Saturday, January 28, 2012

Public Relationships: What’s Love But a 2nd Hand Emotion


Blog 4 CM 503
 
I've been thinking of a new direction
But I have to say
I've been thinking about my own protection
It scares me to feel this way.

Tina Turner



"You may only be one person to the world,

 but you may also be the world to one person."

 - anonymous quote
 
            This quote should be applied to social media. For one person can alter the view of the world. Ethically it is right only if within the message consists the nature of love for humanity. Unfortunately love is intangible and cannot be qualified  for media policies or codes. Yet advertising and public relations through art and beauty use emotion to sell their product. Using the emotional and psychological persuasion strategies they mask the decision consumer to buy.



          The first problem in PRSA’s definition is making up it’s own definition of public relations. Merriam-Webster defines public relations as “the business of inducing the public to have understanding for and goodwill toward a person, firm, or institution; also: the degree of understanding and goodwill achieved” (1). The new definition should require a standard definition that is mutually agreed upon by the public. The alarming misuse of adapt contradicts one of its definitions as, “adjustment to environmental conditions” (2). Is the purpose of goodwill and adaption clear by the current definition? I would have to say no.


            It omits the public relations participation in anti-trust laws and the cartel of industry. It fails to recognize that PR shares the same intent of a corporations’ bottom line.  The reason being that a person, an organization or a corporation for the purpose of spreading positive messages hires public relations firms. This is a conflict of interest as there is no ethical responsibility to the public. Furthermore, what if the corporation is not so positive? A public relations professional may be tempted to use unethical techniques to hide the bad quality.





            In a Forbes article, PR Robert Wine defines the power of PR as "earned media" in the form of an article rather than "paid media" in the form of an ad”((3)).  But in our current world where advertising has become “clutter” ((4)). This hoarding of ads makes the value of PR difficult to measure. Wine stated, “delivering that value, though, and at the right price, is hard--and getting harder” (5).



            This dilemma seems to be at the core of PSRA’s definition. Where are the boundaries? Why are only 10% of all PR professionals’ members of the PSRA?  Who monitors the other 90%?  The truth would be the answer.



            However social media has served to reform the way society sees the truth.  A condition of anti-trust laws is the accountability for a corporation to qualify the public need for their product. The common function of PR is to create marketing strategies business. The accountability may fuse into a PR marketing strategy and may lead to false persuasive claims of public need. Due to the many channels available, differentiation has become difficult. PR firms sell themselves by the value of good PR. “ Positive news stories help companies retain clients and attract new ones. Delivering that value, though, and at the right price, is hard--and getting harder” (6).



            The transparency of social media has distorted and enlightened the nature of a corporate identity and its transactions. The Internet media transparency appears to threaten the sustainability of big business. Unlike celebrities, transparency of either positive or negative actions can lead to million dollar cosmetic deals. In direct contrast the social media supported anonymity consumer may distort the truth to the general public. This online opposition battle between an entity and the public would disable any kind of mutual adaptation to both parties. Furthermore a society acceptance of uncertainty as truth may have harmful consequences for the majority.



            In his work, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, the existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote, “‘subjectivity is truth’ and ‘truth is subjectivity.’ This has to do with a distinction between what is objectively true and an individual's subjective relation (such as indifference or commitment) to that truth” (7). For example, the intangible emotion of love can be non existent  to one individual but real to another.  Subjectivity and truth are both evident in the online world on transparency, justice, accusations, and autonomy. All of which can lead to harm community.



            The psychology of mass media is the reasoning behind the Hays Code, “the larger audience of the film, and its consequential mixed character. Psychologically, the larger the audience, the lower the moral mass resistance to suggestion” (8). Perhaps the reason postmodernism has abandoned the power of truth is due to overexposure of views in the digital age. This is the biggest hurdle in Corbett’s article, “Maintaining PR’s ethical standards in the digital age.”



My revised definition:



Public Relation's  function with an ethical obligation towards the maintenance of goodwill towards their clients and the general public.



            This definition implies ethical behavior on both organization and the public. Awareness about possible inaccuracy on the Internet must be made clear to the general public. Media studies must be incorporated into our child education system. And under the ethics of a higher power, society must decide on a new social contract in social media.


It's physical
only logical
you must try to ignore
that it means more than that

What’s love got do? Got to do with it?

What’s love but a second hand emotion?










Works Cited:

















(8) Hays Code: Reasons for Supporting Preamble

1 comment:

  1. The problem is everyone has a different definition of ethics - for instance keeping your companies frequent flyers miles is an example of an ethical questions, are they yours or do they belong to the company. Depends on what one's ethical barometer is.

    ReplyDelete