Ethics

International codes- global rules

Societal codes- includes religious codes such as The Ten Commandments

Professional codes- PR does not have a central code of ethics like doctors do because there is no central licensing organization

Organizational codes- PR staff is often enlisted to help write these

Personal codes

Ethics Challenges

• Dilemmas
• Overwork
• Legal/ethical confusion- just because something is legal doesn’t mean it is ethical
• Cross-cultural ethics
• Short-term thinking
• Virtual organizations- created for short periods of time and very specific purposes

Corporate social responsibility- (CSR) corporations that do this are “a positive force for change to help improve the quality of people’s lives”, good corporate citizens, involves seven areas of high standards

1. Human rights, labor, and security
2. Enterprise and economic development
3. Business standards and corporate governance
4. Health promotion
5. Education and leadership development
6. Human disaster relief
7. Environment

Ethics audit- examining an organizations ethics and suggesting improvements

1. What is our organization’s ethics code?
2. How do we communicate that code to ourselves and others?
3. What do key publics-including employees-know about our ethics code?
4. What successes in ethics have we recently had, and why?
5. What setbacks in ethics have we recently had, and why?
6. What can we do to bolster strengths and reduce weaknesses in our ethics?

Potter Box- designed by Ralph Potter to help people analyze individual ethical crises, uses a six step process

1. Define the situation objectively
2. State the different values that you see involved in the situation and compare the merits of the differing values
3. Consider traditional ethics principles and approaches from relevant ethics codes
4. Identify all stakeholders
5. Select a course of action that embraces the most compelling values, principles, and loyalties
6. Evaluate the impact of your decision

CHAPTER 15

Political speech- expression associated with the normal conduct of a democracy

Commercial speech- expression intended to generate marketplace transactions

*know the laws regarding your area of business

Agencies that regulate speech

• Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
  • Consent order- voluntary compliance after a violation of law
  • Administrative law judge- hears testimony and reviews evidence
  • Cease and desist order- can be issued by an administrative law judge, can be appealed
  • Injunctions
  • Consumer redress
  • Civil penalties
• Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
  • After the stock market crash and Great Depression
  • Disclosure- foundation of regulations, companies that issue public stocks and bonds must disclose frankly, comprehensively, and immediately any important information that might influence investor’s decisions
  • Regulation FD (fair disclosure)- tightened loopholes in disclosure
  • Sarbanes-Oxley Act- CEOs and CFOs are personally accountable for the truthfulness of corporate financial statements
  • Form 10-K- specific information about finances, required to file
  • Annual report
    • Audited financial statements
    • Supplementary financial information
    • Management discussion and analysis of the company’s financial condition and any unusual events, transactions, or economic changes
    • Description of the company’s business
    • Identities of company directors and executive officers
    • Description of any significant litigation in which the company or its directors or officers are involved
  • Insider trading- prohibited
• Federal Communications Commission
  • Responsible for the orderly use of airwaves
  • Equal opportunity provision- whenever a legally qualified candidate for public office appears in a radio or television broadcast all other candidates for that office must be given the same opportunity
  • Personal attack rule- stations are required to provide free air time to persons who have been the subject of a broadcast character attack
• Food and Drug Administration

Libel

• Burden of proof
  1. Defamation- any communications that unfairly injures a person’s reputation and/or ability to maintain social contacts
  2. Publication- the communication of defamatory statements to a third party
  3. Identification- the requirement that a person or organization alleging libel has to be identified in such a way that a reasonable person could infer that the defamatory statements applied to the plaintiff
  4. Damage- there has to be evidence that the person or organization suffered injury or damage as a result of the defamation
  5. Fault- a plaintiff can demonstrate fault by proving that the defamatory statement is untrue

Actual malice- knowing falsehood or reckless disregard for the truth

Public official- a person elected to public office or anyone who has significant public responsibility and is engaged in policy making

Public figures- people who have widespread notoriety or have injected themselves in public controversy in an attempt to influence its outcome

Common law libel- lack of constitutional protection because these come from judicial decisions as opposed to legislative action

