The Ethical Landscape Of 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.

Create one personal life example and one career example in which you wrestle with personal challenges and an ethical dilemma (e.g., a client or research subject reveals compromising information about a friend or family member who also happens to be someone you know in a personal/social context).

In this research explaining journal ethics and marketing public relations it is safe to say

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

Ethics are the rules of conduct recognized in a particular class of human actions or a particular group or culture. They are principles and values that shape human activity, especially in regard to specific disciplines. (n.d.) In the field of journalism and communications, there is no difference. Ethics helps practitioners in this field fulfill the purposes expected of the media. These purposes include but are not limited to enlightening the public and safeguarding the rights of the individual. Professionals in the media have a

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.

Naomi, I like that you went opposite ways to create more discussion about the topic. You are right that many issues in organizations are ethical dilemmas, even some political points are also ethical dilemmas. If it was easy to train, it will definitely be more common. I went to elementary in Mexico and actually remember having a class called Public Spirit and Ethics almost the entire six years of elementary, and to be honest I do not remember anything from it, hopefully this class helped me develop as a moral person. As Denise described on her post, Northouse gave examples of different universities that make students pledge ethical behavior, and while I do think this is a good way to reinforce this in graduating students, it is very easy to

An ethical dilemma is a conflict between two moral imperatives. There are five basic moral principles: the value of life, goodness/rightness, justice/fairness, honest/truth-telling, and individual freedom/autonomy. When a person is faced with an ethical dilemma, he or she is forced to choose the lesser violation of the two. Not only does this occur in everyday life, but authors also use this plot line in their novels. An example of an ethical dilemma novel is “The Hunger Games.” In fact, “The Hunger Games” contains several ethical dilemmas.

Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.

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

What is ‘public relations’? Public relations is the relationships established with the media to create favourable reports about the business and its products. It’s also known as primarily concerned with the image of the organisation portrayed to the public. Public relations are planned and used to increase public recognition of the business and prepare public opinion to accept the business brand, its product range and a well-planned public relation campaigns will contribute to the achievement of business objectives such as: increasing the customer base, increasing demand for products or services, gaining a competitive edge, enhancing credibility, and creating goodwill within the community. This how public relation contributes and helps achieve business objectives. The way that Uber presents there strategies is by being a cheaper, friendlier, cleaner, and more intimate because the driver will know who they’ll be picking up and same goes for the customer they’ll know who will be picking them up and it’s more efficient by getting a ride because they are more dependable. They are also an app-based network and are trying to increase their customer base image. Uber achieves their public relations by following their strategic objectives. Public relation forms a part of Ubers business strategy because the customer interaction plays a large role in how

Ethical behavior is a companywide concern, of course; but because communication efforts are the public face of a company, they are subjected to particularly rigorous scrutiny from regulators, legislators, investors, consumer groups, environmental groups, labor organizations, and anyone else affected by business activities. Ethical communication includes all relevant information, is true in every sense, and is not deceptive in any way. In contrast, unethical communication can include falsehoods and misleading information (or can withhold important information). Some examples of unethical communication include:

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.