Week 6

The readings from this week were both taken from Johnston and Zawawi's text book, 'Public Relations-Theory and Practice', chapter 4 (the legal environment) and chapter 5 ethical practice.



The points from chapter four that I found to be especially important to my public relations education, included:

• It is important for practitioners to take into account the legal context through negotiation with lawyers on the strategies they emplyed to minimise harm and to ensure that their outcomes are not "compromised". I found that the example of the law suit between McDonald's and London Greenpeace, was really helpful in understanding a situation that the chapter describes. It is relatively obvious that what the PR practitioners have done for London Greenpeace would be negative in relation to the law.




• The tort (described by the text as a "..legal way of saying a civil wrong") affects/limits what can be published by PR practitioners, providing a method to protect the reputation of the practitioners and their clients.




• The text states that "...words could assume different meanings by a person drawing inferences or having knowledge of additional information...". I found this point to be really interesting and true! It expresses one of the difficulties of symbols (both word and image) and the effects and connotations that they can carry, a barrier in PR.




• It is important that PR practitioners state the facts and then draw conclusions from those facts rather then simply saying what they think.




• When determining wether a piece should be publishing, a court will consider "the extent of the publication, the proportion of reader..." who are interested in the item and whether the item is purely for "commercial gain".




• I found this point especially relevant to the story of PR; "When organising campaigns and lobbying for support for a particular campaign, care should be taken to verify claims to ensure they are not misleading and deceptive, which means looking at the way the material will be received and not what it is intended to mean". I think that this could involve collecting response data to ensure that people do not get the wrong idea about the publication, then what was intended by the practitioners. Contrastingly I can not see how a publication can be free from negotiating meaningings by all, as each person has something new to bring to an idea and therefore may interpret it differently to it's originated meaning.




• I found the information about the property law interesting, as I didn't actually know about the codes for protection of property including creative works and inventions. I think this is important for PR practitioners to recognise and acknowledge in their campaigns because (obviously) otherwise they could be wrestingly with law suits. I think the most important point made in the text in reference to copyright laws would be that "Public relations practitioners should vet all public statements, press releases and promotional material for obvious breaches of copyright."



• contracts "defind the relationship between parties and are used in all facts of public relations..." The standard form contains "'a uniform set of printed conditions which can be used time and time again and is oriented towards servicing a large volume of clientele as expeditiously as possible." I found that the texts desciription of the essential concepts within a contract was especially basic and therefore easy to come to terms with. The text states that "The essential ingredients of a contract are an offer; acceptance of that offer...and consideration."



• A contract may specify a particular level of duty of care, and if this standard isn't met it can lead to issues of negligence and action. This level of duty of care is dependent on two things: "forseeability and policy."



• It is important that organisations develop a legal strategy, thus minimising the chances of harm arising from legal problems.

I found this chapter of this weeks readings to be extremely dense, although it seemed to become easier to read as I got further into the chapter. Chapter 4 made me think about the legal side of public relations alot more, something that I had barely taken into account up until now. It is suprising to see how careful PR practitioners need to be in accordance to freedom of speech, copyright laws and individual rights. I think that this chapter was really important in demonstrating my lack of understanding of the legal objects involved with PR, therefore it was important that I read the chapter.

The next chapter (chapter 5), ethical practice, was also really important to the demonstration of appropriate PR practice. The points that I took to be especially important from this reading included:

• The reason for a rise in ethical consideration is put down to being due to a public demand for "greater moral accoutability". Technology has influenced practitioners ability to relay information truthfully.



• The encarta dictionary from Microsoft word defines ethics as "a system of moral principles governing the appropriate conduct for an individual or group." I.e. ethics involves acting the right way, "doing the right thing". The text supplies a detailed definition of ethics in business practices, describing it as the process or "prioritising moral values for an organisation and ensuring its behaviours are alligned with those values." In the case of PR, ethics inter-relates with both the practitioner individually and the organisation itself.



• I think that the five duties of PR professionals, as proposed by Sein and Fitzpatrick, are important to understanding PR ethics. The duties included as being to "oneself, the client, the employer, the profession and society."



• Often ethical dilemmas can involve a decision about two alternatives that are both undesirable.



• The text relays study by Professor Ralph Potter of Harvard University in relation to the constructs of ethical decission making, these including; "...the situation and the person's values, principles and loyalties." Also expressing his method of ethical decision making through the concept of the 'Potter Box'. From the given example and my own opinion, I don't feel that the 'Potter Box' should be a critical tool for decision making as it excludes alot that may be neccessary when forming a decision, for example legal rights for confidentiality.



• The theory of utilitaianism is based on the belief that "...judgements should be made on the basis of the greatest good for the greatest number."



• The 'fathers' of PR, Edward E. Bernays and Ivy Lee, aided the development of ethical practices in relation to PR. Ivy Lee proposed a number of principles (the 'declaration of principles') in 1906 about the practice of PR.


• "Best-practice public relations serves the public interest by developing mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics."


• The text claims that advocay is closely linked with the ethical debate, defining it as "...the act of publicly representing an individual, organisation or idea with the oject of persuading target audiences to look favourable upon, or to accept the point of view of, the individual, the organisation or the idea." It is important that practitioners ensure a balance between an advocay for an organisation's interests and other outside interest groups.
• Ethical dilemmas can occur on a number of levels: 1. Interpersonal (between a practitioner and others in the work area), 2. Organisational (the effect of an organisation's protocal or policies on the practitioner), 3. Stakeholder (between an organisation and publics/groups that have an interest in it's motives and actions).
• An important fact that I have taken from this weeks reading and in-class learning is that there are a variety of codes and conducts that practitioners must follow. This includes not only the policies of the organisation and the law, but also ethical codes such as the 15 point code provided by the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA). It is also important to note that such codes are different for various locations, eg the Canadian code for PR ethics could be very different to the Australian code.
• The text states that "An ethical culture is central to good corporate governance (ie the method of direction/control)."

I learnt alot about the legal matters of PR from this chapter as well, expanding my knowledge of the relevance of ethical considerations. The text emphasises the relationship between what is and what isn't ethical in well performed PR practice.

A massive reading for this week, but glad we got through it!