The explosion of scientific advancement that began with Copernicus’s 16th-century discovery the earth was not the center of the universe and culminated with Isaac Newton’s formulation of the laws of gravity in the 17th century gave birth to a period of intellectual fervor we now call “the Enlightenment”or the “Age of Reason.”
Western European thinkers began to realize the world we see is only part of reality—much of what we experience is the product of invisible forces that can only be inferred through the exercise of reason. And a lot of what appears obvious to us, like the sun circling the earth, is actually an illusion. Whereas ethical norms in the past were shaped by superstition, tradition, and slavish obedience to authority, the thinkers of the Enlightenment, offered a new engine—the power of human reason.
One of the foremost figures of this period was a German college professor who never married and never wandered more than 10 miles from his hometown of Konigsberg, Germany, now Kalingrad, Russia. But his impact on philosophical thought reverberated far from his hometown and across the centuries.
Immanuel Kant’s Approach to Pure Reason
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was brought up in a pious Lutheran household and instilled with great self-discipline as a child. He lived such a strict and predictable life, his neighbors could set their watches by the time of his daily walks. He was a prolific writer, turning out more than 20 books and hundreds of essays in both German and Latin, but he was a relatively late bloomer. His most influential book, Critique of Pure Reason (Kant, 1781/1787, tr, Meiklejohn, 2014), which is widely considered one of the greatest works in the history of philosophy, did not appear until he was 57. And the book that sealed his reputation as one of the age’s greatest ethical thinkers, Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals (Kant, 1785, tr, Ellington, 1993), was published 4 years after that. Neither book makes good bedtime reading, unless one’s goal is to nod off quickly. Both are written in a convoluted, abstract, repetitive style.
But Kant succeeded in doing for philosophy what Copernicus did for astronomy—he put human reason at the center of the action.1 Where others accepted the precepts of morality on faith or despaired of finding any firm grounding for them at all, Kant insisted that moral principles could be discovered through careful reasoning. In fact, the human capacity for reasoning was the foundation of his whole system of ethical thought.
Human Dignity
As philosophy professor James Otteson (2006, p. 5) explains, Kant believed the world could be divided roughly into two categories: things and persons. “A thing is something that we may use to serve our purposes, without bothering to worry about its own interests—generally because a thing has no interests,” Otteson writes. “A human being, on the other hand, is a person, which means, approximately, that it is something that has its own deliberate purposes and exercises its judgment with respect to them.” The ability to reason is what sets human beings apart from the rest of creation.
It follows, to Kant’s way of thinking, that you do not need a hammer’s permission to use it in pounding a nail, but you cannot use other people to serve your own purposes without their permission. “Rational beings,” Kant wrote, “are called ‘persons’ inasmuch as their nature already marks them out as ends in themselves, i.e., as something which is not to be used merely as a means and hence there is imposed thereby a limit on all arbitrary use of such beings, which are thus the objects of respect” (1785/1993, p. 36).
In other words, because people can reason, they can set their own goals, make their own decisions, and guide their conduct by reason. No one has the right to interfere with that without their agreement. Contemporary philosopher Erroll Harris (1908–2009) put the concept of respect in more contemporary terms, no doubt influenced by his experience with apartheid in his native South Africa. To him, respect is:
First, that each and every person should be regarded as worthy of sympathetic considerations, and should be so treated; secondly, that no person should be regarded by another as a mere possession, or used as a mere instrument, or treated as a mere obstacle, to another’s satisfaction; and thirdly, that persons are not and ought never to be treated in any undertaking as mere expendables (Harris, 1969).
In other words, respect is more than politeness or tolerance. It is seeing value in others and in their ideas; it is giving them the same consideration we would like to be given.
The age of apartheid may have passed in South Africa, but it lives on in parts of corporate America, where employees are often treated as fungible commodities, easily cast away to goose the company stock price. In our experience, public relations practitioners are usually on the forefront of those calling for a more enlightened approach to employee relations. Where they are responsible for internal communications, they define their role not as placating and distracting employees but as giving them the information they need to do their jobs intelligently, which includes a deeper understanding of the company’s purpose, goals and strategies, an assessment of where it is winning and where it is losing, and what it all means for them. This requires more than a publication-centric approach, whether printed or electronic. It means creating an environment of meaningful two-way communication between supervisors and subordinates and amongst team members. It means treating employees as ends in themselves, not simply as means to accomplish some goal in which they have little stake.
