Part 3: Strategies and Dilemmas

Chapter List

Chapter 11: Media RelationsBreeding Ground for Ethical Problems

Chapter 12: Persuasion or Propaganda?

Chapter 13: Good Causes and Bad Taste

Chapter 14: PR and Plagiarism

Now that we have examined what kinds of principles and values lie beneath ethical decision-making and looked at some personal ethical predicaments that can befall public relations practitioners , we need to apply this to some actual day-to-day aspects of our practice.

Public relations in the 21st century is a strategic management function that uses communication strategies to help to build and maintain relationships between organizations and their publics. In practice, that includes everything from developing the most complex promotional plans to the more mundane aspects of everyday dealings with the media and even putting together the employee Web site or print newsletter, and everything in between. Although we often move from one function within our diverse positions to another without a thought about the ethics of what we are doing, even simple decisions and actions can have a moral component. Let's face it, much of what we do is what is termed amoralhaving no moral implications at all. Consider choosing the colour for your new company logohardly an ethical issue unless choice of a colour has certain unethical implications for specific publics. Hard to get away from it, isn't it?

Part 3 will provide you with an opportunity to think more deeply about aspects of your job whose ethical implications you may have overlooked. Everything from choosing clients to the relationship between simple bad taste and ethics are some of the topics that are frequently overlooked by PR practitioners aiming for a more ethical practice.