have honesty, loyalty, respect and integrity. Throughout this essay I will discuss why public relations has been perceived as unethical and examples of unethical communication; I will then

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

The Public Relations Society of America made changes to their code of ethics in the year 2000. The new codes “focus is on universal value that inspire ethical behavior and performance: (Unit 4). They did remove some of the regulations around how they enforce the codes but the Board of Directors is still able to bar anyone from membership to the Public Relations Society of America. The Public Relations Society of America believes in advocacy, honesty, expertise, independence and fairness. There are six Public Relations Society of America code provisions. Each one has a core principal, intent, guidelines and examples of improper conduct under said provision. These code provisions are as follows: Free Flow of Information, Competition, Disclosure of Information, Conflicts of Interest, and Enhancing the Profession. An example of one core principal is the Free Flow of Information for the Public Relations Society of America is “protecting and advancing the free flow of accurate and truthful information is essential to serving the public interest and contributing to informed decision making in a democratic society” (Unit 4). An improper conduct of Free Flow of Information would be a member of a company giving a magazine company some of their products that would influence the writer to speak favorably of that

This memo is to discuss commonalities and differences among two scholarly articles relating to the field of public relations, found in the Journal of Public Relations Society of America. The purpose is to inform those in the communication field, moreover; those with a concentration in public relations to the use of language, format, and target audience of presentation in current research studies. The following articles Corporate Social Responsibility and the Nonprofit Sector: Assessing the Thoughts and Practices Across Three Nonprofit Subsectors, written by Richard D. Waters, Ph.D. and Holly K. Ott, M.S. and Examining Modern Media Relations: An Exploratory Study of the Effect of Twitter on the Public Relations – Journalist Relationship by Drew Wilson, MA and Dustin W. Supa, Ph.D, showcase the current practice in presentation that will be beneficial in this field.

Public opinion is not just a belief, but rather an expression of a view that is central to a functioning democracy. In 1965 Krugman stated that advertising doesn’t change attitudes, it simply changes the perception of what should matter when buying. Whether what that citizen is buying is a certain brand of coffee or the idea of going to war, communication is the cornerstone for how our society functions as a whole. Public relations is not just for products and companies, it shapes ideas and movements. With an increasing global market and issues the need for public relations has and will continue to grow.

Identification (Title, publication, date, author(s), hyperlink if available): My first source, published in 2013 on Forbes.com, is an article written by Robert Wynne entitled “What Does a Public Relations Agency Do?”

1) Mostly, because a rising number of public relations experts and authorities especially has ascend to reflect that the important objective of public relations is to construct and then improve on-going or durable affairs with an organization’s noteworthy publics. The inevitability for revisions, such as this discrete, that a number the discernments recognized publics has of their associations with organizations. This quantifiable indication can be used by frontrunners to aid manage companies and prove the value of public relations. Tools and measures for analyzing and appraising the equitably immediate outputs and results of accurate public relations programs, events, and campaigns have endured for entirely a quantity of times. Nevertheless, confident pending immediately, calculating the victory or flop of enduring relationships curtailing, in part after public relations struggles, need not initiated.

There are various publications that trace the emergence of public relations to the Public Bureau which was established in 1900. There are however various scholars such as Bernays (2013) who trace the history of public relations to early forms of communication management and public influence in early civilization such as the movement that was aimed at abolishing slavery in England and the settling of the New World. This treatise will carry out a meticulous analysis on a concrete overview of the specialization which will be backed by how the PR specialization has developed historically and also the importance. In addition, the study will also highlight the advantages and the disadvantages of the PR specialization and also the pros and cons

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.