Summary
Contents
Subject index
The discipline of communication has grown in popularity from the time professors of journalism and speech decided, in the mid-1960s, that the term “communication” was an excellent general descriptor for the theory and research that each group aspired to create. Over time, the two groups grew closer and recognized significant overlap in their theoretical and research interests, but there were also differences in their traditions that kept them apart. While both groups agreed that communication is a practical discipline, journalism professors focused a great deal of their attention on the education of media professionals. Speech professors, on the other hand, often were more oriented to the liberal arts and valued the fact that communication could be approached from a variety of traditions, including the arts, humanities, social sciences, and even the sciences.A key term in 21st Century communication, however, is convergence. Not only are media and technology converging with each other to produce new means of communicating, but individuals are increasingly using both new and existing communication tools to create new forms of communication. This convergence forces the various “camps” within the communication discipline to draw upon each other’s theories and research methods to keep up with explaining the rapidly changing communication environment. This convergence of ideas and theories provides a space to challenge conventional ways of thinking about the communication discipline, and that’s the goal of the SAGE 21st Century Reference Series volumes on Communication. General Editor William F. Eadie has sought to honor the diversity of the study of communication but also integrate that diversity into a coherent form, dividing communication study into four basic properties: 1) processes, 2) forms and types of communication, 3) characteristics to consider in creating messages, and 4) relationships between communicators.Via 100 chapters, this 2-volume set (available in both print and electronic formats) highlights the most important topics, issues, questions, and debates any student obtaining a degree in the field of communication ought to have mastered for effectiveness in the 21st Century. The purpose is to provide undergraduate majors with an authoritative reference source that will serve their research needs going forward in this exciting field with more detailed information than encyclopedia entries but not as much jargon, detail or density as a journal article or a research handbook chapter.Comprehensive coverage captures all the major themes and subfields within communication. For instance, Volume 1 themes include the discipline of communication, approaches to the study of communication, key processes of communication, forms and types of communication, key characteristics of messages, key communication relationships, factors affecting communication, and challenges and opportunities for communication. Themes in Volume 2 are media as communication, communication as a profession, journalism, public relations, advertising, and media management.Authoritative content is provided by a stellar casts of authors who bring diverse approaches, diverse styles, and different points of view.Curricular-driven emphasis provides students with initial footholds on topics of interest in researching for term papers, in preparing for GREs, in consulting to determine directions to take in pursuing a senior thesis, graduate degree, career, etc.Uniform chapter structures make it easy for students to locate key information, with a more-or-less common chapter format of Introduction, Theory, Methods, Applications, Comparisons, Future Directions, Summary, Bibliography & Suggestions for Further Reading, and Cross References.Availability in print and electronic formats provides students with convenient, easy access.
Ethics in Public Relations
Ethics in Public Relations
Public relations ethics has much in common with the wedding tradition in which the bride wears “something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.” Although the “something blue” is problematic, the “something old” is ethics, the study of which dates to the dawn of philosophy. The “something new” is public relations itself. Unlike older, related professions such as advertising and journalism, public relations wasn't recognized as a distinct discipline until the 20th century. The “something borrowed” has been the ethics codes of other professions: As public relations practitioners have struggled to find the ethical foundations of their young profession, they have looked to disciplines such as journalism and the legal profession for guidance. And—for better or worse—the union of something old, something new, and something borrowed has created a sometimes stormy marriage between public relations and ethics.
Part of the dawn of philosophy that introduced the concept of ethics occurred in classical Athens—the Athens of Plato and Aristotle. Both of those philosophers began their intellectual explorations by defining key terms. In a discussion of public relations ethics, for example, each might ask us, “What do you mean by public relations? And what do you mean by ethics?” By public relations (defined elsewhere in this book), we generally mean the management of relationships between an entity (an organization or individual) and the publics essential to its success. By ethics, we mean the concept of identifying and acting on our core values. In fact, Aristotle defined ethics as an activity: He believed that ethics was the process of defining our most important values and ensuring that our actions reflected those values. Public relations ethics, then, involves identifying the profession's core values and, subsequently, acting on those values. The ordeal of how to develop and where to find those values, however, has led to continuing debate and uncertainty about the concept of public relations ethics. Traditionally, values exist at five sometimes-overlapping levels:
- International: For example, the Caux Round Table, an organization of international business leaders, has drafted a set of international business standards that rests on two values: human dignity and kyosei, a Japanese word that means cooperating for the good of all.
- Societal: For example, the Pledge of Allegiance, which many readers of this book would have recited every day in grade school, specifies values that ideally motivate U.S. citizens: liberty and justice for all.
- Professional: For example, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) specifies six values for the profession of public relations: advocacy, honesty, expertise, independence, loyalty, and fairness.
- Organizational: For example, Levi Strauss and Company, the maker of Levi's jeans, asks its employees to act on four values: empathy, originality, integrity, and courage.
- Personal: These are the particular values that motivate individuals. In fact, the English word ethics comes from the Greek word ethos, which means moral character.
The Search for Values: Journalism and the Law
In its search for values during the 20th century, the young profession of public relations turned to two related professions: journalism and the law. Many of the earliest practitioners of public relations had begun as journalists who, of course, communicated ideas to separate groups, so the logic of adapting journalistic values to public relations seemed obvious. Likewise, many of the earliest practitioners of public relations saw themselves as advocates, so the logic of embracing the values of the legal profession also seemed reasonable. Unfortunately, the objectivity of journalism and the advocacy of the legal profession had all the compatibility of fire and water, and those conflicting values struggled to control public relations ethics in the early decades of the profession.
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