Autonomy
Kant’s system of ethics rests on his belief that autonomy is an essential element of being a person as opposed to a thing. But to Kant “autonomy” is more than “the freedom to do what you want.” Rather, in his conception, autonomy’s meaning is much closer to its Greek etymology—αὐτο (auto) or “self,” and νόμος (nomos) or “law.” Autonomy in Kantian ethics means “one who gives oneself one’s own law.” In other words, figuring out right from wrong is also an essential element of being human.
Kant was not of the “let a thousand flowers bloom” school of ethics. He reasoned that all human beings have natural obligations, or duties, simply because they’re human. Using his own formidable intellectual powers, he reasoned that the most basic rule of morality—the principle that underlies all other ethical precepts—should be obvious to any rational person: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law” (1785/1993, p. 30). James Ellington, who produced one of the most readable translations of Kant’s works, put it in more colloquial terms, “If something is right for me to do, it must be so for everyone else” (Kant, 1785, tr. Ellington, 1993, p. vi). And vice versa. In other words, reason should lead us to rules of behavior—duties—that apply to everyone, including ourselves.
Categorical Imperative
This is the single supreme moral law from which all other moral principles flow. Kant called it a categorical imperative because he considered it an absolute, unconditional rule of behavior, or “duty,” that must be followed in all circumstances for its own sake and not simply because it will lead to some other good. “Don’t speed if you don’t want a ticket” is not categorical because following it depends on whether or not you care about getting tickets. A categorical imperative must also be logically consistent and free from internal contradiction. So, for example, “We should keep our promises unless it’s inconvenient” would not fly as an absolute moral truth because it’s self-contradictory. If everyone broke promises whenever it suited them, promises would not mean anything.
Kant expressed his categorical imperative in many ways, but when properly understood they all amount to the same thing. The formulation most relevant to the practice of public relations is: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end” (Kant, 1785, tr. Ellington, 1993, p. 43). Kant considered this the flip side of his universal law formulation and it highlights our natural duty to respect other people’s inherent dignity and autonomy.
One obvious implication of this duty is to respect people’s privacy—what Justice Brandeis called the “right to be let alone” (Warren and Brandeis, 1890, p. 193). Privacy is not mentioned in the Constitution, but the concept is so wrapped up in the notion of freedom and liberty, it has been implied as one of our fundamental rights. In 1890, Brandeis was so offended by media intrusion into the wedding of a friend’s daughter that he wrote an article for the Harvard Law Review proposing the formal establishment of a right to privacy. Privacy law evolved in fits and starts ever since, responding to social and technological change. Currently, the law holds an individual’s privacy can be invaded in four major ways, all highly relevant to the practice of public relations.
1. Unreasonable intrusion on someone’s physical solitude;
2. Unreasonably placing someone in a false light before the public;
3. Unjustified publication of embarrassing facts about someone;
4. Commercial appropriation of someone’s name, identity, or likeness.
Sadly, despite progress in legislating privacy laws, Brandeis’s description of the media behavior that prompted his attention back in 1890 could be written today: “The press is overstepping in every direction the obvious bounds of propriety and decency. Gossip is no longer the resource of the idle and of the vicious, but has become a trade, which is pursued with industry as well as effrontery” (p. 196). And, magnifying the issue is the ocean of consumer data accumulating in corporate databases.
Data and “Big Data”
Big Data increasingly shapes the targeting, content, and performance of public relations, just as it is transforming every other corporate function. Senior public relations practitioners need to work with senior management in thinking through the ethical implications of gathering and using all this data across the entire enterprise. One of us worked at AT&T back when the Internet was just leaving the lab. The economic value of the user data it would produce was already obvious. Less obvious were the boundaries and procedures for storing, accessing, and using all that personal information. That ignited a debate every company needs to have. And however that debate is resolved, companies and practitioners must be transparent about the data they collect, and why they collect it. Tiny-type legal mumbo jumbo that no one reads will not cut it. And when a company suffers a data breach, exposing its customers’ personal information, it has an ethical obligation to notify them as soon as possible. To do otherwise, in Kant’s language, would be a fundamental violation of people’s inherent autonomy and dignity.
