Future Challenges in Public Relations

1817 Words4 Pages

Future Challenges in Public Relations Introduction As a crucially important element in the organizations’ value chain, public relations is confronting a difficult dilemma or under threat at present because a bad reputation was undesirably labeled as one of its nature (Venter & Louw, 2012).In this case, it is likely that current threats could grow and turn to be forthcoming challenges if those prevailing problems cannot be solved immediately and properly. This literature review will discuss about the possible future challenges that public relations professionalsmight encounter byanalyzing the present situation, exploring the potential reasons, and categorizing those probable challenges in terms of three aspects: ethical issues, reputation refinement, and strategic management and identity ambiguity. Following questions will be discovered to evaluate the future challenges from each aspect: • Ethical issues: what are the possible characteristics of public relations at present and in which way may those features trigger a series of ethical issues in the future? • Reputation refinement: what is the definition of public relations? What are some of misinterpretations and confusions towards public relations since it was invented? How would public relations professionalsdiscover the way to reverse the bad reputation with regard to renaming, code of conduct, and social responsibility? • Strategic management involvement and identify ambiguity: what is the core function and unique value of public relations in terms of strategic management within organizations? How could a clear clarification of different communication methods assist public relations to change its role and avoid being associated with other organizational functions in the fut... ... middle of paper ... ...me, M. O., & Russell, K. M. (2010). Removing the Spin: Toward a New Theory of Public Relations History. Journalism and Communication Monographs, pp. 281 - 362. Lee, T. S., & Chen, I.-H. (2012, 4). Ethics management in public relations: practitioner conceptualizations of ethical leadership, knowledge, training and compliance. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, p. 80. Parsons, P. J. (2004). Ethics in public relations: a guide to best practice. London: Kogan Page. Smith, R. D. (2013). Public relations: the basics. Routledge. Steyn, B. (2003). From strategy to corporate communication strategy: A conceptualisation. Journal of Communication Management, pp. 168 - 183. Theaker, A. (2012). The public relations handbook. Routledge. Venter, B.-P., & Louw, F. (2012, 07). Is Public Relations without a Future? A South African Perspective. Scientific Research Publishing, pp. 293 - 301.

Open Document