2-2 Short Paper- Code of Ethics Case Study
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Southern New Hampshire University *
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227
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Communications
Date
Feb 20, 2024
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docx
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Southern New Hampshire University
COM 227 – Public Relations
Jason Becker
Maricarmen Watson
2-2 Short Paper: Code of Ethics Case Study
After reading the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) codes of ethics, I can say that Paul Frank’s violation was wrong and inappropriate, they violated a couple of codes, from the IABC they violated the sensitive to other’s cultural values and beliefs, we saw this in the Fashion’s Night Out extravaganza of 2012 in which they decided to go with a Native American theme, which it is not a bad theme in general, but they presented it in a wrong way, some examples of it was when they
started using wrong terminologies and showed children "playing Indian" in photos posted to PFI's social media pages, alcoholic beverages with names like "neon teepee" and "dream catcher" were offered, and bow and arrow props were used; which describes what we know as cultural appropriation. The public relations team should have immediately take down all native American allusions from the social media, then advise the marketing and executives team to either cancel the party or change the theme, and last launch a communication to all their audience explaining themselves, taking responsibilities from their actions, and explaining how they would fix their mistake.
The other code that was violated was suppression of freedom of speech, we saw how in many of the Facebook posts they decided to just delete the negatives comments, depriving people from expressing their thoughts on social media. Many things were poorly handled by the company, apologizing, and still throwing the party was one big mistake, the apology does not count if you are still doing wrong, their words lost meaning due to their actions; under the PRSA Disclosure of Information clause, PR professionals are urged to be honest and precise in all communications
with the public (Code of Ethics 2019).
For this issue the public relations team should have responded by being forthright about their errors and taking into consideration the delicate feelings of the public, not censoring those that did not agree with the event. The best way to handle situations like this, the PR team must devise
a successful crisis communication plan and inform the public of the steps they did to train their staff in appropriate cultural representation and behavior.
References:
IABC Code of Ethics for Professional Communicators
. (n.d.). https://www.iabc.com/About/Purpose/Code-of-Ethics
Beninger, S., Francis, J. N. P., & Harvard Business Publishing Education. (n.d.). PAUL FRANK AND NATIVE AMERICAN STEREOTYPES: A CASE OF MISAPPROPRIATION
. https://services.hbsp.harvard.edu/lti/links/content-launch. https://services.hbsp.harvard.edu/lti/links/content-launch
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