The Legal Environment & Ethical Practice (Week 5)

The word legal, by definition refers rules or regulations that are relating to the law or to courts of law. On the other hand, it could be a legal subject that was established under the permitted law or by common legislation of law and most importantly, allowed under the law within different circumstances.

Public relations decisions must be construct in the context of ‘legal environment’. However, when legal threats are being examined, strategies to decrease harm must be taken into consideration of the professional and commercial risks surfacing from the legal action.

I think the key points to remember from this week’s reading were that conflicts can exist between the public relation and the legal with responses to crises. Hoger and Swen (2003: 3) these divergences into four sectors namely: understanding of time and timing; strategies and traditions; approaches to message construction and audience relationships. Therefore, PR practitioners must play a positive role in responding and evaluating to legal rights and risks. They must also negotiate with lawyers on the approaches to be engaged to minimize harm towards organizations or the publics. Public relations practitioners should also practice to follow and abide to the contract that they had signed which in turn ensure the clients and their own personal reputation as well.

The readings made me think more about public relations theory and practice in that with the above discussion on the legal environment, this could be interlinked to the ethical and professional responsibility PR practitioners. Codes of ethics provide a basis for the shared values and acknowledged duties of PR professionals and set the moral standards with which they are expected to comply. In the Grunig’s theory, it views public relations as "an essential management function because of its contribution to the long-term, strategic management of the organization." Among the many benefits associated with improving the sense of social responsibility and ethical behavior and practices is that it will increase both their personal credibility as well as the profession as a whole.

Additionally, I felt that public relations practitioners should carefully examine whether ethical practices are commonly adopted within a culture or are considered to be ethical by the majority of local professionals. This is because a practice is not necessarily ethical just because it is widely adopted in one or more countries, as different cultures of different countries differ in its moral standards and ethics.

Therefore, public relations professionals should follow honest practices to build a fundamental trust between publics and organizations. This transparency requires ethical decision-making and an increasingly influential role at the table where decisions are made.