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The Problems in Public Relations
One may ask, what is Public Relations? According to the PRSA (The Public Relations Society of America) Public Relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics. Oxfordictionary.com defines it as the practice of managing the spread of information between an individual or an organization and the public. Public relations may involve an organization or individual gaining exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news. The aim is to persuade to persuade the public, investors, partners, employees, and other stakeholders to maintain a certain point of view about it, its leadership, products, or even political decisions. With that being said public relations is not always respectable. Although the goal is to put out information to the public it also has its downfalls. The field of PR can be viewed as less than respectable due to its use of propaganda, ethics, and trickery.
Propaganda is the information of biased or misleading nature that is used to pro...
Public relations are the practice of distributing the information between an organisation or individual and the public. The aim of PR practitioners by the client is often is to persuade stakeholders, partners, employees, investors and most importantly, the public. The practitioner’s communication stance is reaching the individuals or organisation ultimate goal. However many can examine and scrutinize public relations ethics to assert a PR problem within the industry. All PR organisations and individuals have a code of ethics of which the professionals are expected to follow. Regardless of these guidelines, ethics in individual practices seem to prove continuous and consistent violation worldwide. The James Hardie Industry, a company that is known for knowingly using products that caused thousands of people throughout Australia to grow to become sick and even resulting in death, from its products that produced massive profits is a prime example of the PR problem. However ethical communication and critically reflective practices are procedures that benefit both the public and the organisation when use correctly, opposite to the James Hardie case.
This essay focuses on how spin doctoring became a phenomenon among public relations, journalists, politician and even a massive campaign. This essay considers the tool used by the spin doctoring team to engage and steer public opinion. Spin team must have a strategy in using each tool and we will discuss how this strategy affected how well the result will be. Overall, this essay has been written to show two spin teams use different spin tools in order to change public’s perspectives. The brief explanation shows how well the strategy they use to the success of the campaign and how it can be unsuccessful.
The discipline of public relations is a modern profession which has been in existence for only close to a century; however, it has already taken an important role in the fields of business, government, entertainment and non-profit organizations including educational institutions and healthcare organizations. Public relations professionals are required to have excellent organizational, interpersonal and communication skills and have the ability to persuade the public. It is imperative for PR professionals to effectively communicate with its public in order to establish and maintain a positive relationship. Furthermore, public relations professionals must have the ability to work under pressure and effectively manage crisis which may have detrimental effect on the company and the public it serves. State purpose of paper and an overview of what will be covered in the introduction
The Public Relations Society of America's Code of Ethics has a foundation that lies in the Member Statement of Professional Values. These Values include advocacy, honesty, expertise, independence, loyalty, and fairness. There are also six provisions involved in the PRSA Member Code of Ethics: Enhancing the Profession, Conflicts of Interest, Safeguarding Confidences, Disclosure of Information, Competition, and Free Flow Information. Of all the Principles and Values listed above, I find the most important of the list to be the Value of Fairness and the Principle of Free Flow Information.
Political campaigns involves a lot of things: campaign promises, catchy slogans, advertisements, endorsements and self-promotion. All of these things can be achieved with a successful political campaign press release. Think of a press release as as your very own “I Like Ike” pin or “Yes We Can” poster. It’s your promotional tool to help gain strong campaign press from news media before election day. Your political press release has to find a way to dominate your local political sphere and at best get the attention of the media outlets in Washington DC.
Managing a Crisis Using Public Relations Handling Public Relations for any organization can be very difficult. task in any circumstance - even in simple, non-crisis situations. When a crisis strikes, that's when PR managers really have their work. cut out for them to see. A PR manager must always be prepared for the inevitable crisis to happen because that is when their jobs are really tested by the public and the organization.
Q1. Grunig and Repper (1992) proposed a model of strategic management of public relations. Sung (2004) commented that the model emphasizes Public relations has a significant role in the process of an organization’s strategic management by identifying stakeholders, publics, and issues around the consequences facing the organization.
