Is Public Relations Inherently Unethical?
Edward Bernays is widely considered the “father of public relations,” but his daughter Anne feels few sisterly impulses toward the trade. “Public Relations has got to be the longest four-letter word of the 20th century,” she has written. “I see it as a powerful and often useful device but one far more like a gun than a hammer.” She considers public relations people “the tireless, not to say somewhat paranoid, guardians of our economic, financial and social status quo.” She notes public relations enables corporate interests “to control the masses’ behavior without their knowledge,” through a maneuver her father termed “the engineering of consent, a bone-chilling phrase if there ever was one.” ...
Get Public Relations Ethics now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
