Tag: law

It is Time to Return to a Discussion of Licensing Public Relations

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The notion of licensing the public relations practice is as old as Edward Bernays, one of the field’s early practitioners and an advocate for licensure later in his career. Bernays died in 1995 at more than 100 years old. The debate about licensing PR seemed to pass with him.

But last weekend at the International Public Relations Research Conference, I and two co-authors resurrected the idea. Professor Tyler Page, of the University of Connecticut, and Professor Luke Caprizzo, of the University of Missouri, and I started talking about this a year ago. Page led the project  and we presented our case based on current issues with the practice, realizing other attempts to standardize practice have failed, and with an idea to conceive of and incentivize licensure similar to what is done other professions. 

[Humble brag: our paper earned the award for “Top Paper on the Conference Theme.”]

One reason for reconsidering licensure for public relations is the increasing problems and challenges of mis- and dis-information in our modern communication landscape. Also, the scope of PR work across all channels has intensified. We argue the field should seize the moment to take our civic, deliberative and democratic responsibilities seriously.

Another reason that now is the time to reconsider licensure is that accreditation in public relations (APR) has not proven to be the suitable compromise to debates about licensure. It was seen to be a good idea for being voluntary, not mandatory. Others praised the APR as something managed by the profession, and not the government, and that it would be similar to the PRSA Code of Ethics which moved to an inspiration vs enforcement model.

However, only some professionals seek APR. Until very recently, APR was only available to members of PRSA and others member organizations of the Universal Accreditation Board (UAB). But the APR as not been strongly advocated for by PRSA outside the profession itself to employers, and certainly not to the point of recognition by the government. In fact, there have been expressions of disappointment that PRSA does not require the APR for members to serve on its national assembly.

So, the time is now to reconsider licensure for the field. But what we advocate is partial licensure—meaning a license would not be required for all to practice. This has been the largest objection to licensure, that it would violate the First Amendment. Since public relations practice is so broad and includes many forms of speech and communications, it can’t be restricted. However, if certain practitioners want to be licensed they could, and they would do so with the proper incentive.

This is not unlike the field of therapy, in which social workers, marriage counselors and those who give mental health advice can be licensed and gain a special title and certain privileges. But this does not stop others, such as life coaches, from giving advice to people about their lives.

Therefore, we propose that the incentive for public relations professionals to be licensed would be privileged information. This would particularly appeal to senior level public relations professionals who engage in “counseling,” especially with senior management, and would now be able to engage in discussions that could not be subject to a subpoena to testify subsequently.

We point to case law to support this. The Supreme Court in Jaffe, Upjohn Co. v. United States, 1981 ruled that privilege may be extended when it serves both public and private interests. The private benefit for public relations professionals would be the ability to counsel honestly with leaders in difficult situations, and not be encroached on by lawyers who already have attorney-client privilege. The public benefit would be the ethical advice of public relations professionals who are more inclined to advise transparency and honesty for the court of public opinion vs diversion and silence to avoid a court of law. 

One objection to this idea is evidentiary loss. However, organizations have many paper trails before a public relations person would be brought in, similar to lawyers, and all of that prior communication could still be subject to discovery as evidence in any trial.

The idea is conceptual now, but we think the path forward will be just as with other professions—to go through the states. Once enough states have granted licensure to public relations professionals, it will become a federal reality. 

It may take time, but in the end it will be a benefit to organizational leaders who can take advantage of privileged counsel from public relations professionals as well as lawyers. As such it will also benefit society, public relations professionals, and the reputation of the profession itself. 

From the Journals–Latest Research on Investor Relations, PR Ethics, PR Law, Communication Management

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From time to time I catch up on reading a batch of academic journals and like to share a quick overview of some of the articles I find most interesting. Many PR practitioners can benefit from being aware of this research but lots of academic publications are hard to access other than through a university library. Here then are some interesting points from recent research. (Citations provided in case you want to seek out the full article for yourself).