Privacy

Four Torts

1. Intrusion- improper and intentional invasion of a person’s physical seclusion or private affairs
2. False light- can be sued if you present someone in a false light
3. Publication of private facts
4. Appropriation- the commercial use of someone’s name, voice, likeness, or other defining characteristics without consent

Copyright- protects individual works from unauthorized use

Intellectual property- original works of authorship that are fixed in a tangible form of expression

Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)- 1998 established new rules for downloading, sharing, and viewing copyrighted material on the internet

Litigation PR- the use of mass communication techniques to influence events surrounding legal cases

Crisis- less predictable, require a considerable investment of time and resources to resolve and often bring about unwanted public attention

• Run the risk of…
  • Escalating in intensity
  • Falling under close media or government scrutiny
  • Interfering with the normal operations of business
  • Jeopardizing the positive public image enjoyed by a company and its officers
  • Damaging a company’s bottom line

Stages of Crisis

1. Warning stage- advance signs of trouble, may be possible to avoid, might be able to control events before they happen
2. Point of no return- crisis is unavoidable but damage may be able to be controlled
3. Cleanup phase- can still minimize damage, length of this phase depends on how prepared the organization was to deal with crisis
4. Things return to normal- not the same as before but stable

*crisis can bring about opportunity

Crisis Planning

1. Risk assessment- identify potential threats to the organization and take steps to lessen or eliminate these threats, can help avoid crisis altogether
   1. Crisis planning team (CPT)- for in-house crisis planning and training
2. Developing a plan
   1. Crisis communications planning-

i. Crisis definitions- need to have a common definition

ii. List of individuals who will manage crisis response- CPT

1. Crisis manager or CEO

2. Legal counsel

3. PR counsel

4. Financial counsel

5. Appropriate technical experts

6. Support personnel

iii. Stakeholder communication strategies

1. Employees

2. The media

3. Other key stakeholders

4. Curious public

iv. Where the response is coordinated

1. Emergency operations center (EOC)

v. Where reporters can go to get information

1. Media information center (MIC)

vi. Role of the internet

vii. Employee training

1. Should be part of initial employee training/orientation

1. Response
   1. Execution of crisis communications strategies
2. Recovery
   1. Were actions during and after crisis consistent with values?
   2. What aspects of the crisis did the plan anticipate? How can this be improved?
   3. What parts failed?
   4. How did employees perform?
   5. What are the effects? What can we do about them?
   6. How have stakeholder’s views changed?

Ethics

Inappropriate crisis response can be very detrimental

Planning can help to avoid this

Psychographics- attitudinal characteristics

Geodemographics- characteristics based on where a person or group lives

Culture- group of people unified by shared characteristics

*cross cultural communication is important in PR

Things to consider

• Cultural attributes
• Attitudes about time- vary depending on culture
• Attitudes about formality- includes the proper greetings
• Attitudes about individualism- i.e. order of first and last names
• Attitudes about rank and hierarchy- some societies have specific class systems
• Attitudes about religion
• Attitudes about taste and diet
• Attitudes about colors, numbers, and symbols- includes things such as unlucky numbers, or hand gestures such as the thumbs up sign
• Attitudes about assimilation and acculturation- some cultures are more accepting than others to new customs and traditions

Cross-cultural- exchanges of messages among the members of different cultures, must stay aware of obstacles to successful communication between members of different cultures

• Encoding and decoding
• Gestures and clothing- traditions differ between cultures about what type of clothing is appropriate in certain situations, i.e. shoes are not worn in some places
• Stereotyping
• To be successful when communicating across cultures-
  1. Awareness
  2. Commitment- really learn about the culture
  3. Research
  4. Local partnership- form connections with organizations from cultures you are attempting to communicate with
  5. Diversity
  6. Testing
  7. Evaluation
  8. Advocacy
  9. Continuing education

Global village- everyone around the world can share in experiences

• Media selection reflects the values of an organization

Analog- relays all information present in the original message in the form of continuously varying signals

• Many interruptions to communication
• New technology makes it possible to filter unwanted information and to transfer information simultaneously

Convergence of media- almost every media we use from television to phone is now digital

