The Moral Compass of Public Relations: (Routledge Research in 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.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Brigitta R. Brunner Part I: Moral and Civic Responsibility and Strategy 1. The Historical Development of Corporate Social Responsibility as a Strategic Function of Public Relations Young Eun Park and Melissa D. Dodd 2. Penn State’s After-Sanction Response Strategy Chang Wan Woo, Michael Gulotta and April Gulotta 3. Communicating Social Responsibility Efforts: A Success Strategy for Nonprofits or A Shift from Stakeholders’ Priorities? Richard D. Waters and Holly K. Ott 4. A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats? The Constitutive Reality of CSR in Public Relations Ashli Q. Stokes Part II: Moral and Civic Responsibility in Theory and Practice 5. The Public Relations Postures of Organizational Civic Responsibility Christie Kleinmann 6. Hope for the Future: Millennial PR Agency Practitioners’ Discussion of Ethical Issues Tiffany Derville Gallicano and Kelli Matthews 7. Public Relations and Development: Ethical Perspectives on Communication for Societal Effectiveness Amanda Kennedy, Sifan Xu, and Erich J. Sommerfeldt 8. The Impact of Organizations’ Ethical Approaches in Times of Crisis Sora Kim, Jooyun Hwang, and Xiaochen (Angela) Zhang 9. In the Bind between Theory and Practice: Public Relations and Ethics of Neoliberal Global Capitalism Marina Vujnovic and Dean Kruckeberg 10. Public Relations Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and the Private Sector: The Case for Corporate Community Resilience Support for Disaster Preparedness Natalie T. J. Tindall, Jan Uhrich, and Jennifer Vardeman-Winter 11. Public Interest Communication and Polarized Issues: More than a Case of the Measles Giselle A. Auger Part III: Moral and Civic Responsibility in the Digital Age 12. Building an Ethic of Responsibility: Dialogue and Communitarianism as Public Relations Archetypes Michael L. Kent and Maureen Taylor 13. Interplay in the Digital Media Environment: Putting Focus on the Blurring Line Between Advertising and Public Relations in South Korea Samsup Jo 14. Digital Social Advocacy and Public Communication Linda Hon 15. From the Natural World to Artificial Intelligence: Public Relations as Covenantal Stewardship Donn J. Tilson

About the Author :
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.