Ethics & fear appeals

I love my students!  Not a day goes by when I don’t learn something from them.  They usually don’t know it – but they are so important.

I’ve been researching the ethics of fear appeals for the past year and I’m getting close to putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard as it turns out) to produce an academic paper on this from a theoretical perspective.  Then, during an online forum discussion among my grad students comes a post from one who had attended an award dinner where public relations professionals were giving themselves awards.  (PR is becoming more like advertising every day in this respect it seems: the advertising industry gives themselves more awards than Hollywood.  For more about this phenomenon, see Al and Laura Ries’s book The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR.[i])

A campaign selected for an award that evening was one focused on teen drinking and driving.  It seems that the New Brunswick Liquor Board created a social marketing campaign using a social media strategy to launch it.  They created a fictional story of a teen who had killed his best friend in a car crash – he was drunk and behind the wheel.  The fictional teen (an actor) created an amateurish video and posted it to YouTube.  Then he did another and another and then one of his ‘friends’ (another fictional teen) posted one about how he had killed her boyfriend.  Then there was one about the funeral.  Need I go on?  So far so good, but there are several problems here.  I won’t’go into the evaluation debacle (all those testimonials on their companion web site that focus on the notion that the campaign is a good one if it gets the message out (never mind whether or not it actually changed teens’ drinking and driving behavior long-term). 

I’m interested in the ethics of fear mongering – and this case presents me with a good example, but even more interesting is that it presents an ethics debate that I thought we had laid to rest: to whit, the notion of concealing the true identity of the video creator on YouTube. 

Sunsilk set the standard for this with their Bridezilla video a few years ago when they created the mother of all fake videos on YouTube. 
 
But the ethics debate began then – I guess some people didn’t get the memo yet. The ethics and politics of social media sites are at the heart of the ethics debate.  YouTube was originally designed to be a place where amateur videographers and performers could share themselves and their stories with their world and where others could comment (such is the social part of YouTube).  Early on, advertisers realized that they were missing out on a hugely important communication technology and got into the act.  Many produced specially designed ads and the like, while others such as the Sunsilk people, produced videos that looked like they were from amateur users, and even failed to identify in any way the actual source which means that the purpose of the video is hidden.  This lack of transparency is what leads to the conclusion that the video may be misleading.  The context within which a video such as the ones posted by the NB Liquor Board are viewed have a huge impact on both the perception of the integrity of the producer and on the message itself in the end. 

All one needs to do is read some of the comments from the viewers (presumably in that 16-19 year-old demographic that the Liquor Board indicates in their literature is the target of the campaign) to see what they thought of it.  I particularly liked the comment from one astute viewer: “It’s ‘almost’ as dignified as, say, holding a wet t-shirt contest in support of breast cancer research.”  I wonder how many of them would be able to post a comment indicating that they would never drink and drive again.  That’s the kind of attitude (followed up by behavior) that a successful social marketing campaign needs.

The campaign is to follow up with more traditional social marketing tactics (posters etc), but I’m more concerned about the flagrant disregard for honesty that accompanies such ‘creativity.’

 

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[i] Ries, Al & Ries, Laura.  (2002).  The fall of advertising and the rise of PR.  New York: Harper Business.

Cultivating Moral Imagination

So…I’ve been away.  The winter term is my one non-teaching term so I write, travel and generally spend time doing all those other things that profs need to do outside the classroom.   

Right now I’m engaged in writing a paper for an academic conference.  That paper is about engaging students so that they can learn about themselves and thus be better able to understand ethics and morality and ultimately be good PR practitioners and good citizens. 

I’m writing a paper that takes the view that moral imagination is at least as important (and perhaps more important) than all of those decision-making skills that ethics professors harp on – usually while intoning about a case study.  Did they know that case studies are considered to be problematic?  Did they know that there is little justification for using them incessantly?  Did they know that there is a very real danger of case studies being nothing more than an opportunity for them to moralize to their students?  Okay, my case study rant is over.

Moral imagination:  sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?  What it really means is that if you have a well developed moral imagination you are able to see the multiple possibilities of situations – you consider all facets of it and you are able to see the breadth and depth of the potential outcomes.  Cultivating your moral imagination is largely a creative process that involves engaging with ‘things’ outside yourself. 

For example, you might watch the movie Wag the Dog and be encouraged to discuss the moral implications of it with your friends and colleagues.  You might watch reruns of Seinfeld and think about the fine line between issues of ethics and issues of etiquette.  You might keep a blog and invite comments from your peers and others to assist you in looking at a variety of points of view.  Or what about travel?  I visited the archaeological site at Chchen Itza in the Yucatan region of Mexico in February.  Can you figure out the kind of behavior that was demonstrated at the top of this pyramid by the Mayans?  If not, rent the movie Apocalypto.  Hope you have a strong stomach — but I guarantee that you’ll have to think about morality and its place in time and culture. 