Hypermedia- integrated media incorporating digital audio, visual, and text information

Problems

• Mergers of media companies- means that large conglomerates control huge portions of the media
• Preservation of personal privacy- digital technology makes privacy a riskier issue
• Job security- can do more with less manpower due to technology so not as many workers are needed
• Protection of intellectual property- it is easy to copy and distribute the work of others

Virtual public relations- the networking of small independent public relations consultants

• the use of PDA’s and the internet has made this easier

Cyber relations- the use of PR strategies and tactics to deal with publics and issues related to the internet

E-commerce- using the internet in financial activity

Push technology- allows information to be delivered directly to a user

*individuals can publish their own works using technology

Cybersmears- use of the internet to attach the integrity of an organization and/or its products and services

Gripe sites- can be established by customers or publics to complain about an organization

Blog

Issues with using the internet

• Online generation gap
• Global digital divide- access to the internet differs worldwide
• Internet research problems- there is still valuable information available only in print but it is often overlooked
• Unwelcome visitors- i.e. spam blocking software may prevent some legitimate e-mails from coming through
• Passive communication- requires customers to actually go to the web site
• Career implications- having technological skills is important now but as it becomes more widespread those skills become less valuable

Integrated marketing communications (IMC) – different from mass marketing

1. Focuses on individual consumers
2. Use databases to target individual consumers, contain information about individual consumers’ wants, needs, and preferences
3. Send a well-focused message to each consumer through advertising, public relations, direct mail
4. Use consumer-preferred media to send marketing messages
5. Use interactive media, seek information from consumers, interactive web sites are ideal

Marketing public relations- exists to promote organizations’ products

Marketing mix- product research and design, packaging, pricing, product demonstrations, product name selection, etc.

• Four P’s of marketing
  1. Product
  2. Price
  3. Place
  4. Promotion

Tactics in marketing public relations-

• Product-or service- oriented news releases and media kits
• VNRs featuring newsworthy products or services
• News conferences to announce new products or services
• SMTs
• Displays at trade shows
• Special events designed to attract media attention to a particular product
• Spokesperson appearances in the media (including internet chat rooms)
• Communication efforts that target employees, investors, government regulators, and other publics besides consumers that can influence the success of marketing campaigns

IMC has changed the Four P’s into the Four C’s

1. Consumer wants and needs
2. Consumer’s cost
3. Convenience to buy
4. Communication

IMC audit- similar to an ethics or communication audit, consists of 5 steps

1. Analysis of the communications network used to develop marketing communications programs
2. Identification and prioritization of key stakeholder groups
3. Evaluation of the organization’s customer databases
4. Content analysis of all messages used within the past year
5. Assessment of knowledge of, and attitudes toward, IMC on the part of marketing managers, top management, and key agency managers

Creating an IMC campaign-

1. Create shared performance measures and develop systems to evaluate communications activities
2. Use database development and issues management to understand your stakeholders
3. Identify all contact points for he company and its products
   1. Contacts­- advertising and promotion people, any information-bearing experience
4. Create business and communication plans for each local market
5. Create compatible themes, tones, and quality across all communications media
6. Hire only team players
7. Link IMC with management processes

Direct marketing- direct communication to a consumer or business recipient that is designed to generate a response in the form of an order, a request for information, and/or a visit to a store or other place of business for purchase of a specific product or service

Spamming- sending the same promotional message to a long list of receivers, whether they’re interested or not

Problems

• Jealousy or conflict among team members
• Different ways of measuring success
• Differences in ideas about consumers’ rights to privacy
• Too much focus on consumers can pull a company away from its core values

*Power of special events- designed for the participants but also target observers, can attract lots of attention

§ Pseudoevent- special even created only to attract the attention of media outlets

Controlled media- various forms of advertising, employee newsletters, speeches, brochures, websites, etc.

