Professionalism in UAE Companies Public Relations

Professionalism in UAE Companies Public Relations
Name
Institution
Instructor
Task
Date due
Professionalism in UAE Companies' Public Relations
Introduction
To fully understand the application of professionalism in public relations in our institutions, it is very important to first understand the theoretical origins and the development of the concept, the institutional policies that have guided its implementation, and how public relation has being put in practice.
Professionalism in Public Relations has being accurately aligned with changes in consumer's interest that affect both preference and cultural trends in a business (Hunt, 2005). However, since this study tends to focus on the efforts that have promoted good professionalism in higher learning institutions that promote good public relation, there are a number of changes that has resulted such that in today's world people are less responsive to professional pressures, mostly in advertising (Duncan, 2002). Companies, Institutions, and Firms have sought out various trends of promoting their goods and services. This is where the concept of Public Relations comes in.
For this reason, I begin this chapter by discussing definition of public relation. This shall be followed by discussion on the public relation concept of professionalism, followed by a section on how it has evolved through ethical concerns and theories. The corporate social responsibilities under the principle shall also be discussed. The concept of social interaction and personal perceptions of UAE companies shall be discussed.
In order to delve deeper into intricacies of profession in the boardroom of UAE companies, I shall then discuss further insights into the concepts of Public Relation theories as it has evolved from relevant social theories. This shall be followed by a section on theoretical framework of professionalism in public relation wherein I shall extensively discuss Public Relations education and professionalism to provide a foundation for understanding and investigating whether PR is seen in the boardroom of UAE companies. Finally, I shall describe professionalism policies that have influenced the introduction of public relation in university sector and identify the barriers to adopting “excellent” public relation based on research questions followed by the conclusion of the review.
Public Relation (PR)
Due to stiff competition of organizations, the distance between public relations (PR) has greatly widened (Moloney, 2005). Factors such as economical, political, social, and technological changes has gradually shaped and reshaped organizational activities. Consequently, these changes have found a lot of reflection in public relation. According to Wakefield & Cottone (1986) Public Relations education in university sectors should be planned carefully so that graduate will be ready to meet the needs of changing public relation demands.
From research carried out, very little has been done on the investigation of profession and education during the past decade. Cheng and Gregorio (2008) states that students and their teachers should be connected in their studies, educational materials, work, and the system they require in the industry. This is promoted by public relations tactics they acquire in university sector.
Public relations as earliest defined (and still holds true even today) is said to be the attempt by information, persuasion and adjustment to engineer public support for a given activity, movement, cause or institution (Bernays, 1995). For the past years, people have believed that Public Relations practices were largely phenomenon in 20th century. This was until after 15 years when the origin of “modern” public relations has being traced on early 20th century practices especially in UK and US (Sriramesh 2009). Scholars such as Bentele and Wehmeyer (2009) have tried to trace the roots of “modern” Public Relations in Germany and how it has affected institutional learning. Other scholars have researched on public relation from other countries of the world (Sriramesh, 2009) based on various topics.
Majority of studies based on professionalism in public relation and educational matter have been researched especially in the years 1980s and 1990s, this is according to the claim by Niemann and Meintjes (2008). However, this issue never attracted much attention in the new millennium and it seems to be assumed with the exception of only few scholars in research field. According to Gupta 2007, he states that: “it is important to recognize, however, that the value and the body of knowledge of a profession must be constantly evaluated, researched and revised through persistent research” (Gupta, 2007, p. 306). We need, therefore, to ask several research questions that will guide in the study.
Critically speaking, the perception we get about professionalism of PR practitioners from Gupta (2007); the opinion of lecturers and students on public relations education and teaching from Niemann and Meintjes (2008), views of public relations on academics given by Cheng (2008), and further research on public relations role beliefs of students and teachers by Berkowitz (2008) have greatly gained attention by a number of scholars. However, according to Bardhan (2003) perspectives on the profession and education in public relation students have not been researched in detail. Consequently, it is of great importance to get student's ideas on intricacies of profession in the boardroom of UAE companies. This study explicitly examines educational and professional issues in public relations, barriers to its success, and how gender equality in public relation can be improved.
