The regulation and licensing in Public Relations, appears to be hot topic in contemporary PR. I personally feel licensing would actually raise and support PR’s claim to be a credible profession. The question of ‘professionalism’ has shadowed PR’s creditability along with the practice of ‘spin’ which is related to Edward Bernays notion of ‘propaganda’.
Public relations’ is often compared with more academically accepted professions such as law or medicine when arguing for the strict regulation of the practice. Many practitioners lack any formal degrees or education which is compulsory in law or medicine. However, the PR practice is relatively new in comparison with these ‘classic’ professions. L’Etang & Pieczka (2001) observe one aspect as to why education is not highly recognised.
“Practitioners do not identify specific knowledge but rather focus on personal qualities such as creativity, lateral thinking, flexibility, articulateness, persuasiveness, common sense and integrity”
I would argue that licensing is needed as this would mean that Public relations would not be deemed as a ‘mickey mouse’ subject in addition to this education would also become more valued and with it the regulating institution such as the CIPR which formulate many of the university courses. This would also lead to more investment in research institutions to develop the standards for this practice. Further more, the bad press such as ‘spin & propaganda’ which PR receives due to poor practitioners who do not care about the future or integrity of this practice.
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ReplyDeleteTony, I think you have hit the nail on the head here. As soon as certain PR practitioners stop getting caught up in producing "spin and propaganda", in order to generate news, the better and more credible the industry will be for it.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that more often than not, Public Relations is seen as a "mickey mouse" subject, when truthfully it is a crucial line of work in the economy this day and age.
Like you mentioned, the way forward to legitimise the profession is for the CIPR to be more proactive in their approach. They have to create more university courses and raise awareness about the importance of PR as an occupation.