Uncontrolled media- news media i.e. newspapers, radio and television stations, magazines, and online news providers

§ Valuable but risky because they can initiate a story without consent

§ Costs less

Tactics and Traditional Publics

Employees-

• Face-to-face meetings
• Newsletters
• Magazines
• Videos
• Bulletin boards
• Speeches
• Intranets
• E-mail
• Instant messaging
• Special events

News Media-

• News releases- most important, most misused
• Media kits- packages at least one news release with other supporting documents, now often packaged on CDs and DVDs
  • Fact sheet- who, what, when, where, why, how
  • Backgrounder- supplement to the news release, contains information about people or organizations mentioned in the news release, usually written like stories
  • Photo opportunity sheet- not meant for publication, include some fact-based promotional writing to spark interest and include instructions for photographers along with maps
• Media advisories- when stories happen so quickly there is not time to write a news release PR practitioners issue these to remind the news media about events they might want to cover, list the facts, usually faxed or e-mailed
• Pitch letters- sometimes a replacement for news releases, letter to a journalist to pitch interesting stories to media, often used for human-interest stories
• Video news releases- (VNRs) distributed to television stations
• Actualities- sound bites for radio stations
• News conferences- scheduled only under 3 specific conditions
• Highly newsworthy breaking story that cannot wait on a news release, media kit, or VNR
• It is better to meet with reporters as a group rather than individually
• Journalists will be glad they came
• Public service announcements- (PSAs) advertisements created by nonprofit organizations to publicize their services, news media does not charge for these
• Guest editorials/commentaries
• Letters to the editor
• Interviews
  • Satellite media tour- (SMT) links with multiple television stations around the world for live or recorded interviews from one location
• Stories for trade or association magazines

Investors

• Newsletters and magazines
• Letters
• Annual meetings
• Annual reports
• Web sites

Community Groups

• Volunteering- good way to build positive relationships by encouraging employees to participate
• Donations and sponsorships
• Cause marketing- addresses more than one public and is designed to create goodwill among government officials, consumers, current and potential employees, and other important publics
• Speeches
• Open houses/tours- opportunity to distribute specialty advertising products such as coffee mugs, Frisbees, etc. with the company’s name and logo
• Face-to-face meetings

Governments

• Lobbies and lobbyists
• Grassroots lobbying- informal, infrequent, “unprofessional”, voice of the people makes it highly effective
• Political action committees
• Soft money- donated by political parties to be spent on noncandidate projects such as voter education
• Disclosure documents

Customers

• Product-oriented news releases and media kits
• Special events
• Open houses and tours
• Responses to customer contacts
• Bill inserts- brochures or newsletters that focus on customer interests included with bills or financial statements
• Cell-phone text messaging

Constituents (voters)

• Quick personalized responses

Businesses

• Magazines
• Stories in trade magazines
• Extranets

Accomplishing tactics

1. Delegation
2. Deadlines
3. Quality control
4. Communication within the team
5. Communication with clients or supervisors
6. Constant evaluation

CHAPTER 10

*writing is important in PR

• Credibility
• Research
  1. What is my purpose in writing?
  2. Who is my targeted public?
  3. What are the values and interests of my targeted public in this situation?
  4. What message should I send?
  5. What information supports my message?
• Organization
• Writing
• Revision
• Macroediting
• Microediting
• Approval
• Distribution
• Evaluation

-use short sentences

-limit each sentence to one idea

-use concrete words and images

-use precise nouns and verbs

-challenge every word in every sentence

-spell out big numbers and give phonetic spellings for hard-to-pronounce words

-use traditional syntax

-link sentences and paragraphs with clear transitions

-attribute direct quotations at the beginning of a sentence

-introduce important points with general, descriptive sentences

-gracefully repeat main points

-avoid closing with “in conclusion”

Presentations

• Research your audience and the room you will present in
• Plan out your message including length
• PRACTICE
• Use visual aids that enhance your presentation, make sure to distribute photocopies beforehand
• Plan for problems
  • Make sure you have a second copy of your presentation
• Maintain eye contact
• Try to begin with an anecdote the audience can relate to
• Try to close by calling for questions although formal speeches do not call for this
• Make sure your presentation does not run over

2 Parts to Research and Evaluation

• • What we think we know
  • What we don’t know

Client research- focuses on the individual client, company, or other organization on whose behalf the practitioner is working

