Ethics Champter

This was a really interesting chapter to read.

It’s interesting the way in which Public Relations agencies and practitioners self regulate themselves, and the amount of thought which has gone into determining what constitutes ethical and unethical practices.

It seems that my trouble with PR stems from a lack of public voice within the forum of mass communication, but the interesting thing I learned from reading this chapter is that the role of a PR practitioner is not only to work in the best interest of the client, but also to “facilitate a flow of essential information in the public's interest” (page 109). This concept of providing the community with a service is a really positive thing, and the thought of putting more focus upon it really interests me.

I was also really interested to read about the specific theory surrounding ethical practices in PR. The three types of ethical approaches, Deontology, Teleology and Aristotle's Golden Mean, as outlined by Miyamoto (1996) gave me a lot to think about. It seems “ethics” are hard to define, and an ethical approach even harder to produce, so it’s interesting the different ideas that have been formulated in order to address these problems.

It was also good to learn that the industry is largely self regulating, and the degree to which trust and ethical behavior influence the way agencies and practitioners are viewed by the public, media, and their peers.

The concept of organisations having “a genuine right to present images of the world from their own perspectives” (page 118) is also a really important point I gleaned from this reading. I’d completely agree, as Noam Chomsky said "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." I think the key is making the communication of ideas as two way-symmetrical as possible.

- Louisa