WEEK 4

Public Relations Ethics

Understand the fundamental importance of ethics to the study and application of professional public relations

Ethics is related to social responsibility. PR management have the responsibility to act in favour of the society before the client.

Grunig, James( 2006,165) states that as it is the responsibility of PR practitioners to act as the public’s mouthpiece, it should also have the power to influence the ‘ethics and social responsibility’ of organisations.

Be familiar with the main theoretical approaches to ethical reasoning

Virtue Ethics-

PR should develop a strong sense of personal values. Related to Aristotle’s concept of the ‘golden mean’ as in terms of confidence, the mean or middle of it is that a PR practitioner is able to instil the right amount of confidence in clients so that they do not falter. PR practitioner has to make sure that the client should not be criticised excessively as much as to cause it to lose confidence in PR but at the same time, it should still be reminded of its mistake that has put its reputation at stake.

This is similar to Grunig, James mixed motives approach where it is important to balance both public sentiment and clients ‘ interest.

It involve PR practitioners asking themselves self-reflexive questions how a person with good morals, values would do when faced with a demand by a client in relations to the public and would this action then be commendable (Harrison, 2004,2)

Deontology

PR practitioners has to maintain that it sticks with the requirements of the law, the codes of conduct or ethics of the client and its employees also bodies governing certain activities and media mediums.

Linked to advocacy and rhetorical approach

Advocacy states that emphasis by PR practitioners on certain parts of the message that they were given out while not misleading the public or hiding the facts in the process.

Rhethorical approach is by letting audience independently interpret underlying meaning of words in the message used by PR practitioners.

Deontology law

More than legal compliance this is because the law does not leave room for any ethical behaviour.

Bown, Shannon (2008,162-3) said that law dictates what is permissible to do, while ethics is more concerned about what should be done. These apply much to ethics codes that is lined up by P.R bodies like PRINZ and PRIA.

Consequentialism

PR actions should be based on the outcomes of actions that were undertaken before. This outcome is the overall benefit-harm assessment on the publics.

Is concerned with the ‘Veil of ignorance’ (Rawls, John 1971) where PR practitioners have to decide whether they would have reacted the same way if they had not remained ignorant to certain things.

This ethics theory is coherent with the modern affirmative action such as workplace gender and diversity imbalance.

Confidently present the need for a systematic approach to ethics within the organisation you work with.

Summary of ethics

Based on inclusive and proactive ethics

Inclusive ethics means that P.R cannot impose its own perception of ethics onto parties but rather should strive to include itself in other’s perceptions of ethics.

Tilley 2005- Ethics Pyramid

http://praxis.massey.ac.nz/typo3temp/pics/6d0a96060d.jpg

Proactive Ethics

Good ethics = good financial performance. It is mainly concerned with CSR or corporate social responsibility

Orlitzky ,Schmidt and Rynes (2003,403) discussed how this can be analysed through meta analysis, summarising through compilation of data, of CSR in the span of 30 years. They found that corporate virtue and good financial performance goes hand in hand.

Cialdini,Petrova and Goldstein(2004) on the other hand found that unethical action degrades an organisation’s good name but also has costly internal side effects (Tilley,Elspeth)