PR Always Professional?

Emily Finton

ef385214@ohio.edu

Astroturfing as a Gold Mine

In my opinion, astroturfing can be the most deceiving and unethical way to get information out to the public. By making people believe that they are supporting or disapproving a cause where the source is not who they think is completely dishonest. It's 2017 and technology is only advancing, so the several ways to astroturf are multiplying possibly to the point of the unknown. From the article we read this week, The need to protect the internet from 'astroturfing' grows even more urgent, proves how powerful astroturfing has grown, even to the military level.

US Air Force Thunderbirds Picture by Don Sullivan

If the military has been trying to apply this software, then we can begin to imagine the corporate levels. That's where PR professionals have a growing opportunity for ethical conflict. To know what is happening as an employee, and what their employer wants.  

As provided by the PRSA, "We serve the public interest by acting as responsible advocates for those we represent. We provide a voice in the marketplace of ideas, facts, and viewpoints to aid informed public debate."

So if you take the PRSA's advocacy statement and apply it to the several fake grassroot operations, you understand why the PR professionals have to make the decisions they do. CEO's and managers of large corporations make decisions and leave PR professionals with the weight of sharing what is truthful to the public, how it will affect their fellow employees, or instead favor the public's interest.

A New Era For Communicating Values - Corporate Communications: Now More Than Ever was published in 2003, so we can imagine the growth for control in the corporate field over what is communicated to the public in 2017 and on. Although it states that CEO'S are trying to become more truthful and that IR's and PR's should be more connected at the hip, we know that is not what always happens. Since then there has been several new social medias created that make it effortless to create personas and content under artificial names. It is almost impossible to know if a person is who they say they are on the internet unless there is a certain verification. But even now with all of the "fake news" and distrust, how are journalists supposed to even identify sources clearly, when the sources could be lying?