Stakeholder research- focuses on indentifying the specific publics important to the success of the client

Problem-opportunity research- designed to answer what the issue is and what stake, if any, the organization has in the issue

Evaluation research- procedures for determining the success of a public relations plan

Formal research- quantitative/scientific presents an accurate picture, generally used to get a picture of a stakeholder group

Informal research- nonquantitative/nonscientific is somewhat real but not as accurate, useful but not reliable

Secondary (library) research- uses materials generated by others that do not necessarily pertain to your specific research question

Primary research- research generated from scratch

Feedback research- enables an organization to receive tangible evidence (often unsolicited) of stakeholder groups’ responses to its actions, can be manifested in many forms, usually through letters and telephone calls to the organizations

Communication audits- research procedures used to determine whether an organization’s communications are consistent with its values-driven mission and goals

Communications grid- used to conduct a communications audit but does not address the messages contained in the media represented on the chart

Focus groups- informal research method in which interviewers meet with groups of selected individuals to get their opinions

How to conduct a focus group:

1. Develop a list of general questions based on information needs

2. Select as a moderator someone skilled in interviewing techniques

3. Recruit 8 to 12 participants

4. Record the session on audiotape or videotape (or both)

5. Observe the session

6. Limit the discussion to 60-90 minutes

7. Discuss opinions, problems, and needs-not solutions

8. Transcribe the tape of the session

9. Prepare a written report on the session

10. Remember that focus groups are informal research

Survey research- expensive, time consuming, highly accurate way to gauge public opinion

• Representative sample- sufficient in size and when every member of the targeted population has an equal chance of being selected for the sample
• Sampling strategy-
  • Sample
  • Sampling frame- actual list from which the sample is drawn
  • Units of analysis- important to specify for later comparisons
  • Probability sampling- process of selecting a representative sample
  • Nonprobability sampling- selecting a sizeable sample without regard to whether everyone in the public has an equal chance of being chosen
    • Convenience sampling- administration of an informal survey based on the availability of subjects, easy but not accurate
• Simple random sampling- most basic form, not practical
• Systematic sampling- more practical, possible to create a sample that is representative and easy to develop
• Cluster sampling- breaking the population into homogenous clusters then selecting the sample from individual clusters
• Census- surveying every member in the sampling frame

*Ensure that questions are good and asked appropriately

Analyzing results-

Attributes- characteristics or qualities that describe an object, gender, age, weight, etc.

Variables- logical grouping of qualities that describe a particular attribute

Univariate analysis- examining only one variable

Bivariate analysis- examines more than one variable and makes analysis more meaningful

Multivariate analysis- examining 3 or more variables, gives the best results and depth

CHAPTER 8

*importance of planning*

Ad Hoc Plans- strategy that targets a temporary situation

Standing plans- strategy to nurture ongoing relationships

Contingency plans- used for “what-if” situations

-Need to build consensus

Brainstorming- about

• Publics
• Values
• Message
• Media

Goals- generalized statement of the outcome you hope your plan achieves

Objectives- define particular ambitions

Tactics­- recommended actions

Proposal- large document used to present plan to a client

• Title page
• Executive summary- briefly describes the problem or opportunity, identifies the targeted publics, lists the specific tactics for addressing the situation, and includes a budget summary
• Situation analysis- describes the current situation in a way that action seems advisable
• Statement of purpose- announcing that the proposal presents a plan to address the described situation
• List and description of publics the plan targets
• Plan that specifies your goal(s), objectives, and tactics
• Other sections as appropriate

*Good plans…

§ Support a specific goal of the organization

§ Stay goal oriented

§ Are realistic

§ Are flexible

§ Present a win-win proposition

§ Are values-driven

· Feedback both starts and ends this process

· Noise is anything that interrupts this process

Mass Communication Theories

· The Magic Bullet Theory is the belief that the mass media has power over their audiences and that if a sender develops the right message they can influence people

· The Two-Step Theory is the belief that the mass media influence society’s key opinion leaders, who in turn influence the opinions and actions of society itself

o Still relies on the fact that the mass media is a powerful influence

· The N-Step Theory stresses the importance of opinion leaders but in this theory different people are leaders for different issues