Public Relations has acknowledged public involvement as the most essential factor of the practice since its creation. However, the means and methods of reaching the public remained significantly limited until recently. Over the last decade, public relations has welcomed the use of varied tools, including new media, to further their reach and cultivate relationships with its publics. The term “new media” encompasses a variety of non-traditional methods including social media. Social media has become a significant catalyst in the communication sector of public relations. The pairing of social media and public relations has helped create new opportunities for brands through two-way communication, social case study campaigns, and social sharing.
The history of the career field of public relations all started when Julius Caesar hired a team to persuade the citizens that he was doing a good job running the area. Caesar’s influence led to public relations in the Unite States beginning in the 1800’s. Newspapers ran friendly columns to reward advertisers with “free publicity.” Then, in the 20th century, the official job title of “public relations specialist” came into play. Those first public relations specialists were publicity agents and mostly former journalists (Mogel). Now, having a career in public relations most nearly means that a person has the job of creating publicity for a specific brand or person (Lila B. Stair).
We are currently in an era where the profession of public relations is widely viewed as being “spin doctors” and hype can often eclipse reality. Most individuals see public relations as people who manipulate the public mind, rather than tell the truth. We are often accused of distorting reality, propaganda and withholding information. With these circumstances, you could have thought that “ethical public relations” was an oxymoron. Although not everyone is in tune with today’s public relation’s world, it is critical to assert a practitioners' beliefs of ethics in the practice of public relations. Being an ethical public relations practitioner is fundamental, especially when it is your duty to build trust and enhance stakeholders’ reputations.
Using verses and slogans that make your minor business sound eye-catching and tempting, even when your message uses slogans that amplify and expand, is common in marketing world. But if this cross the line by misstating facts or making misleading claims, your company will lose the respect of your consumer and you will face legal problems. That’s why understanding the basics of ethics in marketing communications is necessary. This will help you keep advertising, promotional activities and public relations legal and ethical.
Propaganda is a concept which involves using various communication approaches to convey or communicate massive information. Thus it is about information communication. And those approaches of propaganda can be ranging from books, newspaper, to the modern Media, television, movies whatever things that can contain and deliver information. However it is slightly different from other general idea of communication. It is not served for fully communicating information to the receiver, instead of hindering and even distorting it with the purpose of influence on the attitudes, cognitions and stands of the public to certain affairs, in order to provide chances for the specific groups or a person to gain benefits. Given this propaganda becomes a tool for political and different interest groups.
Today, public relations is a complex profession by thousands of thousands of people all the world to practice. Almost all large and small organizations have their own public relations department or they need to outsource their public relations to a company. Public relations practitioners work for schools and universities, companies, governments, professional and trade associations, hospitals, hotels, non-profit charities, and other else more (Grunig, 2001). Therefore, PR is an important department for organizations.
Ethics, as according to Johanessen, Valde, & Whedbee (2008, p. 1) is a study that argues what should be the grounds principles for right and wrong human behaviour. There are public relations scholars from Kruckeberg (1998) have made a point to relate universal ethical values as professional values. It is therefore necessary to integrate these values into the public relations profession. The Institute of Public Relations Singapore (IPRS) has supported this in their code of ethics. A principal stated that, “A member shall conduct his professional activities with respect for the public interest and the interest of the profession.” This means that every decision and strategy that the public relations practitioner should account for their employee, client or community. However, a report done by
Public relations is everywhere today. It is a practice that has become an important aspect of any business venture. Whether an organization is not for profit, for profit, or governmental, they still need and desire to communicate their purpose within the community and public relations allows this to happen. There are several publics in which the PR practitioner must correspond with and each requires a different means of communication. Internal publics are inside the organizations such as clerks, managers, and stockholders. "External publics are those not directly connected to the organization: the press, government, educators, customers, suppliers, and the community" (Seitel, 2004). Each public plays a key role in the PR of the organization. The many functions of PR can also be categorized based on what purpose they serve the organization.