time for a change

This week we will be focusing on the ethical issues related directly to the Public Relations field.  More specifically, a definition that correctly portrays the change public relations has seen and grown into over the years.  In a recent New York times article written by Stuart Elliott, public relations is defined as “Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.”  For years this definition worked, even though “vague” as Elliott describes it, it still was relevant to our society.  But now it is a new age and with the birth of the Internet and social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook taking over, it is time to change to an outdated definition.  Before making a change, there must be reasoning to do so, being outdated is one reason for sure, but I feel the main issue here is that the old definition does not fit the mold of the public relations industry anymore. 

Public relations should be defined as managing the stream of ever changing information between the public and it’s organizations, while maintaining relevance to the society in an ethical manner.  I feel that this definition works better than all previous ones because it stills stands behind the initial goal of public relation firms, while instilling confidence that we are up to date with all that is going on in our society.  The ethical implications of my definition are that as society changes and the public begins to view issues differently, we still will be up to date with where the public currently is and where is it is going.  Any new definition must be sure to incorporate ethics into it because it is what gives PR credibility and room to grow within society. 

Gerry Corbett wrote a very interesting article this year describing the PR industry; both where is it headed ethically and what has happened in the past year to discredit the industry.  One issue that stands out to me the most is the lack of privacy the Internet and social networking sites have given our society.  I feel this issue is most problematic because it can touch the most people.  And not only is what we are currently doing on the internet not protective enough, whatever we have done is the past is forever there for someone to find if they really took the time to find it.  Privacy on social networking sites has been an issue for a little while now and still nothing drastic has been done to help protect individual’s privacy and I believe until then privacy should be considered the main ethical issue at hand.

Corbett mentions that the “PRSA and the FTC are monitoring various public relations practices”, which is great I guess, but what exactly does monitoring mean?  If they mess up then they will do something?  How about taking an initiative and try to prevent mess-ups from happening in the future.  Granted these measures will for sure help out the ethical issues we keep facing in the PR industry but I don’t believe they will be doing as much as they can be doing.  I think that instead of playing the wait and correct method it could be more effective if a strict guideline was made for all PR organizations to follow with punishments and fines used more regularly.  Because when it all comes down to it, it is all about money and if you start taking away money, I think the message will be felt.