Readings for week 6

Chapter 4 and 5 - Legal Enviroment and Ethical Practice
In: Public Relations: theory and practice
edited by Johnston, J. & Zawawi, C.
Crows Nest, NSW, Allen & Uniwin, 2004, pp. 73-134

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Reading chapter 4 was really interesting but also difficult to read due to all the law terms. The central insight for me was that pr practitioners firstly always have to be aware of the legal framework of their activities. Secondly, they always have to take advice as soon as any issue goes beyond their expertise in law. Moreover, they always have to reflect legal advices and strategies from a public relations point of view, because a legal win in a case might not mean a win in public relations terms. Hence it is always important to maintain relationships and a good reputation whatever legal action one takes. In this regard the example of McDonalds was very demonstrative.

I also found the paragraphs about the different forms of ownership very informative. Especially the explanations about intellectual property and copyright were really important (for pr practitioners), because these matters are getting more and more relevant as we are heading more and more into a media and communication society. Furthermore, the notions about the global context of legal considerations in terms of public relations were a logical, but interesting insight. Last but not least, the paragraphs about contract law were really helpful, in particular the different guidelines about making up contracts from Clark, Cho and Hoyle on the pages 95-97.

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The chapter about ethics was both an amendment and an extension to the law chapter, as “law is the floor and ethics must work above this” (p 123). I really liked the integrated approach of the text that both business and communications ethics has to seen as crucial to pr ethics and the work of pr practitioners. Hence the description of the different roles of a practitioner with regards to ethics within an organization is really important. Most important for me was the fact that the practitioner always has to be more a counsellor than an advocate. So while, in my opinion, e.g. the management sometimes just focuses on the economic goals, the pr department also has to consider the ethical responsibility to the stakeholders and the society. Hence it’s likely that practitioners are getting into ethical dilemmas when they have to balance both the interest of the company and the stakeholders. But in the end the need for ethical behaviour will always have a crucial importance: The actions of a company will always affect its reputation and image of the company, which impacts directly the economical outcome in the long run (that’s why ethical issues are getting more and more important in our contemporary media and information society). Therefore ethical matters should be handled by the public relations departments as well as the pr practitioners should have an important role within the companies’ hierarchy.

But to come back to the actually chapter, I furthermore really liked the interesting practical insights it gave, for example the “Potter-Box” or above all the paragraphs about the addressing of ethical issues. The latter were really helpful for me to get some additional concrete information how ethics can be applied in the practice. Also the part about the ethical framework was quite interesting, because I got an overview over the main institutions involved in the establishment of Australian pr- and communication ethics.

But I don´t have any time to write about this because the tutorial starts in 25 minutes...