THE MORAL COMPASS OF PUBLIC RELATIONS

The civic and moral responsibilities of public relations are hotly contested topics. While many researchers call for focusing on ethics in public relations, they concentrate on ethics in relation to how people do their jobs. In actuality, emphasis should move beyond professional codes of ethics to include general morality and citizenship. Currently, as the profession receives greater scrutiny, it is important to be aware of the value of public relations in the community. This book centers on four areas of public relations’ conscience in order to examine its role in morality and citizenship: civic professionalism, corporate social responsibility, ethics, and public communication. This approach will help to answer the question of what is public relations’ responsibility to the public good.

Brigitta R. Brunner, Ph.D., is Professor in the School of Communication & Journalism at Auburn University, USA. Her first edited volume, Creating Citizens: Liberal Arts and Community & Civic Engagement in the Land-grant Tradition, was published in May 2016.