This idea that we have a fundamental duty to respect people’s dignity and autonomy—to never treat them as means, but always also as ends in themselves—underscores what we have already said about the values of truth and transparency in the practice of public relations. Respect means recognizing people’s inherent right to make decisions for themselves, free from coercion, and based on the best available information. University of Oregon professor Thomas Bivins (2004, p.21) shows how our obligation to tell the truth hangs off this fundamental duty. “To lie to someone,” he writes, “is to lead them to act in a manner in which they would not have acted had you told them the truth.” Clearly, public relations must be truthful. But Kant’s categorical imperative adds an important dimension to our understanding of ethical practice.
Hill & Knowlton’s Tobacco Strategy
Consider, for example, John Hill’s public relations strategy to defend the tobacco industry.
While conceding that the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) could have been more transparent about its activities, John Hill certainly believed Hill & Knowlton’s (H&K) overall strategy was ethical. In fact, he saw it as an expression of his duty as a public relations practitioner. In one of his few published comments on his role in establishing the Tobacco Research Committee, Hill wrote, “When an industry is, in effect, accused of mass murder, it is naturally agonizing to it when few voices are lifted in its defense before the bar of public opinion.”2
Hill believed every individual and institution in a free society has the right to be heard in the public forum. Otherwise, it would abandon itself to the uncertain currents of the public mood. “The mind of the college professor as well as the unschooled crop picker is inclined to select and retain the facts it wants to retain—those facts that confirm established prejudices or leanings,” he reportedly said. Hill believed a few publicity-seeking quacks, amplified by sensationalized headlines, were feeding those prejudices and stirring people into a fever of hysteria.
On the other hand, Hill believed, if the TIRC could “draw some public attention to other sides of the question,” the normal American sense of fair play would lead people to decide that, “despite sensational charges, the truth is not yet known and the industry itself is doing what it can to speed the availability of true and reliable answers.” In any case, by presenting the “facts” of independent studies, neither he nor his agency was responsible for whatever decisions people made.
But did H&K respect people’s right to make intelligent decisions about the health implications of smoking? As we have already discussed, the agency arguably never lied in the classic sense of spreading facts it knew to be false. And Hill himself conceded the “independent research committee” he created was an unacceptable “paper” or “front” group. But H&K’s ethical breach was even more serious.
Its core strategy was to cast doubt on research its clients did not like. For example, the TIRC complained that painting nicotine on the skin of mice is not the same as inhaling smoke into human lungs. It pointed out that statistical studies do not take all relevant factors into account. It suggested that lung cancer has many causes, from air pollution to genetic predispositions. And it studiously ignored studies that did not serve its cause. For example, the tobacco companies had known since 1946 that nicotine is addictive and potentially carcinogenic. And Hill himself had stopped smoking for health reasons.
Many have accused Hill of a strategy of obfuscation. Rather than giving people the information they needed to make an intelligent decision about the health risks of smoking, his team seemed intent on freezing people into a permanent state of doubt by raising nagging questions about methodology whenever new medical findings were published. As far as the American Cancer Society was concerned, Hill was “fighting a delaying action to mislead the public into believing that no change in smoking habits is indicated from existing statistical and pathological evidence nor will be until ‘direct experimental evidence’ is at hand.”3 Indeed, from the 1950s well into the 1990s, the industry’s mantra was simple—“More research is needed.” According to the Wall Street Journal it was “the longest-running disinformation campaign in U.S. business history.”4
Disinformation
Authors Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway (2010) call organizations that engage in such disinformation campaigns “merchants of doubt.” Their sole goal is to discredit widely accepted scientific data inconvenient to their business interests. Using techniques pioneered by the tobacco industry, companies threatened by regulation have contracted with ideologically like-minded think tanks and academics to churn out studies contradicting data on everything from second-hand smoke and acid rain to ozone depletion and climate change. Even the soft-drink industry has been accused of funding research to cast doubt on the contribution its products make to obesity.5 Sadly, some public relations firms have developed specialties in such doubt mongering.