Ethical concerns in Public Relations
* Description of public relation profession
Public relations profession has brought a number of ethical considerations into the light due its increased popularity. Over a period of the last two decades public relation was frequently associated with fashionable models in various companies of UAE (Bowen, 2009). However, there are a number of ethical problems in portrayal of public relations professional as well as in mass media. As a result, Bowen (2009) complains about misleading information and misconception on the role, aims, activities, and the physical functions of PR given in both news media and entertainment media houses. This creates a barrier to adopting “excellent” public relations in university sector. However, Ames' investigation (2010) is in contrast to Bowen's (2009) investigation. Ames (2010) found out those public relations professions' image is now less negated than displayed earlier. This was based on major films from Mars Attack in 1996 to Hancock in 2008.
According to John (2003), his research examines the description of public relations in news media and he found out that there were negative connotations of professionalism public relations roles and operations in various stories in the mass media (John, 2003). John's caution is that “because the general public from all the edges of the world sees the world via the lenses of the mass media, then journalists' choice of words has a great impact on common people's understanding of any subject (John, 2003, p.398). On the other hand, White and Park (2010) suggest that public perceptions should match media portrayal; they highlight that misperception will always destroy credibility of the profession in public relations.
Turkish national newspaper investigated on public relations in relation to ethical portrayal and found out that the general picture tends to be neutral with 66%; and averagely negative portrayal is 18.7% while positive description is 16.3%.
* Gender imbalance in PR
Public relation has rapidly gained popularity and thus has attracted many employees in UAE Companies (Ruler, 2005). However, there is gender imbalance in public relations sector especially in the university sector (Farmer & Waugh, 1999). According to the statistics given by Sha and Toth (2005) female oriented occupy 70% and 30% men. The gap between the two is so huge to cover. Theus (1985) give the reason is because initially women enrollment in public relations schools (communication schools) in big number as compared to male counterparts. In return, public relations occupation boomed with more entrance of women than men recently (Hust, 2005).
Nevertheless, this occupation is more of female oriented than males. This is because female counterparts see themselves in fields that are more technical than managerial ones (Toth, 1988). Consequently, students who are the future practitioners view gender disparity problem as gender inequity in promotion of professionalism in public relations; they base their arguments on advancements and salaries (Toth and Cline, 1991). However, this gender differences in one's income is basically based on women's tendency to having time-out from their professions to raise their kids more than men as presented by Okura (2007) in his thesis.
How Public Relations practitioners relate with journalist.
Research has found out that people in public relation take publicity with more value than advertising and they willingly pay double or triple than what advertising is worth (McGee, 1996). In his book, Grunig (1992) clearly states the importance of giving the profession the name of “public relations”. His emphasis is on the “s” in place of “publics relations” which in his concern proof to be a solution to media problems and she reasons this as follows, and I quote; “a new name might be in be in order: “publics relation,” rather than “public relations.” By making the first world plural, public relations practitioners might come to regard communities, governmental agencies, stockholders, and financial analysts, employees, labor unions, competitors, suppliers, clients, and pressure groups at least as important as the media (Grunig, 1992, p129).
The problems on how public relation practitioners relates with journalists has been very little over the past twenty three years in spite of educational and technological changes (Supa & Zoch, 2009). The two groups offer solutions for better relationship between them: Grunig (1992) states that in order to practice effective media relations, it is imperative that public relations practitioners commit themselves to providing information that is valuable to all journalists (p. 19). In the other hand public relations practitioners as well as other agents put pressure on the shoulders of the media so as to place publicity in the country (Grynko, 2009). They under underline the fact that, “the pressure to place publicity in exchange for advertising is the most widely spread practice that can be used today” (Grynko, 2009, p.1). However, the practice of paying members of the press is an importance ethical dilemma for both public relations and journalism. It is sated that some of the practitioners; who go advertising in university sector in certain publication, run new product publicity (Stanley, 1977). Pattern and Wilkins (1991) strongly agrees with Stanley and they both state that with these unethical applications the line between commercial and news is getting slender. As a result, people have started to equate advertising and public relations operations to each other (Rampton, 1995).
