Social media and ethics - implications for PR practitioners
While there are umpteen opportunities, there are also an increasing number of challenges that PR and communications management practitioners face in the online world (especially social media). Among other issues, ethical dilemmas are now becoming something practitioners have to deal with on a daily basis.
Dr. Margalit Toledano and Levarna Fay Wolland’s research paper (Ethics 2.0: A social media implication for professional communicators) identifies the current major ethical topics on the profession’s agenda and considers their implications for practitioners.
PRINZ caught-up with Dr. Toledano on the topic...
What are some of the ethical challenges that PR practitioners face in the social media communications environment?
Social media increase the options for open dialogues between organisations and their stakeholders, and decrease public relations control over the message. In addition, social media enable sophisticated deception and might be used by professional communicators for further manipulation of the public agenda.
Using evidence from focus groups and interviews with NZ practitioners, my research identified ethical concerns around transparency, ease of deception, control of media agenda, employee communication rights, and tensions between a practitioner’s personal and organisational voice.
How applicable is the offline PR ‘code of ethics’ in the social media sphere?
Professional codes of ethics set norms. The PRiNZ code values of “honesty” and “fairness” and guidelines such as “avoid deceptive practices” cover ethical issues online as well as offline. Social media just intensifies the ethical challenges. However, practitioners would also benefit from more specific examples as to what would be considered professional and ethical and what would not. The code should provide case studies and discussions. For example: Is it ethical to provide new cars to 100 bloggers for six months in return for them recounting their experiences over social media? See http://chapter1.fiestamovement.com/
Another concern is the growing professional group of social media consultants and online content managers. They are trained mainly in the technology aspect of communication and neither taught, nor committed, to the professional code of PR. According to my research, they strongly resent the idea of a code because that implied an external authority regulating their individual web freedoms. In the U.S. the Word of Mouth Marketing Association WOMMA developed a code that is worth consideration, see http://womma.org/ethics/
Do you think that the line between private and professional use of social media has an impact on ethical PR practice?
Practitioners who participated in my research were uncertain about what they could and could not say in private online publications. They feared doing something to jeopardise their commitments to the organisations they serve and the brands they promote. They also expressed resentment about the fact that executives expected communication consultants to engage in online conversations on their behalf. In social media the content is expected to be authentic and come directly from the source, not mediated by professional communicators. Social media puts new pressures on practitioners as “authentic” individuals.
What impact do you think the ‘lack of control’ in social media has on a practitioner’s online ethics?
Social media enable organisational communicators to spam the “comments” section with promotional messages. It might be a bank promoting a new programme (i.e. National Australia Bank 2008: http://gatewatching.org/2008/06/16/bank-botches-blogosphere-break-in-nabs-spam-gate/), or a political organisation astroturfing (i.e., falsely creating the impression of grassroots support). These are just few examples of how organisations might use social media for manipulating public opinion.
It is commonly thought that social media facilitates two-way communication. Are PR practitioners in NZ using social media for this?
Social media was welcomed as a revolution. It heralded new opportunities for not only reaching out to new wider publics but also for developing dialogues with these new publics. Dialogue involves “listening” and accommodating stakeholders’ needs accordingly. Ethical public relations depends on mutual influence, not just on serving the oganisation’s agenda. Social media can enable this mutuality. However, it is up to the practitioners. In my research there was no evidence for the use of social media as a tool for listening to stakeholders.
What is the value, if any, of professional training in keeping up with challenges of the social media ethics?
I personally believe that the future of public relations depends on practitioners taking responsibility for the ethical behaviour of organisations. Instead of covering up failures and irresponsible behaviour, they could initiate employee training programmes in social media and in ethical communication – online and off-line. Associations such as PRiNZ can contribute to this development in many ways: it can include case studies and more specific guidelines in its messages to members and workshops; and it can promote the idea, and the associated practices, that public relations practitioners act as the ethical conscience of the organisation.
Dr.Margalit Toledano is currently a senior lecturer in the Management Communication Department of the Waikato Management School in New Zealand. She was accepted as a member of the College of Fellows of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) in 2007 and served as PRSA International Delegate-at Large and as co-chair of the PRSA Educational Affairs Committee (CEPR). She is a member of the editorial board of Public Relations Review, in which she has also published a number of articles, has written the chapter on Israeli public relations in the 2009 Handbook of global public relations, and has a chapter in the 2010 Sage handbook of public relations.
Levarna Fay Wolland is a graduate of the Department of Management Communication, the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Email: lfw6@waikato.ac.nz
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