One can argue John Hill and his agency were in a difficult position—their clients withheld information from them, the media were in a feeding frenzy over inconclusive data, and a good portion of the public was in a panic. Still, from a Kantian perspective, Hill did not respect people’s right to make decisions with the best available information. If anything, under Hill’s direction, the TIRC did its best to surround what information was available in a cloud of doubt and unanswerable questions. It is easy to conclude such activities were, on the whole, unethical. The more difficult question is, “Ethically, what public relations counsel should John Hill have given his clients?”
Ironically, the answer is precisely what the TIRC promised to do and never did—to fund honest research into the possible impact of smoking on people’s health, to report the findings promptly, and to take action on whatever the findings indicated.
Public Relations as a Clarifier of Data
In 1990, when cell phones were still a relatively new innovation, several studies suggested the radiation emitted from their antennas could cause brain cancer. As day follows night, personal injury suits were filed against manufacturers and wireless service providers, which prompted more news stories and more suits. One of us was responsible for public relations at AT&T where it is probably fair to say some of the executive offices were as shaken as the tobacco company suites had been 40 years earlier.
Like the tobacco companies, we called in outside public relations counsel. But unlike the tobacco industry, we also had the benefit of Bell Labs scientists who were honest brokers in assessing the available data. And AT&T was already part of an industry association prepared to fund real research into the issue. Meanwhile, we did our best to ensure people understood the available research was far from conclusive and, out of an abundance of caution, we made earpieces widely available so our customers could keep the phone antennas as far from their heads as possible. To this day, no independent studies have clearly linked cell phones to cancer. And as health columnist Jane Brody noted in the New York Times, “While the incidence of brain tumors has risen slightly in recent years, there has been no disproportionate increase in tumors near the ears, despite a meteoric rise in cell phone use.”6 But one thing is certain: it is impossible to prove a negative.
So the communications industry continues to deal with scare mongering headlines. “Your cellphone is killing you,” read one. “What people don’t want you to know about electromagnetic fields.”7 The irony, of course, is that directing attention to a possible problem distracts people from a more serious hazard—using cell phones while driving. A study in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that drivers who use cell phones are four times as likely as nonusers to have an accident (Redelmerier and Tibsgirani, 1997). And texting while driving is even more dangerous.
From a Kantian perspective, an ethical approach to communication about cell phones would give people the information they need to make intelligent decisions about their use. That would certainly include putting cancer concerns into perspective and providing options for avoiding even the unlikely danger of excessive electromagnetic radiation from the phone’s antenna. But it would also draw people’s attention to the clear dangers of texting while driving.
Ethical considerations do not require companies to adopt a vow of silence when their interests are at stake. Herb Schmertz, who led Mobil public affairs in the 1970s and 1980s when the oil business was being attacked on multiple fronts, said he would not have been doing his job if the company had not participated in debates on public policies affecting his industry. And in 1971, when he came to believe that his company’s views were not being reliably reported, he invented the “paid op ed”—short essays that ran opposite the editorial page of newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. “If we didn’t participate, the debate would be skewed against us because our views were not included,” Schmertz said. “And we would have deserved what we got.”8 What readers got were lively and well-reasoned expressions of Mobil’s position on issues of the day. And according to a 1976 Harris survey, the public credited Mobil with being “the industry pacesetter on 19 of 21 issues” (Schmertz, 1986, p. 143). People even felt better about its gasoline, though it was never mentioned in the op eds and the company did no other advertising.
With all that, we are still left with the other half of the “validity” principle and the question we put in John Hill’s mouth: is it ever ethical to manipulate people’s emotions?
Public relations practitioners have used emotional appeals from the earliest days of the practice. As we have seen, Bernays exploited women’s understandable desire for independence to persuade them to smoke (see, for example, Christensen, 2012, February 27). Others have exploited people’s fears, appetites, and desires in the interests of promoting every imaginable product and cause. After all, people’s feelings are involved in virtually every decision we make.