Being able to make defensible ethical decision is at the heart of ethical behavior, I always tell my students.  However, it’s hard to make ‘good’ decisions if you haven’t thought about all the possibilities and been sensitive to the potential outcomes.  Chat with someone.

Demonstrating professionalism

It was so interesting to watch Barack Obama at work on his image and profile in Ottawa yesterday.  Not that he really needed any help in the moment – he seemed to have enormously supportive crowds following him – even if many are supportive because of the ABB effect (anything-but-Bush). 

Many commentators as well as those who met with him, especially Michael Ignatieff, mentioned that the man possesses not only style, but there is real substance there.  Perhaps that’s the real essence of professionalism these days.  Substance with style.

We talk a lot in the world of work these days about being “professional” but it often seems nebulous and downright subjective.  What I might consider to be a demonstration of professionalism, you might not appreciate.  But are there a few commonalities that we all think about when it comes to professionalism?  I think so.

Here’s my list:

·         Professionalism means treating everyone with the level of respect that you expect. 

·         Professionalism means being competent.

·         Professionalism means considering the ethical ramifications of your actions.

·         Professionalism mean style backed with substance.

A few thoughts…

Will you be the one to do the ‘dirty work’?

One of the student teams that created ethics videos approached the notion that was at the heart of the novel-turned-movie Thank-You For Smoking that satirized the PR field. Its major point was this: There is always someone to do the dirty work. If you think that inculcating ethical considerations into every PR course and discussion will magically turn all public relations and corporate communications professionals into virtuous beings, you don’t know people. But…

In a field where doing dirty work is widely considered to be at the heart of our everyday activities, it’s clear that these students really ‘got it’ when it comes to understanding the ramifications of being the one who will.

More about dirty work in a future entry…

New edition of PR ethics book published…

The new edition of my ethics books is now out. Since I’ve received so much positive feedback from people (especially about its readability) I thought I’d share the particulars here.

Kogan-Page (London) Publishers is pleased to announce that the 2nd edition of the popular Ethics in Public Relations: A Guide to Best Practice is now available.
Since it was originally published in 2004, Ethics in Public Relations has been translated into Italian and Indonesian, becoming a well-regarded international addition to understanding ethics issues and practices in public relations and corporate communication.

Ethical questions and dilemmas are inherent to public communication functions including public relations and corporate communication practice. Ensuring that practitioners operate ethically is fundamental to the professionalism and credibility of the field. This fully updated second edition of Ethics in Public Relations gives readers the tools and knowledge to enable them to make defensible decisions…

Written in a practical and approachable style, this is … a clear insight into the personal and professional issues that affect public relations practitioners. It examines how an individual’s sense of morality has an impact on decision-making and ethical business behavior. Including new material on virtue ethics, personal ethics, ethics in social media, ghost-writing and deception in PR, and the moral responsibilities of organizations…

Author Patricia J Parsons is Professor of Public Relations and a past chair of the Department of Public Relations at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Prof Parsons currently teaches ethics & strategic public relations planning in both the undergraduate and Master’s degree programs at MSVU. She is accredited in Public Relations and is a member of the College of Fellows of the Canadian Public Relations Society.
ISBN: 9780749453329

Kogan Page
120 Pentonville Road
London N1 9JN
United Kingdom
www.koganpage.com
www.cipr.co.uk/books

Kogan Page US
525 South 4th Street, #241
Philadelphia PA 19147
USA

Available at Amazon

The Meaning of Integrity…

The next person who says “global warming” to me had better be ready to be smacked…I just finished shoveling and shoveling and shoveling …the snow-blower wouldn’t start, my BFF (husband) is in the wilds of Newfoundland and I’m now here thinking about ethics and professionalism. It certainly is bizarre – but then that’s life.
So, I wanted to share another of my students’ wonderful ethics videos. We often discuss the meaning of integrity. I like this simple one: integrity is doing the ‘right’ thing , even when no one is looking. Watch this…

P.

Test Your Ethics (with the help of my students)

The fall semester zipped by (I must be getting awfully old) and the new one begins.  As it happens, this is my writing-researching-non-teaching term, so in addition to launching a new book and the new edition of an old one, I’m working on a new book proposal and contemplating what I’ve learned about ethics and professionalism from my students last term. 

I learn a great deal from every student I encounter – although not all of them add to the new knowledge – sometimes they teach me about myself or about the world in general.  This past semester was especially interesting since the students completed an ethics video assignment.  I thought I’d share a few of them.

We’ll start with a test of your ethics.  The questions that the students pose in this thought-provoking piece are some of the ones that we explored through the term.  Do you have answers?

 

Thinking, faking, spinning and spying?

The semester moves on and I continue to try to finish my summer reading.  As I said last week, I’m moving through Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy: Corporate PR and the Assault on Democracy which is a collection of essays edited by William Dinan and David Miller. 

UK sociologists as far as I can figure out, the authors are single-minded with tunnel vision so I haven’t really been able to concur with their conclusion which is up front and in-your-face at the beginning of their first chapter:  “Public relations was created to thwart and subvert democratic decision making.” 

