Media Framing and Ethics

Working with news media is central to daily ethical public relations practice. In fact, beyond conveying our news to internal stakeholders, media are perhaps the most important group with whom we must communicate. Why? Media are a primary source from which the public learns about what is happening in their individual communities. Media wield great power in shaping the public agenda, and what the publics “knows” about what is happening in the world around them. Consequently, in public relations we must rely on the media to help relay our organization’s news to our key external publics—the many, diverse individuals and stakeholders our organizations serve, including investors, consumers, community leaders, business partners, and opinion shapers. Accordingly, we must understand the processes through which media tell (and our publics hear) today’s news. Scanning, analyzing, and working with the media ultimately has important ethical implications for how we, in turn, responsibly shape our own message and contribute to the public conversation.

Before we dive into the ethical mandate public relations has in working with the media, though, it is important first to explore the powerful agenda setting role of the media itself.

This module created by Dr. Dean Mundy, University of Oregon, consists of two lessons:

1. Media's Agenda Setting Role
2. Public Relations' Media Scanning Role