The Ethical Codes Of Public Relations

Perhaps no one has had a greater impact in the field of public relations as Edward Bernays. He was named one of the 20th century most influential people by LIFE magazine, yet most people don’t even know his name. Known as the “father of public relations”, Bernays was born in Austria in 1891, but his family moved to New York when he was one year old. He would go on to graduate from Cornell with a degree in agriculture, but instead of becoming a farmer he decided on becoming a journalist. During World War 1 he helped the Woodrow Wilson administration to promote the idea that US efforts would bring democracy to Europe. It was during this period that Bernays began to understand the power of propaganda and wondered if it could be used just as effective

Ever since Bernany’s work, public relations have continued to become a vital part to businesses success, as the field continues to grow. While this progression has occurred, different public relations functions also have developed. Specifically,

Customers who are in a demand for public relation services include commercial businesses, government agencies, and well-known individuals (“Public Relation Services” 2). There are both public relations departments

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).

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

In my pursuit to become an ethical public relations professional, I have written a personal and professional code of ethics that is congruent to PRSA’s code of ethics, my upbringing and biblical teachings. I do not have the power to dictate precise outcomes for every situation, but I am able to apply common values and decision-making processes to arrive at the best possible solution. This document sets forth a framework of responsibilities I will use during and after my matriculation at Georgetown University.

Place quotes Fitzpatrick as saying public relation practitioners perform the role of promoting morality and ethicacy when they acknowledge and respect the needs and interests of those with whom they communicate, tell the truth, and maintain a balance of interests (Place, 2010, p230). In the lecture it was mentioned that not everything can be prohibited or permissible by legislation, and that sometimes individuals or tasks requires self-regulation; including PR and advertising. However, this system can cause PR practitioners and advertisers to make taxing ethical decisions, and even be highly criticized for the standards of practice and the choices they make.

As public relations and journalism, the PR practitioners and the journalist are always related to each other nowadays. Both of them are important factors of the modern mass media, which aim to influence public opinions since the early twentieth century (Coombs and Holladay, 2010). In order to sharp citizen’s opinions, Charron(1989) mentions that the PR practitioners and journalists often prefer to work together and share information as cooperation. The dependent relationship, as Coombs (2010) explains, the PR practitioners scheme to cover through media, while the journalists are exploiting

Public Relations in New Zealand is widely useful, practised and builds up an organisation’s relationships with its publics. PR in short, is essentially about communication and relationship building. PRINZ [Public Relations Institute of New Zealand] (2009) defines PR as “The deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.” This essay will deconstruct and critically examine this definition of public relations in relation to PR theories. These theories being Systems Theory, Relationship Management and Excellence Theory will be examined and applied to campaign examples. This will give a comprehensive understanding of the theory’s meanings as well as relationships with aspects of the PRINZ definition of PR. To understand PR theories however, the term publics must first be addressed.

However, one study conducted in 1989, has revealed the pathetic state of ethics in, and has called into question the credibility, professional integrity and public image of, public relations (229). In the broad field of mass communications, of which public relations practitioners are considered a part, the occupation is viewed with cynicism. For example, an investigation of journalists attitudes toward public relations, conducted in

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

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.