Buying generic cereal may seem like a largely rational decision while reaching for one of the higher-priced brands seems more emotionally based. But in reality both are driven by emotions. In the one case, thrift; in the other, feelings of athleticism (Wheaties), nostalgia (Quaker Oats), fun (Fruit Loops), or any of dozens of emotional associations marketers have linked to their brand. In fact, neuroscientists have discovered that people who suffered damage to their center of emotions have difficulty making the most insignificant decision, like whether to have coffee or tea for breakfast (Damasio, 1994).
Some observers believe the practice of public relations has been a few jumps ahead of neuroscientists since the 1920s when it adopted the manipulative, emotion-laden techniques used by propaganda specialists in the First World War. In PR! A Social History of Spin, for example, Stewart Ewen (1996, p.401) maintains that public relations abandoned appeals to reason in the 1920s to concentrate on manipulating people’s emotions through imagery and the construction of superficial “impressions.” In Ewen’s view, “inspired by the propaganda successes of the wartime Committee on Public Information and fortified by theories of social psychology, corporate PR … increasingly sought to stroke and cajole the public psyche.”
We are not sure precisely what Ewen meant by “stroking and cajoling” the public psyche. But appealing to people’s emotions is not necessarily unethical. It can help draw attention to a basically rational message; it can make it more appealing, easier to understand, and more memorable. Emotion can move people to action without being coercive or clouding their thinking. For example, charities such as Save the Children and Doctors Without Borders use blatantly emotional appeals to raise money for their causes. Wireless companies around the world have used fear to convince people not to text while driving. And, as we have seen, even public health officials are using our natural instincts of revulsion to make people think twice before smoking a cigarette.
We have long considered emotion disruptive of rational thinking and thoughtful relationships. But scientists now believe emotion helps organize our thinking and structure our social interactions. For example, studies find that when we are angry we are acutely attuned to what is unfair, which helps animate actions that remedy injustice.9 From a Kantian perspective, emotion in the service of reason respects people’s autonomy and dignity. Emotion used to attract attention, to make information more meaningful, or even to motivate action can be ethical as long as the recipient retains the ability to make a reasoned, reflective, voluntary judgment. But it cannot be an illusory ability. Taking advantage of someone in an emotional state that inhibits his or her exercise of reason is no more ethical than exploiting someone under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Whether communicating through words, images, or music, respecting people’s dignity means keeping rational and emotional appeals in balance, being careful not to overwhelm people’s capacity to reason.
There is also a fine line between attracting attention and offending the very people one is trying to persuade. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, for example, gained lots of attention for the cause of vegetarianism with a 2004 campaign equating the slaughter of farm animals to the Holocaust (Freeman, 2007, May 23). But the campaign’s premise and its side-by-side use of concentration camp and slaughterhouse images also demonstrated a lack of respect for its audience’s feelings, severely undermining its credibility.
Kant believed the capacity to reason set human beings apart from other sentient beings. But he also thought reason was matched with another uniquely human quality—the good will to follow the ethical precepts reason reveals to us. That second part is an important aspect of autonomy. Kant did not think behavior could be considered ethical unless it stemmed from good will. People cannot be forced to act ethically. They should want to do their duty simply because it is their duty. Intention matters.
In fact, for Kant, intention—or good will—is all that matters. When we set out to do something, whether or not we achieve the goal we had in mind is often beyond our control. But if we do something because it is our correctly understood duty, according to the categorical imperative, we are acting ethically. Conversely, when we do something right, if we do it for any other reason than simply because it is right, we are not acting ethically. The example Kant (tr, Ellington 1785/1993, p. 10) gives is of a shopkeeper who does not overcharge a child, even though he knows he could get away with it. If his motivation is that he is afraid another customer will see him, he is not acting ethically. He would only be acting ethically if he did it because it is his duty to be honest.
