Blog Post 2- Themes reflection
When speaking about my chosen career path I find myself using the term manipulation a lot and I hear the term cover-up being used frequently in relation to PR because publicists help sell the goods and services, contribute to building relationships with stakeholders and deal with crisis management. Studying better lives made me acknowledge what a key part ethics plays in my future career path. It has made me question what my professional boundaries within my chosen profession are.
After being educated on the theme of social responsibility it is given me more of an insight into what kind of publicist I would like to be when I enter the industry officially. I firstly want to state that I would like to be an educated publicist that is aware of how to appropriately represent and discuss other parties. In Roman Krznaric’s text ‘The empathy instinct’ he states “My point is simple: the vast majority of us have assumptions and prejudices about others. We are prone to stereotyping, (…).” I find this statement to be very a true and in support of my own ethics I believe we should be educated in the field we are discussing before we discuss it in order to make sure that everyone is portrayed in the correct light, with assistance of social media you will be held socially responsible for the what you say. Educating yourself on social issues will help you avoid saying the wrong thing as you become more socially conscious.
In addition, I would like to be an honest publicist which ties into earlier mention of manipulation. There is a lot of conflicting ideas about the role of a publicist, one of the most common ideas is that publicists help manipulate the public into purchasing a goods and service that they might not realise they need or want. For example, Edward Bernays encouraging women to start smoking by referring to cigarettes as ‘Torches of freedom’ in order to use the feminist movement to increase the sales of cigarettes by opening a new market. I believe that helping companies be more transparent and honest with their customers is extremely important in building customer loyalty in our contemporary society. As there has been a large increase in cancel culture within the fashion industry and companies are being held accountable for their actions in relation to social political issues such as diversity and sustainability.
In conclusion, I think that better lives has helped me realise how important it is to be practising our degrees ethically and how important it is to be educated on political issues as they weave into the fashion industry immensely. I think we should be striving to do better, better than we previously knew, better than the people before us knew as society is slowly becoming more progressive. I strongly believe we should all be striving to be part of the solution to these issues rather than being part of the problem!