Professionalism in UAE Companies Public Relations - 5775 Words

Professionalism in UAE Companies Public Relations (Essay Sample) Content: Professionalism in UAE Companies' Public RelationsNameInstitutionInstructorTaskDate dueProfessionalism in UAE Companies' Public RelationsIntroductionTo 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, Inst itutions, 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 f oundation 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 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 teache rs 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 professionPublic 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 re sult, 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 PRPublic 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 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 relationsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ . 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...