ADPR 3850 1nd Edition Lecture 5 Outline of Last Lecture I Brief History of Public Relations II Past President s and Their Beginning to PR Outline of Current Lecture III Ethics and Values Defined a Absolutism Existentialism Utilitarianism IV Ethics and Professional Organizations Current Lecture Ethics and Professionalism Chapter 3 Public Relations Ethics is a very subjective aspect of PR because as individuals we have our own opinions Ethics standards of conduct which indicates how one should behave based upon moral duties and virtues rising from principles of right and wrong Values central beliefs which determine how we will behave in certain situations Honesty loyalty integrity etc Values are applied to determine what is right and what is wrong in a given situation Public Relations professionals have to take into consideration when they make ethical decisions The public s interest The employer s self interest The standards of the public relations profession Personal values Different Approaches to Ethics Absolutism things are either completely right or completely wrong No such thing as grey area Ex You cannot exaggerate the qualities of a product if your client asked you to Existentialism We determine how far something can go before it becomes dishonest or unethical We can pick our spots on the continuum frame the truth in a favorable light Calls for a balance between two extremes Utilitarianism The ends justify the means and the goal is to harm the fewest number of people and bring joy to the most Helping 5 people is better than helping none The Ethical Advocate Point Some believe traditional ethics prohibits a person from taking an advocacy role because that person is biased and trying to manipulate people Counterpoint Society in general expects public relations people to be advocates Advocacy efforts must be truthful These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute Ethics and Professional Organizations Professional organizations strive to educate and preserve the name of public relations and provide guiding standards for the industry PRSA for example The Public Relations Society of America they are the largest national public organization in the world The International Association of Business Communicators IABC the second largest organization of communication and public relations professionals The International Public Relations Association IRPA London based global org These organizations encourage a PR practitioner to act with honesty and integrity at all times so as to secure the confidence of those with whom the practitioner comes in contact First article in the Code of Brussels IPRA This is difficult because we all might have different views of integrity and honesty This can t really be enforced These are more like recommendations and not specific standards for how they should behave They typically are not enforced in the form of sanctions