Ethical Communication: the best advice is to think thrice!

Jaëlle-Laurence Günther

Going through a crisis is damaging for any organization. However, how that crisis is handled can determine the turn of the events or even the future of the company. It is in this case that public relation practitioners play a crucial role, as they significantly shape the information that is going to be communicated to the public. In order to handle the crisis in a constructive way, one of the most essential tasks for the company is to communicate in an ethical way.

Transparency is key

Ethical communication is very important, as it not only impacts an organization’s reputation, but it also influences its credibility and the morale of its employees. In their article  crisis communication and ethics, Yan Jin, Augustine Pang and Joshua Smith argue that one of the most important principles to consider when communicating in an ethical way is transparency. In order to be trusted by its stakeholders and the public, an organization must be honest and truthful, in other words, it has to embrace transparency.

https://flic.kr/p/264CL63

Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica crisis is a perfect example of how a lack of transparency can lead to a massive crisis. In 2018, it was revealed that social media giant Facebook had been selling some of its users’ private information. It all started in 2014 when the company Cambridge Analytica began to buy this information from Facebook. These exchanges kept on going for a couple of years until, eventually, the private information of 87 million users had been disclosed. Cambridge Analytica, for their part, were selling this information to politicians so that the users’ voting intentions could be influenced. Facebook was thus selling people’s information, without their consent, in order for it to be used for political advertising. In this case, the lack of transparency is one of the primary circumstances that led to the crisis. Facebook was not being honest with its users and did not tell the truth about what they were doing with their public’s information.

One single set of information

Another important notion to keep in mind when communicating ethically is consistency. The information released after a crisis must be consistent across its sources. The different people from the organization that are set to speak up after a crisis must all hold the same speech. This also reflects on the company’s transparency. If the top management and the spokespersons do not all release the same information, the company will not come across as honest and it will be difficult for the stakeholders and the public to trust the organization.

Fashion faux pas

Last but definitely not least, one should consider the importance of knowing the context and nature of the crisis. An organization’s ethical standards can be influenced by the context or the external environment. In November 2018, in anticipation of their upcoming fashion show in Shanghai, Dolce & Gabbana released a video advertisement in which a Chinese woman was featured struggling to eat spaghetti and pizza with chopsticks. The video immediately faced some major backlash and was classified as being racist and as promoting racial stereotypes. This communicational crisis is a great example of context inadequacy. This scandal could have been avoided if the brand had consulted their local Chinese team in order to get sensible input about the cultural context and the external environment in which the advertisement was going to be released.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzoxIb2Fa74

Transparency, consistency and context are proof that in order to communicate in an ethical manner, one should not think twice, but rather three times before reaching out to the public.  

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About the author: Jaëlle-Laurence Günther is a master student at the University of Amsterdam where she is pursuing studies in the field of Entertainment Communication. Having always been attracted to the artistic and creative field, she wishes to work as a manager or PR manager in the music industry.

References: 

Jin, Y., Pang, A., & Smith, J. (2018). Crisis communication and ethics: the role of public relations. Journal of Business Strategy, 39(1), 43–52. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBS-09-2016-0095Links to an external site.