Public Relations Ethics

I suppose every profession has its own system of ethics. Public relations has to deal with maintaining the reputation of an organization so whatever a public relations practitioner does, it will directly affect the organization's public image. Therefore, ethics is one of the most concerned matter in public relations practice. It explains why the definition of public relations have shifted to become almost entirely about ethics. As Grunig (2006, in Joy Chia, 2008) stated: "If the role of public relations in strategic management is to bring the voices of publics into the decision-making process, public relations should be able to improve the ethics and social responsibility of organizational behaviors".

What is ethics?

Ethics is about standards of behaviour, specially, concern for "good" behaviour and consideration of how our behaviour, as an individual or an organization, effects the wellbeing of others or society as a whole.

There are ten standard ethical values:

1. Honesty

2. Integrity

3. Keeping promises

4. Fidelity

5. Fairness

6. Caring for others

7. Respect for others

8. Responsible citizenship

9. Pursuit of excellent

10. Accountability

However, is it easy to be ethical?

I guess no. Although everyone knows what is ethics and what is not, it is not an easy task in practising ethics in reality, especially when the changing business environment makes organizations harder to survive.

I think once a public relations person places the benefits of his organization as a priority, he may have unethical practice in order to get what he wants. For example, The largest independent PR consultancy, Edelman, was exposed in 2006 for a fake blog, or flogs, on behalf of its client, Wal- Mart. The flog was purportedly created by a couple travelling across the States parking in Wal-Mart carparks. The couple reported universally good experiences dealing with Wal- Mart staff, all of whom seemed delighted to be working for the retail giant. This aroused suspicion and investigations uncovered that the couple were being paid by Edelman- a connection that has never been divulged. Edelman's practice committed the first ethical value which results in the distrust of customers towards the organization. Obviously, unethical behaviours in public relations have a huge effects over organizations. Therefore, learning and practising ethics is one of the key element in the profession.

Being mindful of ethics in every situation

I guess William Gudykunst introduced the term mindfulness to remind students and practitioners about ethics in public relations. There are 3 steps in this process:

1. Willingness - making ethics a noticeable topic so that people are willing to see it as important

2. Knowledge - fostered by reading and thinking critically about and discussing what various people have written on ethics.

3. Skill - practising, combining what have learnt, and applying them every day as part of regular public relations activity.

Some approaches for highlighting the ethical aspects of a situation

• VIRTUE ETHICS: what kind of person ought I be?

Virtue ethics is about the importance of developing a strong sense of personal values, or good character, to guide ethical behaviour

"Golden mean" - the organization must listen to publics and meet their needs where possible but it cannot accommodate them absolutely, so that the organization's own interests are forgotten.

Advantages: it encourages practitioners to consciously consider their ethical beliefs and define a person moral bottom line.

Disadvantages: it is very individualistic, with little or no acknowledgement that what is considered reasonable may be differ by many factors, and may change in different circumstances. For example, although this PR practitioner think this behaviour is ethical, reasonable for this situation, another PR practitioner may not think it in this way. He may think that is not ethical.

• DEONTOLOGY: what are my my duties?

Public relations practitioners can follow deontology in its simplest sense by checking that their actions meet rule-based prescriptions as the law, codes of ethics, agreed principles or regulations for activities in certain contexts.

Advantages: it can provide a clear directives and a bottom line by directing practitioners to codes, rules, and agreed standards.

Disadvantages: it is inflexible because codes and rules cannot cover every situation.

• CONSEQUENTIALISM: how ought the world be?

Consequentalists judge actions by their outcomes, which means public relations practices will be judge whether it is ethical on the measurement of benefit-harm assessment.

Advantages: building out awareness of our own moral and cultural assumptions as what is right

Disadvantages: Predicting outcomes may not be precise. Moreover, focusing on outcome can sometimes obscure the ethics of the means used.

Ethics of inclusion

When planning and carrying out a campaign, public relations practitioner should consider some ethical values which are more dialogic and consultative.

Proactive ethics

If public relations is fulfil a role as organizational conscience, and proactively consult with publics about ethics as part of that role, perhaps the most crucial skill for the job is to highly persuasive - not in convincing external publics that the organization is already ethically, but in convincing the organization in invest in behaving ethically.