Kant kicked up quite a storm in philosophical circles because of the emphasis he put on duty to the exclusion of consequences. We will look into that more deeply in the next chapter, but for now the lesson for us as public relations practitioners is that intention matters. In fact, as we will see, it may be what keeps us from joining the ranks of Nazi propagandists like Joseph Goebbels.
The Ethics of Advocacy
Not everyone believes that advocacy—or its more genteel cousin, persuasion—is an ethically appropriate and valid public relations function. In fact, it has been the subject of some confusion, especially between academicians and practitioners. Academics prefer to focus on public relations’ function of “building understanding” or “fostering dialogue,” while practitioners see their job more pragmatically. No less a figure than Harold Burson, the legendary founder of Burson-Marsteller, has told us, “Fundamentally, PR is about persuasion.”10 Yet the whole idea of persuading people feels a little dirty and unseemly to many scholars.
For example, public relations scholar James Grunig led a team of public relations researchers in a groundbreaking study for the International Association of Business Communicators in the 1980s and 1990s that happily seemed to confirm a theory of public relations he had been developing. According to the study (1991, p. 2):
CEOs believe that public relations departments should be characterized by participation in strategic management, symmetrical communication, combined judiciously with two-way asymmetrical communication, and leadership by communication managers rather than technicians.
Building upon role research by Glen Broom and David Dozier (1986) and others, Jim Grunig distinguished between public relations “managers” (i.e., those who plan and direct public relations) and “technicians” (i.e., those who actually perform public relations activities, such as media relations, employee communications, and speechwriting). He was delighted to find that many CEOs welcomed the participation of senior public relations “managers” in the company’s “dominant coalition” (i.e., its most senior policy-making ranks). By definition, he considered this a “strategic” role.
The references to “asymmetrical” and “symmetrical” communication went to the heart of a theory Grunig had developed with a colleague, Todd Hunt, and described in a 1984 book, Managing Public Relations. Grunig believed the practice of public relations was going in two incompatible directions. On the one hand, in many places, public relations departments continued to implement what he termed the “interpretive strategies” laid down by people like Ivy Lee, Edward Bernays, and even P.T. Barnum. Those strategies focus on publicity, information, persuasion, and advocacy. He termed the alternative approach “strategic.” This kind of public relations is integrated into an institution’s operations, focuses more on what the institution does than on what it says, and is primarily concerned with engaging in genuine dialog with stakeholders.
Interpretive public relations is “asymmetrical,” that is, information travels primarily in one direction, from client to public. Publicity, for example, is strictly one-way. Persuasive communications might seek data about the public in the design of its arguments, making it more two-way, but a lot more information flows toward the customer about the company than to the company about the customer. But “strategic” public relations is two-way and symmetrical. It relies on mutual give-and-take rather than on one-way persuasion, emphasizing negotiation and a willingness to adapt and make compromises.
The report that resulted from Grunig’s research, Excellence in Public Relations and Communications Management, made a huge impression on academics, many of whom had been searching for a “theory of public relations.” Grunig himself thought two-way symmetrical public relations was the wave of the future and considered it inherently more ethical than the old, asymmetrical model. There is little evidence the “excellence theory” has had much of an impact on practitioners.11 Curiously, it seems to be used more by nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and heavily regulated businesses such as public utilities than by competitive, profit-driven companies. But academic journals and conferences have been abuzz about it ever since it was introduced. The theory has figured in hundreds of published articles; Grunig alone has published more than 250. Part of the theory’s popularity is undoubtedly due to its strong historical and theoretical underpinnings. But some think its real attraction is that it provides an escape from the dominant criticism of public relations—that it is essentially propaganda, not much different than what Joseph Goebbels did for Hitler and the Nazis. In fact, many journalists and even some in the general public think if Goebbels were alive today, he would feel right at home advising corporations and political candidates.
After all, according to Grunig, old-style public relations’ emphasis on “messages, publicity, and media relations is designed to put up a smoke screen around the organization so publics cannot see the organization’s behavior as it truly is.”12 Indeed, Grunig once opined that “the asymmetrical worldview steers public relations practitioners toward actions that are unethical, socially irresponsible, and ineffective.… In spite of the good intentions of practitioners, it is difficult, if not impossible, to practice public relations in a way that is ethical and socially responsible using an asymmetrical model” (Grunig and White, 1992, p. 40).
