ETHICS

WOW! First of all, I am seriously way behind the course schedule by like 5 readings. That’s because we did not have the textbook. I finally managed to get a copy of it and hopefully, I am able to catch up with all my readings. Gosh! I am going to have lots of midnight oil burning sessions… Anyway, it is best that I start with it now and quit procrastinating. Well, here goes….

Missed readings #1: Public Relations Ethics

According to this chapter in the book, it stated that Ivy Ledbetter Lee was the first to propose that public relations should provide an organisation’s ‘conscience’ (Ryan and Martison 1983; Grunig and Hunt 1984; Bowen 2002). This meant that PR should help organisations be responsible for their effects on the social and physical environments (Tilley, 2009). To put it simple, he meant that PR should be ethical. Furthermore, Lee wrote a Declaration of Principles for PR which was groundbreaking in proposing accuracy and transparency of PR activities (Morse, 1906). I think this is really interesting. I mean who would have thought that there was a groundbreaker for PR? This certainly did not occur to me at all! But it is interesting to know that PR existed long enough and even at that point of time, they thought of making it ethical.

Ethics is about standards of behaviour; consideration of how our behaviour as an individual or an organisation affects the well-being of others; and it involves morals and values as well (Tilley, 2009). In my opinion, ethics is supposed to be naturally embedded in a person but it is up to them to CHOOSE which way they want to behave- ethically or non-ethically. But, the question is whether it is easy to behave ethically?

It is definitely not easy to behave ethically as it is difficult to not get lured to the dark side especially when there are tempting offers waiting for you on the dark side. This is especially true when companies misuse PR to gain revenue for them. Now, that is unethical behaviour.

An unethical example of a PR campaign would be the well-known Wal-Marting across America. Richard Edelman, president and CEO of a multinational public relations firm created a fake blog about 2 Wal-Mart ‘enthusiast’ travelling in a RV from one Wal-Mart to another blogging about their experience ( Taylor, 2006). While it is true that 2 people actually travelled around, people eventually found out that it was a publicity stunt paid by Wal-Mart.

At a PR conference in New Zealand in 2005, a senior practitioner in the audience said, “We know exactly how to be ethical, we are good people. We just need to stop talking about it and get on with it,’ (PRINZ conference audience member, 2004). I think what he said about being ethical is true, as I believe that everyone are good people and those who behave unethically are just lured by other forces such as revenue. So we have to stop being procrastinators and get it in our head to behave ethically as once you start behaving ethically, the behaviour comes naturally to you.

During our tutorial, my classmates debated about PR firms’ ethical behaviour and whether they should listen and follow everything that their clients tell them to do. I think that they should not follow everything that their client asks them to do as it might result them in behaving unethically. Furthermore it might also question the profession of PR practitioners as they are told what to do like puppets.

There are 3 steps to being ethical. 1. Willingness, 2. Knowledge, and 3. Skill (Tilley, 2009). This is because you first have to be willing to be ethical followed by knowing what is being ethically mindful and finally applying them skilfully in our daily lives. These steps, I feel comes naturally to the person except for the knowledge part. This is because, I think parents could help foster ethical values in their children when they are young and thus they will already gain the knowledge of it by the time they enter the working field.

There are also different forms of ethics which has its own advantages and disadvantages. Examples of it would be Virtue ethics, Deontology and Consequentialism. I will just elaborate on Virtue ethics as I think my post is already too long. Virtue ethics is about developing a strong sense of personal values; the kind of person you ought to be (Tilley, 2009). Advantages of it would be that it encourages practitioners to consciously consider their ethical beliefs and define their personal moral bottom line (Tilley, 2009). The disadvantage of it is that it is very individualistic and thus it might change people to become absolutists or debaters (Tilley, 2009). This might be a problem as these people would not be able to work in a group and thus little or no work will be done in a PR firm! Thus, ethics is hard to define and it is definitely hard to be taught. This is because, different people have different concept of being ethical and thus it is individual preferences of how they want to behave ethically.

In conclusion, I think that ethical behaviour is important for PR practitioners and firms as it helps to built up and maintain a company’s good image and name. If the company’s name is tainted, they will definitely lose their clients and profits. Thus, behaving ethically would be the best way to maintain a company’s image. But, it is up to individuals to behave ethically in their own way. This was definitely one of the readings that I enjoyed the most because it was not so dry and it was easy to comprehend as it is logical.

signing off,

nivitra