· Diffusion Theory is based on the belief that the power of the mass media is to inform people who in turn influence their own peer groups

· The Agenda-Setting Hypothesis is based on the premise that the media tell people what to think about

· Uses and Gratifications Theory stresses that the receiver is not passive because technology allows them to choose their channels of information

Motivation

· Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

1. Physiological

2. Safety

3. Love

4. Esteem

5. Self-Actualization

· Monroe’s Motivated Sequence

1. Attention

2. Need

3. Satisfaction

4. Visualization

5. Action

*Aristotle: Ethos, Pathos, Logos

Latent Public Opinion- the result of people having varying degrees of interest in a topic or issue but being unaware of the interests of others

Aware Public Opinion- when people grow aware of an emerging interest

Active Public Opinion- when people act formally or informally to influence the opinions and actions of others

· Evolution of Public Opinion

§ Starts with an already present sentiment as a result of earlier public debates

§ An issue is introduced to this consensus. To be considered an issue it has to affect a variety of groups and be seen as evolving

§ Those with similar mindsets form a public

§ Publics engage in debates about the issue

§ Unspecified amount of time over which debates occur and people make up their minds

§ Debates lead to a consensus or public opinion

§ This leads to social action

§ Action results in an emerging social value

Manipulation- suggests underhanded tactics

· Need to form a picture of public opinion to practice good PR

· All stakeholders are publics but not all publics are stakeholders

· Includes people who help make the organization run

Resource Dependency Theory

1. To fulfill values organizations need resources

2. Some of these resources are not controlled by the organization

3. To get resources organizations must build good relationships with the publics that control the resources

Categories of Publics

· Traditional and nontraditional publics

· Latent, aware, and active publics

· Intervening publics

· Primary and secondary publics

· Internal and external publics

· Domestic and international publics

**Things to know about publics:

1. How much can the public influence our organization’s ability to achieve our goals?

2. What is the public’s stake, or value, in its relationship with our organization?

3. Who are the opinion leaders and decision makers for the public?

a. Opinion leaders: publics turn to for advice i.e. stakeholders turn to investment analysts

b. Decision makers: people who have the authority to dictate actions and establish policies for publics i.e. producers for news media outlets

4. What is the demographic profile of the public?

5. What is the psychographic profile of the public?

a. Data about what the members of a public think, believe, and feel

6. What is the public’s opinion of the organization?

7. What is the public’s opinion (if any) of the issue in question?

Coorientation a PR research process that can help us discover where our organization agrees and disagrees with an important public on a particular issue

1. What is our organization’s view of this issue?

2. What is the particular public’s view of this issue?

3. What does our organization think the public’s view is? (Does this agree with reality?)

4. What does the particular public think our organization’s view is? (Does this agree with reality?)

TRADITIONAL PUBLICS

· Employees important to have employees on the side of the organization

o there have been many changes to the employee public

1. distributed workforce: working at home or locations around the world means that face-to-face communication of work related news has become less

2. increasing use of temps: do not have time to fully embrace organization

3. growth of information managers: technology changes so fast that employees need continuing education to stay competitive, the U.S. lags behind many countries in this area

4. growth of diversity

5. aging of the baby boomers: need motivation and training for the aging workforce

· News Media

o Gatekeepers: editors or producers who decide which stories to include and reject

o Convergence of media: blending of media made possible by digital technology

o Independent endorsement or third party endorsement

· Governments

o Federal Government

o State and local governments

· Investors

o Financial analysts

o Financial news media

o Mutual fund managers: supervise “investment clubs”

o Institutional investors: large companies or institutions that buy large amounts of stock

o Employee investors

· Consumers/Customers

· Multicultural Communities

· Constituents (Voters)

· Businesses

o Business-to-business communication (B2B): i.e. vendors who supply materials

I think this is a smart way for companies to keep their investors up to date as well and may help make investors more comfortable. Celebrities who have blogs buy into a similar mentality because by blogging they are making their fans feel more connected to them and in return the fans may be more likely to see their movies, buy their CDs, etc.