Professional institutes such as the CIPR and the PRSA encourage and support professional standards. Black, 1989, argued that to establish PR as a profession and to maintain high standards, many PR bodies adopt a formal code, such as those of the CIPR. Additionally, he argued that “strict adherence to an appropriate code of conduct will do much to establish public relations as a profession and will help to maintain high standards” (Black, 1989; P.12). If Black suggests that strictly adapting to a set of codes will establish PR as a profession, then arguably, are codes of conduct the only answer to professionalism? What about academic credibility. So in theory, with the combination of education and codes of conduct, the status of public relations will be pushed slightly further.
The question that springs to my head first is - Is PR percieved as a profession, if not why not?
What do you all think??
4 comments:
Hi Pav,
I think its been sometime since PR is perceived as a profession, although as a creative profession. Since i come from india, few years back not many people even knew what public relations is forget thinking about it being as a full fledged profession as opposed to what i have noticed in Uk... but in india people's perceptions about public relations as a profession is changing and public relations plays a big role in most corporations across the world
Pav, The idea of professionalism arises when a set of codes are put into practice. You will be professional, if you follow these codes. However, like you said, many tend to weed out the 'bad apples', which may be of threat to a particular company - hiding the truth from the public!! If this is so, and practitioners carry on doing this, will PR ever reach the status of professionalists??
Yes, PR is perceived as a professional and increasingly as an important one. The thing with professional codes is, though you have to laud the efforts of PR Bodies wanting to enforce such codes, will they be easy to apply?
I remember when i had to write an essay on how what position codes of conduct sit within an organisation. I came to one conclusion, regardless of how ethical these codes may be, people within organisations never stick to them. They tell people what they think they should, and most of the time the information maybe wrong...so how can 1 be professional if all they do is hide the truth?
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