Transcript PRIA final - WordPress.com

Public Relations & Professional
Ethics
31 July 2015
Johanna Fawkes
• Senior Lecturer in Public Relations at
Charles Sturt University
• Devised and delivered some of the
first PR degree and professional
courses at three UK universities
• Written papers for international
journals and contributed chapters to
leading PR text books
• Author of Public Relations, Ethics and
Professionalism: The Shadow of
Excellence.
PR & Professional
Ethics
Bad barrels: public
relations & professional
ethics
Johanna Fawkes, PhD MCIPR
Overview:
•
•
•
•
•
PR Ethics – summary of problems
A Jungian approach
Applied to PR ethics
Issues for the profession
Q&A
Questions of professionalism
• Claim to professional status rests on expertise, national
body, social value and ethical standards (Cooper, 2004)
• Changing 21C status of professions, given technological,
knowledge & societal shifts, inc. managerialism
• Emerging professions’ need for recognition & autonomy;
crisis of trust/threat of regulation
PR approaches to ethics
• Core texts & professional codes stress duty and/or
consequences using limited sources of ethical theory
• Can be seen in claim that PR acts as ‘ethical guardian’
& contributes to democracy
• Critics reject such ideals; accuse PR of propaganda
• AND many practitioners prefer the ‘taxi/lawyer’
model – no social claims
Jungian psyche
 Persona = Public face
 Over ID with Persona leads to delusion
 Shadow = rejected, neglected aspects
 leads to denial & blame (the Other); later = mid-life crisis
 Jungian ethics constructed from process of
individuation
 Elements (of individual or group) are fragments of
whole – task is to create dialogue between elements
 Challenges ideals, aims for maturity
Jungian ethics
 Ethics emerges from self-acceptance, leading to otheracceptance
 Persona/Shadow is not about good/bad; Integration =
wholeness
 Conscience triggered in process = ethical attitude =
integrity (Solomon, 2001; Beebe, 1992)
 Integrity emerges through dialogue – with self and others
Applying Jungian psychology
 Jungian ideas applied to organisations – now to professions
 Persona/Shadow split can be seen in idealised professional
codes vs Bad Apples (or Bad Barrels? Zimbardo, 2007)
 In PR, Excellence = persona; critics = shadow (Fawkes, 2014)
 PR split into ethical ‘guardians’ vs advocates, or Saints &
Sinners (Bowen, 2008; Baker, 2008, Fawkes, 2012)
 Ethical conflict can cause distress in PR practitioners (Kang, 2010 )
 Individuation is triggered by mid-life crisis; is PR facing one too?
Jungian toolkit – ID Persona
 What words/symbols/images, does the
profession use to promote itself?
 What stories do we tell? Hero or victim?
 Who are we? Who is missing?
 How do we see our role? Ethical guardians,
service providers, lawyers?
 How do we see our role in society? Upholding or
undermining democracy?
Jungian toolkit - ID Shadow
 Who do we hate/distance ourselves from?
 How well do we manage mistakes? How fallible can
we be?
 Who do we blame? Board/bad apples/publics?
 What do we deny? Who can’t we hear? What topics
are taboo?
 How do we deal with criticism? How badly does it
hurt us? How are we perceived by others?
 Who teaches what to next generation?
 Who can we ask, where do we look, for guidance?
Implications for profession
 Embrace multiplicity of roles, identities
 Allow for imperfection, moving away from idealised codes
 Create space for dialogue around ethics – including
mistakes
 A different kind of communication - based on reflection
Implications for practitioners
 Acknowledge messy, everyday ethics
 Admit mistakes (to self if not others)
 Monitor & respect discomfort
 Encourage debate, delay, reflection
Conclusions
 Ethics without reflection are empty
 Professions like PR need stronger tools for inventory
 Workplaces and individuals can also use toolkit to
generate self-awareness
 Jungian ethics provide questions, not answers
 Doubt, self-doubt and ‘delay’ are essential to ethical
practice
 = “Are we sure?”
Bibliography
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Baker, S. (2008). The Model of The Principled Advocate and The Pathological Partisan: A Virtue
Ethics Construct of Opposing Archetypes of Public Relations and Advertising Practitioners. Journal
of Mass Media Ethics, 23(3), 235-253.
Bowen, S. A. (2008). A State of Neglect: Public Relations as 'Corporate Conscience' or Ethics
Counsel. Journal of Public Relations Research, 20(3), 271-296. doi: 10.1080/10627260801962749
Cooper, D. E. (2004). Ethics for professionals in a multicultural world. Upper Saddle River, N.J.:
Prentice Hall.
Corlett, J. G., & Pearson, C. (2003). Mapping the organizational psyche : a Jungian theory of
organizational dynamics and change. Gainesville, Fla.: Center for Applications of Psychological Type.
Fawkes, J. (2012). Saints and sinners: Competing identities in public relations ethics. Public Relations
Review, 38(5), 865-872
Fawkes, J. (2014). Public relations ethics and professionalism : the shadow of excellence, London &
New York: Routledge
Fawkes, J. (2015) A Jungian conscience: self-awareness for public relations practice, Public Relations
Review, online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2015.06.005
Kang, J.-A. (2010). Ethical conflict and job satisfaction of public relations practitioners. Public
Relations Review, 36, 152-156.
Ketola, T. (2010). Responsible leadership: building blocks of individual, organisational and societal
behaviour. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 17, 173-184.
Next PRIA Webinar
Five awkward questions about the
future of public relations
Catherine Arrow
12:00 pm AEST, 14 August 2015
PR & Professional
Ethics
Feedback
Please stay online
for a minute to give us
your feedback online.
Thank you and see you next month!