Media coverage of influencer marketing abounds with ethical questions about this emerging industry. Much of this coverage assumes influencers operate without an ethical framework and many social me...

ABSTRACTAdvertising and public relations executives claim the rules for ethical practices are changing. On the basis of 29 in-depth interviews with advertising and public relations executives, and an analysis guided by identity theories and moral justifications, new insights address the most pressing issues faced today, greater opportunities to behave unethically, and the lack of ethics training received. Some of the executives perceive a personal responsibility to be ethical, whereas others adopted a self-interested attitude by suggesting it’s the publishers’ or consumers’ (...) responsibility to make ethical decisions. Emerging marketing practices have increased the need for more ethics training and more sophisticated perspectives on professionalism and virtuous behavior that are also flexible enough to apply to envelope-pushing strategies. (shrink)

The purpose of this qualitative study is to answer calls to examine social media, ethical engagement, and marginalized publics. Findings suggest that strategic communication and public relations pr...

ABSTRACTResearch has found that ethics are most likely to be integrated throughout the curriculum rather than taught as a stand-alone course in public relations. However, this study identified substantial differences in the types of content taught in the two formats on the basis of survey research with 96 educators. Some of the topics that are less likely to be taught outside of an ethics course included other codes of ethics beyond those of the Public Relations Society of America, classical theories (...) by philosophers, decision-making models, the effect of organizational culture and values, and global perspectives on ethics. In addition, few educators reported that they discuss raising ethical concerns in their courses. (shrink)

This article examines byline issues and journalism ethics in an Asian context, with particular focus on how journalists invent and subsequently publish articles under various non-existent authors. The study took place between April and August 2022 in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, where ethical misbehavior in journalism is normalized and academic institutions in the region fail to develop students’ ethical approach to journalism. It is well known that journalists write about politically sensitive issues under pseudonyms or other names in authoritarian contexts, (...) but this study adds to scholarship exploring why and under what circumstances journalists in an Asian context use non-existent authors even when writing on nonsensitive and trivial matters. The findings suggest that journalists choose to and/or are forced to publish articles using multiple pseudonyms by political, economic, and individual circumstances. The findings are discussed in relation to the theory of deontological ethics. (shrink)