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Karen Hartman COMM 3215 001 08 December 2013 The History and Ethics of Public Relations There are entities of business and industry, whose brands decorate America like stars in the night sky, which will tell their audience that they have your best interests in mind. Obviously, it is not so easy to take a companys word for it, and so the field of Public Relations, or PR, does their job by improving and promoting the ties between the provider and the consumer, so that this relationship stays, especially in times of crisis. Often times, the distinct lack of ethics can go as far as destroying a companys image or tarnishing the relationship it had with its consumers. Considering the history of PR, it seems to me that employing ethics is the best PR for PR, and those who do otherwise will create a tension that tarnishes the image and reputation of this practice. For the purpose of analyzing this tension, examples will analyze the beginnings of Public Relations, including the Pioneer Era, the Transitional Period, and other recent times. In the beginnings of Public Relations, the ability to communicate with people was very limited and could only sustain itself through certain forms (Wilcox and Cameron 53). In many ancient civilizations, publicity through mass media was achieved through written or organized means (40). For instance, the publication of the Rosetta Stone had allowed the pharaoh of Egypt, at the time, to highlight his accomplishments; and in a similar way, Julius Caesar had published the Commentaries in order to further his ambitions to become emperor of the Roman Empire (40). Yet, it would seem that ethics werent often in question in PR when the masses could not have a say against someones image if the publicity promoted them without any other

Lape 2 publications against it, then one could not challenge that they were lacking ethical standards. This communication is, therefore, going in one-way, from the sender to the receiver, but not vice-versa, and almost always with persuasive intent (53). Fast-forward through the Middle Ages and Colonial America, where ethics eventually became a concern in the Pioneer Era (40-47). In the start of the early 1900s, communication expanded into providing one-way communication that was not entirely persuasive, but rather informative (53). Ivy Lee, who championed this model as a former journalist, influenced government, nonprofit groups, and other public institutions in adapting a wider approach towards public relations from 1910 into the 1920s (53). Still, there was little audience research regarding attitudes and dispositions, so ethics, again, were not challenged, not yet anyway (53). By the beginning of the 1920s, Edward Bernays, also known as the father of modern public relations, developed a purposeful way of providing scientific persuasion in the form of two-way communication a feedback loop where the communicator could better understand the audience and how to persuade it,influencing marketing and advertising departments in competitive business and public relations firms [as] the primary places of practice today (5253). This turning point essentially marks where ethics can be challenged, where competitive business and insight into the audience can lead to deceptive tactics that persuade the masses, but ethical issues, major ones, arent highlighted until more recent times. By the latter half of the 20th century, the Transitional Period emerges into an age where public relations becomes deeply rooted in Americas economic, political, and social development (56). It is by this time that communication falls under the symmetrical model, in which messages werent necessarily designed to give maximum effect on the public, but instead allowed the public to influence the organization as much as the organization would influence the

Lape 3 public (58). This change is easily identified in the 1960s, in Vietnam War protests, the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, interest in womens rights, and a host of other issues (58). The opportunity to question the ethical standards of business and industry had increasingly gained momentum as communication models were improved and refined, as well as aided by technology. Looking at more recent times, one might be able to recall the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the 2010 recall of Johnson & Johnson childrens Tylenol due to several cyanide-laced incidents in their product (Jennings 38-40). When Public Relations gets involved, they can try to hide the issue, as in the BP oil spill, or they can be up front about it with no delay, as in the Tylenol incident. The real ethical issue in the oil spill was BPs greed in constructing an oil rig that was not up to standard, in an effort to attain more money (39). If only that company had approached PR as well as their business with ethical standards, which will result in the best scenario possible if done right. Not following a code of ethics will only do a company harm, not to mention what consequences would ensue onto their employees.

Lape 4 Works Cited Wilcox, Dennis L., and Glen T. Cameron. Public Relations : Strategies and Tactics. 9th ed. Pearson Education, Inc., 2009. Print. Jennings, Marianne M. Its Not the PR Thats Bad: The Ethics May Be the Problem. Corporate Finance Review 15.5 (2011): 38-41. ABI/INFORM. Electronic.