Professionalism in UAE Companies Public Relations (Essay Sample)

Professionalism in UAE Companies' Public Relations
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Professionalism in UAE Companies' Public Relations
Introduction
To fully understand the application of professionalism in public relations in our institutions, it is very important to first understand the theoretical origins and the development of the concept, the institutional policies that have guided its implementation, and how public relation has being put in practice.
Professionalism in Public Relations has being accurately aligned with changes in consumer's interest that affect both preference and cultural trends in a business (Hunt, 2005). However, since this study tends to focus on the efforts that have promoted good professionalism in higher learning institutions that promote good public relation, there are a number of changes that has resulted such that in today's world people are less responsive to professional pressures, mostly in advertising (Duncan, 2002). Companies, Institutions, and Firms have sought out various trends of promoting their goods and services. This is where the concept of Public Relations comes in.
For this reason, I begin this chapter by discussing definition of public relation. This shall be followed by discussion on the public relation concept of professionalism, followed by a section on how it has evolved through ethical concerns and theories. The corporate social responsibilities under the principle shall also be discussed. The concept of social interaction and personal perceptions of UAE companies shall be discussed.
In order to delve deeper into intricacies of profession in the boardroom of UAE companies, I shall then discuss further insights into the concepts of Public Relation theories as it has evolved from relevant social theories. This shall be followed by a section on theoretical framework of professionalism in public relation wherein I shall extensively discuss Public Relations education and professionalism to provide a foundation for understanding and investigating whether PR is seen in the boardroom of UAE companies. Finally, I shall describe professionalism policies that have influenced the introduction of public relation in university sector and identify the barriers to adopting "excellent" public relation based on research questions followed by the conclusion of the review.
Public Relation (PR)
Due to stiff competition of organizations, the distance between public relations (PR) has greatly widened (Moloney, 2005). Factors such as economical, political, social, and technological changes has gradually shaped and reshaped organizational activities. Consequently, these changes have found a lot of reflection in public relation. According to Wakefield & Cottone (1986) Public Relations education in university sectors should be planned carefully so that graduate will be ready to meet the needs of changing public relation demands.
From research carried out, very little has been done on the investigation of profession and education during the past decade. Cheng and Gregorio (2008) states that students and their teachers should be connected in their studies, educational materials, work, and the system they require in the industry. This is promoted by public relations tactics they acquire in university sector.
Public relations as earliest defined (and still holds true even today) is said to be the attempt by information, persuasion and adjustment to engineer public support for a given activity, movement, cause or institution (Bernays, 1995). For the past years, people have believed that Public Relations practices were largely phenomenon in 20th century. This was until after 15 years when the origin of "modern" public relations has being traced on early 20th century practices especially in UK and US (Sriramesh 2009). Scholars such as Bentele and Wehmeyer (2009) have tried to trace the roots of "modern" Public Relations in Germany and how it has affected institutional learning. Other scholars have researched on public relation from other countries of the world (Sriramesh, 2009) based on various topics.
Majority of studies based on professionalism in public relation and educational matter have been researched especially in the years 1980s and 1990s, this is according to the claim by Niemann and Meintjes (2008). However, this issue never attracted much attention in the new millennium and it seems to be assumed with the exception of only few scholars in research field. According to Gupta 2007, he states that: "it is important to recognize, however, that the value and the body of knowledge of a profession must be constantly evaluated, researched and revised through persistent research" (Gupta, 2007, p. 306). We need, therefore, to ask several research questions that will guide in the study.
Critically speaking, the perception we get about professionalism of PR practitioners from Gupta (2007); the opinion of lecturers and students on public relations education and teaching from Niemann and Meintjes (2008), views of public relations on academics given by Cheng (2008), and further research on public relations role beliefs of students and teachers by Berkowitz (2008) have greatly gained attention by a number of scholars. However, according to Bardhan (2003) perspectives on the profession and education in public relation students have not been researched in detail. Consequently, it is of great importance to get student's ideas on intricacies of profession in the boardroom of UAE companies. This study explicitly examines educational and professional issues in public relations, barriers to its success, and how gender equality in public relation can be improved.
Ethical concerns in Public Relations
* Description of public relation profession
Public relations profession has brought a number of ethical considerations into the light due its increased popularity. Over a period of the last two decades public relation was frequently associated with fashionable models in various companies of UAE (Bowen, 2009). However, there are a number of ethical problems in portrayal of public relations professional as well as in mass media. As a result, Bowen (2009) complains about misleading information and misconception on the role, aims, activities, and the physical functions of PR given in both news media and entertainment media houses. This creates a barrier to adopting "excellent" public relations in university sector. However, Ames' investigation (2010) is in contrast to Bowen's (2009) investigation. Ames (2010) found out those public relations professions' image is now less negated than displayed earlier. This was based on major films from Mars Attack in 1996 to Hancock in 2008.
According to John (2003), his research examines the description of public relations in news media and he found out that there were negative connotations of professionalism public relations roles and operations in various stories in the mass media (John, 2003). John's caution is that "because the general public from all the edges of the world sees the world via the lenses of the mass media, then journalists' choice of words has a great impact on common people's understanding of any subject (John, 2003, p.398). On the other hand, White and Park (2010) suggest that public perceptions should match media portrayal; they highlight that misperception will always destroy credibility of the profession in public relations.
Turkish national newspaper investigated on public relations in relation to ethical portrayal and found out that the general picture tends to be neutral with 66%; and averagely negative portrayal is 18.7% while positive description is 16.3%.
* Gender imbalance in PR
Public relation has rapidly gained popularity and thus has attracted many employees in UAE Companies (Ruler, 2005). However, there is gender imbalance in public relations sector especially in the university sector (Farmer & Waugh, 1999). According to the statistics given by Sha and Toth (2005) female oriented occupy 70% and 30% men. The gap between the two is so huge to cover. Theus (1985) give the reason is because initially women enrollment in public relations schools (communication schools) in big number as compared to male counterparts. In return, public relations occupation boomed with more entrance of women than men recently (Hust, 2005).
Nevertheless, this occupation is more of female oriented than males. This is because female counterparts see themselves in fields that are more technical than managerial ones (Toth, 1988). Consequently, students who are the future practitioners view gender disparity problem as gender inequity in promotion of professionalism in public relations; they base their arguments on advancements and salaries (Toth and Cline, 1991). However, this gender differences in one's income is basically based on women's tendency to having time-out from their professions to raise their kids more than men as presented by Okura (2007) in his thesis.
How Public Relations practitioners relate with journalist.
Research has found out that people in public relation take publicity with more value than advertising and they willingly pay double or triple than what advertising is worth (McGee, 1996). In his book, Grunig (1992) clearly states the importance of giving the profession the name of "public relations”. His emphasis is on the "s" in place of "publics relations" which in his concern proof to be a solution to media problems and she reasons this as follows, and I quote; "a new name might be in be in order: "publics relation," rather than "public relations." By making the first world plural, public relations practitioners might come to regard communities, governmental agencies, stockholders, and financial analysts, employees, labor unions, competitors, suppliers, clients, and pressure groups at least as important as the media (Grunig, 1992, p129).
Th...