From a journalistic point, it is unethical, unprofessional ans irresponsible to accept what those so-called TV beam to Arab viewers. All this frantic campaign was carried out with the soon-to-be unelected Gamal’s green light. Also, we learn from this campaign that all those journalists have no journalistic background. I believe that media schools in Egypt have to shut down immediately, otherwise we will see another wave of irresponsible journalists. The stark evidence is that all Arab and Western media, including Al Arabiya — pro-Egyptians/Saudis — and Al-Jazeera with its two versions, not to mention CNN and French televisions have vehemently criticized the way Egyptians are behaving.

From an Algerian point, I believe that Algeria has tactfullyand diplomatically handled the situation and left the Egyptian media barking till now without reacting to their provications. The Algerian TV continued to broadcast celebrations across the country and abroad. In such case, we learn one thing that the Algerian diplomacy school has no link with the Egyptian one. It more advanced and responsible. The Egyptian diplomacy is similar to President Bush’s one: offensive, agressive, preemptive.

From all this, I learned one thing that the Egyptians are living one of their countless movies. But the problem is the Egyptians found diffuculties to come up with a good name .

From Hastings’ Social Marketing book I understood that social marketing is about using marketing techniques developed in the commercial sector to bring about individual changes and of course behaviors notably behaviors that might be harmful like smoking, speeding…For instance, if marketing can get us to buy a Ferrari, it can also encourage us to drive safely.

Hastings set out a number of principles for social marketing. He mainly focused his theory on the human behavior and communication techniques. He also looks at relationships with stakeholders, social marketing competition, research and ethical issues.

I came to the conclusion that social marketing is gaining ground in different sectors for various reasons, particularly for its social aspect which aims at changing human behaviors but without forgetting the economic ends.

For any public relations professionals whose job is transnational, the primary question that we should pose:  do PR practitioners need to comply with the procedures of host countries, adopt formulae intended to represent the international norms or act in a way that prompts the practitioners to work in a “gloclized context” which means balancing between the local and the international standards.

In his book titled “Globalization for Development”, John Maynard Keynes defines glocalisation as “the process whereby global corporations tailor products and marketing to particular local circumstances to meet variations in consumer demand”. The glocal approach is frequently used in international contexts.

However, other scholars believe that the best approach to establish international public relations is to focus more on the cultural understanding aspect. Those scholars argue that the most important aspects that should be taken into account when communicating with publics at international level are: the country profile, including the local political, economic and media landscape as well as the legal, cultural and social structures. I support this approach as I believe that what is applicable in China will not necessarily succeed in Kuwait and vice versa.   

The best approach is therefore to balance between the locally perceived good and the internationally recognized norms under the international laws, treaties and agreements. Thus, it is highly recommended for any PR practitioners with the intention to work at international level to fluently speak the local language and being a good culture explorer. Finally, one thing that should be seriously taken into consideration is that Global PR practitioners should not stay in their “ivory tower”, otherwise there would be a backfire!

However, I would say that my female classmates who strongly opposed women progressing in the public relations industry were totally wrong. Women have “successfully infiltrated” realms that were completely male-closed professions like business and politics either in “liberal or in extremely conservative societies”. For instance, we have Margaret Thatcher who was called the “Iron Woman” for being a strong female leader as well as Benzir Bhutto who was elected prime minister in a very religiously conservative country. Recently in Algeria, a woman – Louisa Hanoune — announced her candidacy for the second time for the presidential elections slated for April 2009.  These few examples squash the idea that women have not reached their professional peak. They have reached more than what they were expecting. If they have managed to rule nations, how it would be difficult for them to run a PR agency or an in-house communication department!!

Shell PR disasters in Nigeria have therefore prompted the business world to reconsider its communication strategies about the importance of public reputations and the ability of campaigners to damage them.

According to Corporate Watch, Shell spent £20 million on its PR offensive to restore its reputation. Also, Shell was bound to issue a statement in which it has outlined its principles and core values like ‘honesty, integrity and respect for people as well as openness and dialogue.”

But is it enough to announce good intentions and take good actions to show to the public how the corporate was socially responsible? I think that those major companies cannot ignore the profits they gain from their investments and the CSR programmes they fund account for a very tiny amount of the whole revenues they collect annually. I think rolling out CSR schemes will certainly achieve the short and medium term objectives. But if we look at the long-term objective, those giant companies will continue to amass huge amounts of money despite their large number of “hate-mongers”. They are the winner in any case!!  

In its 2004 report entitled “Behind The Mask: The Real Face Of Corporate Social Responsibility”, Christian Aid states that CSR is being used as a public relations tool and believes it is no coincidence that companies in areas such as oil, mining and tobacco are its biggest public champions. Is it true that blue-chip CSR is just throwing powder in eyes!

In short, despite these arguments I believe that the code of ethics is more a question of personal behaviors and morals than a written code of ethics that all practitioners have to abide by. Also, PR professionals have to work hard to remove this label and perception which associates PR to unethical behaviors as other professions did.

In this case H&K has not only breached its internal ethics – if there is any – but also the universal ethics and international law. Saddam’s regime committed a lot of “atrocities against his own people” and there was no need to create other atrocities to drum up support for the war. Here, the firm openly and publicly recognized that it was just looking for money and ethics were totally forgotten. Thus, hidden purposes were behind the war.

Many perceptions support the idea that associates public relations profession with all unethical behaviors and attitudes such as – lying, spin-doctoring, and even espionage. The critics of public relations argue that there can be no ethical public relations because the practice itself is akin to manipulation and propaganda. Taking into consideration what PR outsiders  – particularly journalists and policy-makers — say about this profession, I came to the conclusion that there is a certain negative perception which says that ‘public relations ethics’ is either an unreal possibility or smoke and mirrors to hide deception.

While I was browsing some documentation on the link between PR and ethics, I came across with many PR watchdogs groups and academics who still perceive PR as a fishy profession. For instance, Groups like the Center for Public Integrity (http://www.publicintegrity.org/default.aspx) criticize the public relations industry for a lack of ethics, counting the influence of public relations and lobbying as one of the primary threats to truthful journalism.

Other groups like Corporate Watch(http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=1) are less restrained in their criticism and consider public relations firms and professionals as deliberately unethical: “There is a considerable body of evidence emerging to suggest that modern public relations practices are having a very significant deleterious impact on the democratic process … by giving vested interests the opportunity to deliberately obfuscate, deceive, and derail public debate on key issues the public relations industry reduces society’s capacity to respond effectively to key social, environmental and political challenges”. (http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=1570)

Reading what others say about us, I think we have a lot of to do to change that perception and show in reality that any practitioners can make mistakes, including PR professionals.