Is Persuasion Unethical?

Public relation practitioners have the difficult task of persuading the audience enough to change their bias, but not so severe that they feel offended, mislead, or disrespected. Public relations is defined by the Public Relations Institute of Australia as, "The deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organisation (or individual) and its (or their) publics" (PRIA, 2013). The practitioner's successes heavily on the relationships between the targeted publics, and the organisations. Therefore, some would go to extreme lengths to achieve their goals in persuading the audience in controlled, manipulative, unethical ways. To be unethical in persuasion can be defined as, "to falsify or fabricate, to distort so the true intent is not conveyed, to make conscious use of specious reasoning, and to deceive the audience about the communicators' intent" (Johannesen, 1967, p. 22). Persuasion can definitely become an unethical communicative tool, when used in an inappropriate manner.

Propaganda is "the deliberate and systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions and direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist" (Jowett & O'Donnell, 1992, p. 4). This communicative tool that has been used by many powerful organisations, individuals, interest groups and political parties, such as the Australian Labor Party. The ALP uses propaganda in an effort to gain and retain voters when it comes to elections. Mediums used to communicate this could be in posters or television commercials, which Public Relations practitioners would run to show the best qualities the party deems to possess. However, by communicating a one sided view, the receiver of the message is getting persuaded on half the facts. "Practitioners spread the faith of the organisation involved, often through incomplete, distorted, or half true information" (Hunt & Grunig, 1984, p. 315). An example of this kind of unethical propaganda was in 2012, when the ALP produced a Facebook Group called "Students against School Cuts", which appears to be created by school students, when in reality, was produced by the ALP. This "rise of self-production" (O'Shaughnessy, 2012, p. 5) ignores the right that the receiver has, to then make a fully informed decision. Writer Kevin Moloney describes unethical propaganda as being "weak propaganda", as it lacks substance, realism, and messages that the receiver cannot possibly relate to as the substance would be most likely fake, misleading, or exaggerated to some extent. Propaganda as an unethical persuasive tool, as well as persuasion performed in an ethical manner, both manipulate messages (Markova, 2008, p. 37), however it comes down to how the messages are being presented which questions their morality and fairness to the receiver.

According to professors David Shaw and Bernice Elger, there are three parts when it comes to persuasion. The first being the removal of bias, then there is a recommended new course of action, and finally there is a creation of a new bias. This final part is the most vulnerable for being influenced and manipulated if persuaded unethically (2013, p. 1689). Creating a new idea or judgement over the initial response is what public relation practitioners want to achieve, specifically when it comes to marketing for a company or organisation. When promoting or trying to sell a product, practitioners try to persuade the target publics that what the company has, is what they need to have. Many past campaigns has shown practices of unethical persuasion, for instance, "animated television series aimed at children