Public Relations as an Ethical and Effective Persuader
When defining public relations, we could attribute it to creating and maintaining a positive public image for a company or organisation. With this creation of the public image, public relations rely heavily on rhetorical practices. Aristotle’s rhetoric for persuasive communication relies on ethos, logos, and pathos. Ethos is based on trust and credibility. Moreover, this is what Aristotle defines as the most crucial factor when persuading individuals. Logos uses logic, reason, and proof to solidify the argument. Finally, pathos appeals to emotions and values to better reach the audience. Through public relations—or, as some might call it, “organisational rhetoric"—this rhetorical triad is used to build a connection with the public to form the image of a particular company to further its profit. However, when surveying history, we face an ethical issue known as the “Hitler problem." Hitler used rhetorical techniques to instigate genocide and the Second World War, presenting a moral dilemma for rhetoric scholars. For this essay, I argue that in modern-day public relations, there is no established ethical way to practice this profession, as the ethical values of humans are fluid and ever-changing, especially in a marketing and work-based environment.
Influence is a common social occurrence. Since it operates through calls to solidarity, it is rooted in networks and groups that promote solidarity. Considering this, a part of society's structure focuses mainly on influence. In contrast, rhetoric— a cultural tool for generating and mobilising influence— uses language and visual meaning systems to arouse sympathies. At its very foundation, public relations is about language, words, and oral and written tales. It is existentially concerned with persuasion. Aristotle categorised multiple things, including the concept of rhetoric. He made some significant discoveries, including the structure of persuasive speech. However, Aristotle and multiple other philosophers talked about the "three appeals" that made up rhetoric centuries ago; we still use rhetoric to this day. Well-known Roman rhetorical instructors like Cicero and Quintilian often employed Aristotle's rhetorical theory. In the case of Cicero, he shows that man cannot attain perfect knowledge and, in this instance, accepts ‘propositions as true upon arguments or proofs that are found to persuade him to receive them as true.’ (Academica ii. 110 as cited by Meador, 1970) However, these latter authors were more concerned with finding a conceptual framework for their rhetorical instruction books than with a thorough analysis of Aristotle's teachings. The three methods of persuasion described by Aristotle might be rephrased as descriptions of three different social and organisational forms of influence. In sociological terms, a rhetorical system based on ethos or character is equivalent to a status hierarchy where credence is given to people who fit specific socially prescribed categories. In civilisations with well-established debating systems, people adept at using the rhetorical devices of argument develop their persuasiveness over time and gain respect and power. The rhetoric of pathos offers a path to influential status to those who can use this strategy to obtain prolocutors' roles, particularly the right to speak on behalf of status groups when the platforms of the debate are used to appeal to attachments to groups by evoking emotions of loyalty, fear, envy, and anger.
The practice of public relations has more power than we give it credit for nowadays. Through these rhetorical tactics, we are able to shape the worldviews of others using the correct media strategies. Due to our excessive exposure to social media, whether on our phones or even in the streets on billboards, there are always ethical concerns regarding how these practitioners influence the public. However, we should remember that some people have different moral standards regarding ethics and morality. In the case of PR, it is relatively the same: every public relations practitioner has a code of ethics. Humans have always been self-serving beings, doing what they think might be the best decision for them. In research by Yi-Hui Huang, Wright states that ethics is basically ‘an individual issue’ (Wright, 1993 as cited by Huang, 2001). From a consumer or public point of view, it seems ethical to me that, in the field of public relations, the company must be transparent with the information provided and not withhold any information from the public, as well as have the public’s interest at heart. However, we do not live in a world where that would happen. Ethics are flexible, dependent on the situation, and subject to change. What may generally seem right at the time might not always be correct.
When looking at smoking advertisements from the 1920s to the 1950s, some advertisements showed doctors endorsing and promoting tobacco use. One advertisement for the cigarette brand Camel clearly states, ‘More doctors smoke Camel than any other brand.’ (Elliot, 2008) Looking back on these advertisements, we might find them concerning and unethical; however, at that time, it did not seem unethical and was highly encouraged. Huang also points out that, ‘Wright shows that with or without professional codes of ethics, most public relations practitioners will choose to be ethical because “they believe in themselves and want others to respect them” (Wright, 1993 p. 18 as cited by Huang, 2001).
On the topic of ethics, Hitler could be said to be one of the greater rhetoricians, convincing the masses in Germany to believe in his goals and ambitions through the art of rhetoric. In his rhetorical system, he used fear and patriotism to influence his audience. His passions and propaganda allowed many German people to follow him. According to Campbell, ‘the speaker or rhetor conveys the passion in what they are saying, and the listener is then taken along by the passion of the speaker.’ (Campbell, 2012) From what we know about Hitler’s speeches, he conveyed many raw emotions that would have moved the public through gestures and tone of voice. As an audience, we are struck by many similarities when looking at what Hitler has done compared to Aristotle's rhetorical theory. According to Irving J. Lee, ‘Aristotle suggests the value of repetition; he argues the necessity of recognising the limited capacities of the “masses” and that there has to be a means of stirring “emotions”. (Lee, 2005) Taking this from a public relations point of view, we can determine that Hitler was unethical in his approach to rhetoric based on mass genocide and war, almost brainwashing people to act in the nation's interest. He limited the knowledge given to the people and acted as a dictator would have.
In conclusion, public relations deals with significant issues of morality and ethics when using rhetoric. As we have established throughout the essay, rhetoric is an art that can be used as a powerful tool to persuade the masses to do something they might not have otherwise considered. With the rise of social media and various platforms allowing companies to gain a wider reach with the public, it could be argued that acting with caution and adhering to a certain ‘ethical standard’ is now more crucial than ever. Despite the fluidity of ethics, there is always a collaborative form of ethical standards dependent on culture. There is optimism that participants in positions of power or influence will reassemble their identities, voluntarily commit themselves to new solidary attachments, and create post-conventional norms when leaders who command trust and exert influence do so. Finally, a study by Nelarine Cornelius, Mathew Todres, Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj, Adrian Woods and James Wallace states that ‘by extrapolation, for social enterprises in particular which have defined social missions, ethical policy and ethical principles are the bedrock upon which corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy should be developed.’ (Cornelius, Todres, Janjuha-Jivraj, Woods, and Wallace, 2008)
Reference List:
CAMPBELL, S. M. (2012). Rhetoric. In The Early Heidegger’s Philosophy of Life: Facticity, Being, and Language (pp. 162–185). Fordham University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x0bzw.14
Huang, Y.-H. (2001). Should A Public Relations Code of Ethics Be Enforced? Journal of Business Ethics, 31(3), 259–270. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25074535
Meador, P. A. (1970). Rhetoric and Humanism in Cicero. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 3(1), 1–12. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40236695
Lee, I. J. (2005). GENERAL SEMANTICS AND PUBLIC SPEAKING: Perspectives on Rhetoric Comparing Aristotle, Hitler, and Korzybski. ETC: A Review of General Semantics, 62(1), 80–88. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42580124
Cornelius, N., Todres, M., Janjuha-Jivraj, S., Woods, A., & Wallace, J. (2008). Corporate Social Responsibility and the Social Enterprise. Journal of Business Ethics, 81(2), 355–370. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25482219