Well – that certainly puts us in our place now, doesn’t it? 

Most public relations scholars (bright and knowledgeable academics themselves) have studied quite a different set of strategies it seems, and come up with quite a different perspective.  They believe that PR actually contributes to the democratic process by providing the skills and strategy for communicating messages to those who do not possess such expertise.  That contributes to free speech and public discourse so they say.  So, who is right?

I suspect that the answer is that both are right.  The characterization is quite situational in nature.  Not all PR contributes to the democratic process, and not all interferes with it. 

What we need to do in PR is to be aware of these kind of detractors – they’re a notch above the media types who denigrate PR just as a matter of course.  These writers have actually researched this.  The fact that they have their own spin to support their own hypothesis seems to be something they have ignored.  They didn’t ask any PR scholars to contribute to this book.  The contributors’ list reads like a who’s who of people who make their living criticizing PR and corporate communication. 

Dinan and Miller’s book reminds me a bit of Joyce Nelson’s Sultans of Sleaze: Public Relations and the Media published in 1989 in Toronto.  It’s now out of print, but I always suggest to my students that they read it if they can.  It provides background on how our reputation got to be the way it is these days. 

Now it’s up to the future practitioners in public relations to commit to professionalism – and get us out of this reputational mess.  I’m thinking about retiring to a cruise ship myself.

When a novel gets you wrong…

…and so we face New Year’s again! By that I mean that those of us who teach (or study) usually think of September as truly the newest beginning of any year. The newness for me this year means that I’m teaching a couple of new courses and, as usually my undergraduate ethics course. One of my new courses is also ethics-related, but at the graduate level.

In preparation for these courses, I naturally read through the summer. While you might think that it’s summer-schlock reading, it is all in the interests of ferreting out professional issues in public communication. To whit…

I just finished reading Boomsday published last year by Christopher Buckley of Thank-you for Smoking fame. (BTW if you are a public relations/corporate communication type and you haven’t read that book or seen the movie, I highly recommend that you read it so at least you know what kind of popular stereotype is being promulgated by the popular media).

In itself, Boomsday’s premise is intriguing: Gen-Y (I think) blogger Cassandra Devine who by day is a PR consultant, dreams up- a scheme to save the US social security system from bankruptcy by baby-boomers (and thereby bankrupting her generation). She proposes that boomers who agree to voluntarily commit suicide by age 70 or thereabouts be given substantial tax breaks for their families etc.

That’s interesting food for thought on its own, but it’s Buckley’s characterization of the public relations field and its practitioners that provides the most compelling reading for those of us of whom he purports to speak. He describes the agency for which young Cassandra works as having been “…built on the premise that those with a debatable claim to humanity will pay through the snout to appear even a little less deplorable” (p. 5). Her boss also refers to her as a “PR chick.” Inspiring isn’t it?
The chilling thing here for those of us who work at trying to ensure that those who practice public relations and corporate communication do so with a modicum of ethics and professionalism (as I know the majority of PR professionals do), it’s unnerving to see how we are painted – and how this illustration (caricature) is accepted and even thought to be the norm.

Authors will go on portraying PR in this way until they have another image in front of their faces. But even then it will be an uphill battle – you see, PR isn’t nearly and smarmy or glamorous as the public would like to continue believing.

Next time I’ll tell you about the book I’m reading now: Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy: Corporate PR and the Assault on Democracy – now that’s one to make you proud. P.

When is a ‘product placement’ like a print ad?

Product placement is so ubiquitous these days that we hardly blink an eye (or perhaps even really notice) when the main character in our favorite crime drama swigs from that Coca-Cola bottle on his desk.  The branded product is there, and perhaps we might be enticed to emulate our hero, but few people are talking about the ethics of such stealth advertising.  However, when it comes to such a maneuver on the nightly news, there are those on the moral high road who seem to think that this just might bias those reporters who are reading the news with branded coffee sitting in front of them (and whose brands paid a fee for the up-front placement).  But – then what makes this different from newspapers carrying paid advertising? 

For years people have decried the notion that advertisers may or may not influence the reporting on related subjects and this argument has lost its oomph.  But now this new approach (which is largely the very same thing) seems to have reporters up in arms.

Yesterday’s New York Times reported on the recent acquisition made by a Fox News affiliate in Las Vegas – that being a product placement on the desks of their reporters on the morning show.  Those products are cups of McDonald’s iced coffee.  Here are the questions that this raises:

1.       Is this really any different than print advertising in a newspaper or magazine?

2.       Should those coffee cups still be there on the morning when a negative story about the product’s owners shows up?

3.       Would this lucrative revenue stream really result in omitting said negative report?

As usual, we move forward in strategic communication and marketing approaches without really facing and answering the inevitable ethics questions.  That’s why we often don’t have an answer for people like the fine folks at PR Watch who are watching our every move.  Perhaps it’s time we started answering those question before taking action.