In contrast, the two-way symmetrical model puts public relations executives in the middle of strategic decision making so they can help manage the behavior of organizations. It facilitates dialogue between management and its publics both before and after decisions are made, resolving conflicts and promoting understanding.
Many practitioners consider this a utopian ideal that has little practical application in the business world. Rather than leading to a joint discovery of the “truth,” they suggest symmetrical communications inevitably leads to a blind alley of endless debate in which an organization negotiates with multiple publics that have mutually exclusive goals or unrealistic demands. Rather than leading to understanding, such an exercise can result in resentment and feelings of betrayal.
In fact, Grunig never said public relations only role was two-way symmetrical dialog. Even back in 1991, he left room for the “judicious” use of asymmetrical communication. And later, he wrote, “In practice, professional public relations involves both asymmetrical (compliance-gaining) and symmetrical (problem-solving) tactics.” But then he could not resist hypothesizing, “the most effective public relations will fall toward the symmetrical end of the continuum” (Grunig and White, 1992, p. 12). So the debate continues, sometimes devolving into a forced march up semantic hill as people talk past each other, sometimes sinking into the hoary depths of systems theory.
But the bigger point here may be the original notion from which the symmetrical principle sprung—Grunig’s belief that “companies needed to be concerned about the welfare and the interest of their stakeholders as well as the organization’s interest itself.”13 In our experience, that is precisely what distinguishes excellent public relations practitioners from tiresome flacks. As Grunig pointed out from the very beginning, the value of public relations comes from the relationships it forms and nurtures with stakeholders.
Seeking to harmonize the policies and practices of an organization with the needs and interests of its stakeholders is the essence of public relation’s role in any organization. Sometimes that requires the organization to change attitudes and behavior; sometimes it means stakeholders change theirs. But it always requires dialog between the two parties. Persuasion based on argument is part of the dialog on both sides. The key difference is that both parties—organization and stakeholders—are open to the possibility of change or compromise and that their arguments are reasoned, not manipulative. (As a practical matter, this often requires public relations practitioners to direct their persuasive efforts to top management, as well as to the organization’s stakeholders.)
In this sense, persuasion is not always totally asymmetrical. When one of us was at AT&T, he directed on-going dialogs between senior executives and groups that represented stakeholders ranging from consumers and people with disabilities to small businesses and global enterprises. The goal was to consult with these groups as the company was developing products, services, and policies that would affect them in some way. We discussed everything from new service concepts and product introductions to pricing changes and regulatory filings. Input from those groups sometimes caused us to change our plans; the discussions almost always led to greater understanding of what the company was trying to do, even when the parties ultimately could not agree on some aspects of our plans. That may not have been the idealized model of symmetrical communication envisioned by the excellence model, but it gave stakeholders input into the company’s decision making to the benefit of both.
Today, of course, the publics affected by an organization’s policies and practices are not waiting for someone to muster them for dialog. They are already talking amongst themselves through social media and sharing information they themselves create. As Grunig points out, “it’s not so much a matter of controlling information going to publics but participating in their conversations.” Yet even in those instances, public relations practitioners unequivocally engage in persuasive communication.
Can persuasion, which by definition seeks to influence people’s attitudes or behavior, be ethical? Our answer is that it depends. As we have seen, truthfulness—including the principles of veracity, visibility, and validity—is a pivotal element of ethical communication. Ethical communication does not mislead, misinform, or deceive in action or intention. Ethical communication also respects reason. It allows people to make voluntary, informed, rational, and reflective judgments. And, yes, it is open to dialog because that is the essence of trusting relationships, which as Grunig correctly points out, is public relations’ ultimate goal.
The notion of intent, so critical to Kant’s thinking, deserves special attention. While persuasion and propaganda may share some techniques, their respective intents are decidedly different. Propaganda is self-interested and focused on its own goals even at the expense of its audience. In their classic study of propaganda, Garth Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell (1999, p. 14) identify the conceit at the heart of most propaganda—to make an audience think the propagandist has their interests at heart, while hiding their selfish motives. Ethical persuasion, on the other hand, genuinely considers the interests of the publics it addresses, which more often than not are revealed in two-way symmetrical communication somewhere in the process.