Working with UAE companies, or other organization, it will be unethical to give bribe for a publication, publication out of a commercial payment, and even offering expensive gifts to journalist are part of the ethical concern of public relation. Researcher verifies the unethical dilemma between public relation practitioners and journalists and how it has created barriers in effective PR. The research results indicate that news stories and editorials in relation to paid advertising in newspapers and magazines boomed with more than 98% between 1993 and 2005. In his online survey, Celebi (2009), tries to investigate agency and corporate public relation practitioners' view on the ethical concern of the business and found that running new services publicity for companies that also are advertisers in the publication's was the main ethical concern in UAE companies.
Theory of Public Relation ethics
There are a number of professional responsibilities that concern theory of public relations ethics. Since time in memorial, the concept of ethic has been in the center of the debate since when philosophy began, not less than 2500 years ago (Uzkesi, 2003). According to Parsons (2004, p.10) public relations ethics can be defined as the application of knowledge, understanding and reasoning to questions of right or wrong behavior in the professional practice of public relations. In the boardrooms of UAE companies there is widespread awareness of ethics as a key issue and growing discussion on professionalism both in academics and public relation practitioners on how to approach professional ethics (Tilley, 2005).
According to Grunig (2000), the idea of professionalism began in the 5th century B.C. This was during the time when the Hippocratic Oath of medical ethics was developed (Grunig, 2000, p. 25). Today's professionals are defined as workers whose qualities of detachment, autonomy and group allegiance are more extensive than those found among other work places (Brown, 1992). Two researchers, Fitzpatrick and Gauthier (2001) strongly acknowledge that previously proposed theories of public relations ethics such as attorney-adversary model, two-way symmetrical communication, enlightened self-interest standards, and social responsibility model, has greatly contributed to the ethics of public relation professions. However, as a result of various reasons each of them falls short of offering universally acceptable philosophy. Fitzpatrick and Gauthier (2001) state the importance of professionalism and suggest that the initial step in developing standards is to recognize public relations as a profession and the practitioners' position as a professional. The two scholars farther propose the professional responsibility theory of public relations ethics; this theory states that, “public relations practitioners need some basis on which to judge the rightful of the decision they make everyday. They need ethical principles derived from the fundamental values that define their work as public relations professionals. They need guidance in reconciling the potentially conflicting roles of professionalism advocate and the social conscience” (Fitzpatrick & Gauthier, 2001, p.201).
Based on this review some questions still hold in the study; is it ethical for public relations practitioners to represent “bad” clients? Liese Hutchison who is the ethics officer for St. Louis chapter of the public relations society of America (PRSA) underlined that a public relation person should not comply with whatever is needed by a client. He farther cautions that public relations should not be a ‘yes person'; this is because these are the ones who go smearing the profession (Stoff, 2002). Professionals in contrast to non-professional have power of conducting their work based on knowledge, principals, and enough standards (Grunig, 2000). Consequently, it is sated that any professional public relations personnel is in charge of giving consultation to client, be able to tell a client what is right and what might be wrong, what they are supposed to do and what not to do. PR practitioners should influence client's opinion and choices especially if the clients want something unprofessional and unethical.
Professionalism and Education in university sector
From various study by scholars they believe that public relations operations have been in existence throughout mankind's life (Kruckeberg, 1995), however, modern relations was developed in the early forth quarter of the 19th century in United States of America. This was as a result of railways and land selling companies emergence, and settling (Moloney, 2000). According to Edward Bernays (1923) he says that public relation scholarship is much younger than the “modern” form of public relations practices. Bernays is credited by scholars with authoring the titled Crystallizing Public Opinion as the first book of public relation in 1923.
Theory development in public relations began to take place 1970s, however, the field that exclusively studies public relations is relatively new and as a result many theories of communication has been borrowed from the social science disciplines yet there is no one theory that is public relations oriented (Leeper & Leeper, 2001). According to Leeper (2001), he claims that the filed lack sense of identity, has failed in defining its purpose, scope and dimension. This results to some unfavorable definitions for public relations. Grunig (1989) defines public relations as the manipulation of public behavior for the benefits of the manipulated publics as well as the sponsoring or organization. This definition will be paramount to the aim of my study; to investigate whether public relations is seen as profession in the boardroom of UAE companies.
Concept of Public Relations
Public relations have never been a simple concept. Though it has been truthfully a very effective marketing tool in UAE companies and other business organizations, it comes with very serious problems that need to be dealt with (Carthy, 1992). The breakdown of the word public is the fundamental problem that lies in the successful public relations already...