Tag: ethics

PR manifesto for combatting the Culture Wars

21st Century PR Issues maintains that within PR circles there is a near-universal conformity governing the industry’s self-destructive, poorly thought-through response to the Culture Wars. In short: the PR business is currently leading clients in the wrong direction. So here is a PR manifesto that sets out how things could be turned around so that we can help our clients keep their end up in the 21st_century Culture Wars. Read on ›

The Culture Wars: a PR perspective

Societies in the 21st century are increasingly defined by rapidly fragmenting socio-cultural outlooks and competing ways of life. Personhood has been politicised and commodified: we have identity politics and firms track our tastes. Whether it is the words we utter, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, or our taste in holidays, music and sport, or how we demarcate our sexual, racial or national identity, cultural chasms and schisms divide us, even as we are supposed to empathise more intensely and widely. Read on ›

Categories: Crisis management / Culture Wars / Political spin / Trust and reputations

12 July 2017

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Bell Pottinger South Africa, a reality check

What unites all the major political parties in South Africa: the African National Congress (ANC), the Democratic Alliance (DA), the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)? The answer is their determination to divide the country along pre-existing racial fault lines. Yet the DA, South Africa’s main opposition party, has had the audacity to lodge a misconduct claim against Bell Pottinger (BP) with the UK’s Public Relations and Communications Association, accusing it of “sow[ing] racial mistrust, hate and race-baiting, and [encouraging a] divided society”.  Read on ›

Categories: CSR reality check / PR issues

31 May 2013

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Getting to grips with corporate and PR ethics

This interview about corporate morals and ethics first appeared on Communication Director‘s website earlier this month. It records the conversation between the magazine’s leading editor, Dafydd Phillips, and me. Extracts from it were also quoted by Dafydd in the latest print version of Communication Director, in his piece Between Ethics and Morality (pages 52 -55). Read on ›