Discussion Questions
Chapter 6
PR Ethics and Responsibilities
1. From where do you think you have learned your personal values that will help you to
practice ethical public relations? From where have you learned your pre-professional
values?
2. Can ethics be taught? Can practitioners know ethical behavior, that is, what is right
and wrong in professional practice, but yet not practice such behavior they know to be
right? Explain your answer. Do you think practitioners become more ethical or less
ethical or remain about the same in their ethics from the time they begin their careers
to the time they are senior-level practitioners? Why?
3. How can students prepare for ethical public relations practice? What types of
education (for example, coursework) would be helpful? What types of other
resources would be valuable to help you learn what is ethical public relations
practice?
4. Who is ultimately ethically accountable for the ethical behavior of a corporation—the
organization or its individual employees? Provide reasons to explain why you answered
the way you did.