Factors Influencing the Ethical Conduct of Public Relations Practitioners in Commercial Banks in Namibia

This study examines factors that influence the ethical conduct of practising Public Relations (PR) practitioners in commercial banks of Namibia. Such factors relate to the ethical behaviour of Public Relations professionals working in commercial banks. The factors include the presence of binding codes of ethics and conduct, individual moral compasses, pressure from top management, a sense of duty towards humanity, and knowledge of ethics and professionalism. This analysis reveals that PR practitioners face ethical challenges and dilemmas from the banks’ dominant coalitions, ambiguous codes of ethics, speedy communication to the public necessitated by the news media, and the clash between the core values that inform the duty of PR professionals and those that prop up organisational culture. Ultimately, the challenges and dilemmas they confront in their work determines the way they conduct themselves ethically. The study conceives that PR practitioners are torn between upholding PR values that inform their duty and standing up for organisational values as advocated for by the dominant coalition. Ironically, PR practitioners are regarded as the ethical conscience of the commercial banks who, as per recommendations of the study, are expected to practise ethically and live up to their mandate of being custodians of ethical communication.

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Measuring Contingencies: Using Scales to Measure Public Relations Practitioner Limits to Accommodation

Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly ◽

10.1177/107769900308000212 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 80 (2) ◽

pp. 431-446 ◽

Cited By ~ 28

Author(s):

Bryan H. Reber ◽

Glen T. Cameron

Keyword(s):

Public Relations ◽

Contingency Theory ◽

Organizational Characteristics ◽

Public Relations Practitioners ◽

External Threats ◽

Public Relations Practitioner ◽

Dominant Coalition ◽

Bridge Building

The contingency theory of accommodation in public relations posits that public relations practice moves on a continuum from total client or employer advocacy to total accommodation of a public. A survey of ninety-one top public relations practitioners was used to quantify contingency theory by constructing scales of five theoretical constructs: external threats, external public characteristics, organizational characteristics, public relations department characteristics, and dominant coalition characteristics. While the default response of practitioners was that bridge building is the best public relations practice, specific contingencies were found to limit bridge building or accommodation. Practitioners cited fear of legitimizing activist claims, credibility and commitment of an external public, and the place of public relations in the dominant coalition as contingencies impacting dialogue with contending publics.

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Source Influence on Journalistic Decisions and News Coverage of Climate Change

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.356 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Alison Anderson

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Public Relations ◽

News Media ◽

News Coverage ◽

Climate Science ◽

Public Relations Practitioners ◽

News Sources ◽

Making Sense ◽

Information Demand ◽

Nature Of Information

Across many parts of the globe the relationship between journalists and news sources has been transformed by digital technologies, increased reliance on public relations practitioners, and the rise of citizen journalism. With fewer gatekeepers, and the growing influence of digital and social media, identifying whose voices are authoritative in making sense of complex climate science proves an increasing challenge. An increasing array of news sources are vying for their particular perspective to be established including scientists, government, industry, environmental NGOs, individual citizens and, more recently, celebrities. The boundaries between audience, consumer and producer are less defined and the distinction between ‘factual’ and ‘opinion-based’ reporting has become more blurred. All these developments suggest the need for a more complex account of the myriad influences on journalistic decisions. More research needs to examine behind-the-scenes relations between sources and journalists, and the efforts of news sources to frame the issues or seek to silence news media attention. Also although we now know a great deal more about marginalized sources and their communication strategies we know relatively little about those of powerful multinational corporate organizations, governments and lobby groups. The shifting media environment and the networked nature of information demand a major rethinking of early media-centric approaches to examining journalist/source relations as applied to climate change. The metaphors of ‘network’ and field’ capture the diverse linkages across different spheres better than the Hierarchy of Influences model.