Summary
Under the conditions we have explored in this chapter, one could argue it is perfectly ethical to attempt to persuade or advocate people to change their minds, alter their behavior, or lend their support to a client’s cause. The key is to respect people’s right to reason. That capability, after all, is what separates human beings from all other creatures and enables us to set our own goals, giving us unique autonomy.
In fact, Kant believed reason reveals the ultimate principle of right and wrong—to act according to rules you would be willing to make universal. One such universal rule—or what Kant called a “categorical imperative”—is to never treat other people as a means to achieving your own goals, but to respect their inherent right to set their own. For public relations practitioners, that means balancing the interests of our clients and the people we’re trying to persuade or advocate.
That is the issue we’ll explore in the next chapter as we take up the next great ethical theory, utilitarianism, and one of its implications for the practice of public relations—serving the public interest.
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1 Kant himself seems to make this claim in the Preface to the second, heavily revised edition of his Critique of Pure Reason (1781, 1787). See http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4280/4280-h/4280-h.htm. Accessed July 22, 2015.
2 This and the following two quotes were attributed to John Hill, without citing a source, by John Hill II in a 1992 memo to Philip Morris lawyer Murray Bring, p. 16. See: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/eso87e00.
3 Quoted by John Hill II in a 1992 memo to Philip Morris lawyer Murray Bring, p. 11. See: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/eso87e00
4 Freeman, A.M., & Cohen, L.P. (1993, February 11). How cigarette makers keep health questions ‘open’ year after year. Wall Street Journal.
5 O’Connor, A. (2015, August 9). Coca-Cola Funds Scientists Who Shift Blame for Obesity Away from Bad Diets, The New York Times. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/coca-cola-funds-scientists-who-shift-blame-for-obesity-away-from-bad-diets/
6 Brody, J. (1998, August 18). Personal health: Health scares that weren’t so scary. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/18/science/personal-health-health-scares-that-weren-t-so-scary.html. Accessed July 22, 2015.
7 Blank, M. (2014, April 12). Your cellphone is killing you: What people don’t want you to know about electromagnetic fields. Salon. http://www.salon.com/2014/04/12/your_cellphone_is_killing_you_what_people_dont_want_you_to_know_about_electromagnetic_fields/. Accessed July 22, 2015.
8 Schmertz quote is courtesy of the The Museum of Public Relations, which interviewed him for its oral history. See http://www.prmuseum.org/videos/?rq=schmertz.
9 Dacher, K., & Ekman, P. (2015, July 5). The science of ‘Inside Out.’ The New York Times. http://nyti.ms/1LN9sQG.
10 Source: conversations and email exchanges with Harold Burson on April 3, 2014, and March 10, 2015.
11 A study of IABC members in 1987 revealed little evidence that the symmetrical model of public relations was being used by many practitioners. See David M. Dozier, “Importance of the concept of symmetry and its presence in public relations practice,” Paper presented to the Public Relations Interest Group, International Communications Association, San Francisco, May, 1989.
12 Grunig made these remarks during an online interview with a number of public relations people from around the world in late 2008. Toni Muzi Falconi moderated the interview and published excerpts on his blog, PR Conversations. Falconi, T.M. (2008, October 15). See Engaging (and grilling) the social side of James Grunig. http://www.prconversations.com/index.php/2008/10/engaging-and-grilling-the-social-side-of-james-grunig/. Accessed July 22, 2015.
13 Grunig devotes many of his public appearances to explaining and answering questions about his “excellence theory.” This and the next quote were taken from an October 17, 2010, joint presentation by Jim Grunig and his wife Larissa who is a widely published public relations theorist in her own right. See Public Relations Excellence 2010. Speech delivered at PRSA International Conference, Washington, DC. http://www.instituteforpr.org/wp-content/uploads/Third-Grunig-Lecture-October-17-2010-Transcript.pdf. Accessed July 22, 2015.