Role Of Ethics In Public Relations

Discuss the role of strategic communication in relation to Ethics.

In the industry of public relations, understanding the ethical aspects of the profession has now become increasingly important. Just like any other professional industries such as journalism and psychology, public relations and ethics need to work hand in hand in order for the practice to be given a better name. As public relations have a bright future ahead due to the growing global economy, the professions’ most profitable days may still exist on the horizon. But public relations practitioners must know that in order to capitalise upon this growth, the hinge may lie on the ability for the industry to silence the critics of it being an unethical profession. However, due to

According to Grunig and Hunt (1984), they wrote that ‘public relation is the management of communication between an organisation and its publics’. Harlow (1976) defined public relations in a more elementary level. He mentioned that public relation is ‘a management function which deals with the relations between two or more organisations or public.’ There are many other scholars and practitioners that have produced their own version of PR but it is basically a communication process which uses different strategies to ultimately build beneficial relationships with publics or organisations. These obligations of serving the publics’ interest have caused heated debates amongst many practitioners and scholars over its fundamental values of public relations. It has also become a highly controversial industry as many people have negative stigmas towards public relations. It is obvious that for a long time there exists a negative perception of

We found out that PR is often perceived by the public as unethical, as practitioners often use the term ‘spin’ whereby he or she may not give a truthful interpretation of events which would ultimately lead to the lack of trust in the PR practitioner. With practitioners’ lack of trust it leads to the lack of trust of the organisation and leads directly to the loss of reputation. That is why public relations ethics is paramount. Although professional skills are important in this industry, it needs to be ethical. What it basically means is that PR professionals need to do the right thing. Referring to international PR bodies for their codes of conduct is the first step when in doubt. We will also need to provide more emphasis for education and approved courses as to ensure that students will be trained in practice of public relations on ethics and ethical decision making in the real