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How dominant coalition members’ values and perceptions impact their perceptions of public relations participation in organizational decision making

Journal of Communication Management ◽

10.1108/jcom-07-2015-0058 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 20 (3) ◽

pp. 215-231 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Christopher Wilson

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Public Relations ◽

Nonprofit Organizations ◽

Organizational Decision Making ◽

Content Type ◽

Public Relations Practitioners ◽

The Public ◽

For Profit ◽

The Usa ◽

Dominant Coalition

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the extent to which dominant coalition members’ values and perceptions influence their perceptions of public relations participation in organization-level decision making. Research in this area has largely focussed on the relationship between practitioner roles and decision-making inclusion. Design/methodology/approach – The population of interest was dominant coalition members of for-profit, government, and nonprofit organizations in the USA. Data were collected through a national survey to a nonrandom sample of 201 dominant coalition members. Findings – Results indicate that dominant coalition members’ values of organizational openness to the environment and perceived substantive autonomy of the organization positively predicted perceptions of public relations participation in organizational decision making. Perceived manager role potential of the public relations department also had significant predictive power. Originality/value – While research has focussed primarily on the characteristics that public relations practitioners can develop to earn a seat at the management table, little is known about the characteristics of dominant coalition members that influence whether or not a seat is made available or the degree to which public relations is perceived to participate in decision making.

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Social Responsibility and Loyalty in Public Relations Codes

Business Systems Research Journal ◽

10.2478/bsrj-2019-024 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 151-162 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Matilda Kolić Stanić ◽

Anton Florijan Barišić

Keyword(s):

Public Relations ◽

Social Responsibility ◽

Social Role ◽

National Level ◽

Codes Of Ethics ◽

Symmetric Model ◽

The European Union ◽

Public Relations Practitioners ◽

The Public ◽

The Usa

AbstractBackground: It is believed that social responsibility, the value that is strongly involved in the contemporary corporate behaviour, has also become the core value for public relations practitioners and their associations. However, there are ethical doubts concerning the question to whom a PR practitioner is actually responsible (or loyal) in the first place: to the client, the employer, the public, or society in general?Objectives: This research aims to describe how social responsibility is articulated in the documents that can be considered as the crown of public relations ethics – the codes of ethics – and additionally, how the value of loyalty corresponds to the value of social responsibility.Methods/Approach: The research is based on the content analyses of 13 codes of ethics that are delivered by 18 public relations associations at the international and the national level in the USA and the European Union.Results: Although the phrase “social responsibility” is not mentioned in codes directly, the value of social responsibility is present in very diverse ways. When the value of loyalty came into the correlation with social responsibility, the research has shown that these values exist as a separate principle.Conclusions: The public relations are a profession that tends to be socially responsible and tends to show that loyalty to clients and organizations is subordinated to public and social responsibility. Thus, the codes show that contemporary public relations, at least at the normative level, approach the two-way symmetric model and mostly promote “idealistic social role” of public relations.

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Public Relations Practitioners’ Role and Image Portrayed in U.S. Newspaper Coverage in the Early Twentieth Century

Korea Jouranl of Communication Studies ◽

10.23875/kca.27.4.4 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 27 (4) ◽

pp. 59-74

Author(s):

Jin Hong Ha

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Public Relations ◽

Newspaper Coverage ◽

Public Relations Practitioners ◽

Early Twentieth Century

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From audiences to data points: The role of media agencies in the platformization of the news media industry

Media Culture & Society ◽

10.1177/01634437211029861 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 016344372110298

Author(s):

Ida Willig

Keyword(s):

Digital Media ◽

News Media ◽

Media Industry ◽

Ethical Challenges ◽

Media Audiences ◽

Data Points ◽

The Public Sphere ◽

The Many ◽

Marketing Budgets

Media agencies have become one of the key actors in the contemporary media industry: by channelling marketing budgets to some media and some platforms and not to others, media agencies play an important role in creating the digital media infrastructure and laying the tracks of the public sphere. Yet we know very little about these commercial middlemen between advertisers and audiences, what they do, and how we should understand their role in the digital media ecology. This article discusses the role of media agencies in relation to platformization with a focus on the news media sector. Based on interviews, publicly available material and trade journals, the article depicts an industry deeply engaged in digitizing, tracking and commodifying media audiences, while at the same time aware of ethical challenges of the digital media infrastructure. This leads to a call for more political attention and critical research on the democratic implications of the new value chains between platforms, advertisers, audiences, media agencies and news media as well as the many tech companies providing derived digital services and products.

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