Ethics Post 4: "Upgrading" P.R.'s Definition

This week's blog deals with Public Relations and it's evolution (or re-definition, which ever floats your boat more). Currently the PR industry is debating over revamping the tried and true definition of "Public Relations" for the 21st Century. The current definition of Public Relations is as follows: "the practice of managing the flow of information between and organization and it's public".  Personally, I think such a definition could hold up in today's Information Age; social media, however, has created a new niche in the obtaining and distribution of information. This also changes the overall role that PR plays for a company. Now instead of just, persuading the public to trust or buy into a company, PR needs to police the information surrounding their client company and make sure it's accurate or that a private matter has not gone public. As mentioned in the New York Times article assigned to us this week, people quite often view Public Relations as "spin". In the past, we have grown accustomed to hearing and seeing messages for brands/companies that look something like this:

Merely a generalization, of course.

To be honest, I can't think of a good new definition for Public Relations, but it goes something like this: "Public Relations is the managing (AND consideration) of all information concerning an organization and it's stakeholders." I threw "consideration" in there because in these times, where people can post their grievances on a Facebook fan page (ironic because it's a fan page), a company has to be aware of an underlying message that might be floating just beneath the one they are broadcasting. Of course I'm talking about public opinion and word of mouth. "Consideration" isn't completely a fluff word; it allows for media ethics to be contemplated while executing a campaign, solving a crisis, or putting out a company message over a new medium (ex: social media). 

The Public Relations Society of America is in the process of officially changing the definition of Public Relations (as far as this country is concerned). They are allowing the public to weigh on what should be included in the definition. Word clouds will apparently be generated to help chart the focus.

Ironic. PR firms are usually responsible for putting these out for companies (Courtesy of Shutterstock)

The biggest point of changing the definition (in my opinion), is to further cover the potential breaches in ethics that occur with today's media. Apparently Facebook made a huge breach when they hired writers to write slander against Google (a healthy competitor), and their privacy. As I mentioned in the first blog post for Ethics class, BP messed up REAL bad and had a hard time recovering their image after their ghastly mistake concerning the oil spill.