Investor Relations:
Matthew W. Ragas, Alexander V. Laskin, (2014) “Mixed-methods: measurement and evaluation among investor relations officers”, Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 19 (2), pp.166 – 181
The results indicate that IROs strongly (80 percent) believe that mixed-methods (i.e. both quantitative and qualitative methods) should be used to measure the success of investor relations. Mixed-methods advocates place significantly more importance on measurement than IROs that prefer quantitative- or qualitative-only approaches.
Matthew W. Ragas, Alexander V. Laskin, Matthew Brusch, (2014) “Investor relations measurement: an industry survey”, Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 18 (2), pp.176 – 192
Respondents strongly rebuked using share price as a valid measure of investor relations performance. A factor analysis revealed that IROs use four factors to measure program success (listed in order of stated importance): first, international C-suite assessment; second, relationship assessment; third, outreach assessment; and fourth, external assessment. IROs at large-cap companies place significantly more importance on both C-suite assessment and relationship assessment than their peers at small-caps.
Ethics:
Patrick Lee Plaisance (2014) “Virtue in Media: The Moral Psychology of US Exemplars in News and Public Relations,” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Vol 91 (2), pp. 308-325.
This study looks at journalists and public relations professionals who exemplify good moral character and virtue to construct a profile of ethical professionals in these fields. Findings show that they scored higher than peer professionals on the personality traits of extroversion, agreeableness, openness, and conscientiousness. As a group they rejected situational or utilitarian ethical reasoning in favor of a moral absolute approach. Overall, an ethical professional can be described as one who places value on concern for others,  professional duty, and proactive social engagement, all of which demonstrate higher order ethical reasoning.
Steve Mackey (2014) “Virtue Ethics, CSR, and ‘Corporate Citizenship’”, Journal of Communication Management, Vol 18(2), 131-145.
Mackey critiques the PR concept of CSR (corporate social responsibility) and corporate citizenship through the ethical theory of Alasdair MacIntyre, who favors the ancient Greek or Aristotelian notion of character as the only foundation for ethics. He criticizes CSR as being done for strategic reasons and personal corporate benefit rather than as an extension of character. He suggests that PR professionals need to respect and respond to existing social norms and democratic discourse rather than trying to influence them. His points are well laid out, however he tends to have a shallow anti-corporate bias and an assumption of the actual intentions of PR practitioners and collective corporate attitudes and reasons for conducting CSR programs. He cites several PR scholars but does not acknowledge that the notions of two-way symmetrical communication or mutual adjustment based on research in fact are the form of practice he encourages. He also rather naively puts forth government and nonprofit institutions as exemplary of the type of social engagement that would be favored from an ethical standpoint, even though human actors in both of those sectors can lead to greed, selfishness, corruption and unethical behavior as well.
Law:

Cayce Myers and Ruthann Lariscy (2014), “Corporate PR in a post-Citizens United World,” Journal of Communication Management, Vol 18 (2), pp. 146-157.
This is a very interesting and helpful historical review of case law that led up to the Citizens United case, which is in the long line of debate about corporate vs. commercial speech and the recognition of corporations as “persons” in terms of speech rights. In addition to the back and forth arguments and decisions of precedent cases at both lower courts and the Supreme Court, the paper identifies the practical impact of Citizens United on PR practice: 1) corporate PR can now legally include political relations; 2) corporate political issues may take on a more nuanced structure; 3) key publics and tactics will change to include voting blocks, special interest groups and others in the political arena; 4) a changing relationship of public relations departments with the press, particularly an added strain because of the increase in opinion journalism or punditry in political issue coverage.
Communication Management:

Catrin Johnson, Vernon D. Miller, and Colange Hamrin (2014) “Conceptualizing Communicative Leadership: A Framework for Analyzing and Developing Leaders’ Communication Competence,” Corporate Communication: An International Journal, Vol 19 (2), pp. 147-165
Since PR is supposed to be a “management” function, this paper is interesting for identifying four essential communication behaviors of leaders as well as eight principles of “communicative leadership,” a Swedish concept. This is a form of leadership that may or may not be evident in CEOs and other managers, thus making the case that part of a PR professionals role is to counsel management on their communicative leadership, not just their communication. A communicative leader is defined in the paper as: “one who engages employees in dialogue, actively shapes and seeks feedback, practices participative decision making, and is perceived as open and involved.”
Andreas Schwarz and Alexander Fritsch (2014), Communicating on Behalf of Global Civil Society: Management and Coordination of Public Relations In International Nongovernmental Organization, Journal of Public Relations Research, Vol. 26 (2), pp. 161-183.

Most studies of excellent PR management are about corporations, especially in the international context. This paper takes an interesting look at non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and determines that “excellent” NGOs assign more resources to PR and more frequently consider the cultural context in their communication. More specific characteristics of well-managed PR in NGOs include: communications department contributes to strategic planning and decision making, the head of the communications department is part of the senior management team, the communications department reports directly to the most senior manager, and employees from different gender or race have equal opportunities.

Why PR People Need to Know the Law

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It’s a great thing to score big on a “viral video.” But sometimes a virus precedes a sickness.

Such was the case with the “pure Michigan” sing a long video made by Rob Bliss and his partners. Turns out the song to sing along to is copyrighted. Oops. All the hoopla about the video hit a sour note.  As you may have read, the video had to be removed from YouTube because of this legal hiccup.

This is a good reminder of why PR people need to know the law. Libel, copyright, trademark, privacy and other laws could determine how or if a PR professional executes a campaign. In an era when it is easy to appropriate songs, text and other content on the internet and appropriate it for some organizational use, it’s good to review the basics of copyright law:

  • Protection of works is author’s lifetime + 70 years. (This increased under Bill Clinton from 50 years).
  • After that works are said to be in the public domain. So you can’t use Sonny Bono songs without permission, but feel free to use Beethoven at will. (But, as I tell my students, you’ll have to hurry because he’s decomposing).
  • Works do not need to be published to be protected. So, an unpublished dissertation could be copyrighted. Also, it’s not just written works, it can be songs, images and even sculpture. (I actually had to make sure no images of a sculpture on loan were used once in my career).
  • One does not need to register to be copyrighted. If you put the © symbol on it, it is copyrighted. The law presumes a creative work is protected from the moment it is created in some tangible form.
  • Fair use means a portion may be used (the size relative to the total work must be small. E.g. 300 words of a 400 word poem is an infringement, 20 words is not.) The source must be attributed regardless, and any verbatim use must be in quotes.

So go ahead, try to get viral. But be careful you don’t get infected by a festering legal situation.