Ethical Regulations and Legal Provisions in Professional Communication

Running Head: Law Media Communication
Law Media Communication
Essay
System04104
8/5/2019

Law Media Communication
1
How do Ethical Regulations and Legal Provisions Compel
Professional Communicators to Consider the Public
Interest?
Role of media termed as the one of the important part of democratic societies. The role of
media is to inform and aware about the information and educate them about their rights. For
example, the media can deliver relevant information that voters need to make informed
choice in the election. The media can provide information to the public that how they are
going to vote in an election. However, in current and modern days the role of media is
affected with so many factors such as political pressures, biasness of one party, false news,
espionage, and spin doctoring (Toledano and Wolland, 2011). These terms are supposed to be
unethical ways in public relation. In such scenario, the role of legal provisions and ethical
regulations are so important to control the unethical practices of communicators or mass
media channels. The central purpose of this report is to provide an overview of ethical
regulations and legal provisions in public relations, discuss the effect of these factors on
communicators to consider the public interest.
The professional communicators refer to those people who are very professional in their field
and follow the basic principles of communication in their way of communication. Hundreds
of thousands of communicators worldwide engage in communication activities that affects
the lives of millions of people worldwide. This is the reason that the communication power
carries various social responsibilities. The International Association of Business
Communicators (IABC) developed the code of ethics for the professional communicators to
control unethical and unusual practices of professional communicators (Chaturvedi and
Gupta, 2014). However, the role of ethical regulations in the professional communication is
necessary that determines the role of a professional communicator to consider the interest of
public. Some experts also say that a person will became as a professional communicator with
increasing knowledge and experience. A professional communicator always understands
what they are delivering to the people and which types of audience is the target for the
delivered information. Communication is an art and it must be known by the professional
people before delivering the message to the audience (Ferguson, 2018).

Law Media Communication
2
The democratic principle ‘freedom of speech’ states that every people have right to freely
express their opinion, views, and ideas. People have also right to raise the questions against
the government or criticise them for their actions (Happer and Philo, 2013). These features of
democracy enable the media as free and independent media. The professional communicators
in the journalism and PR are also free to investigate, debate, reports, and discuss the matter,
which is necessary for the society. The media is also free to cover new stories. Role of
professional communicators in both print and electric media is so crucial. The professional
communicators not only need to honest with others rather they should also responsible and
honest with themselves. It is the primary requirement of any professional communicator
(Eisenlohr, 2011). However, in the modern time of tough competition in the journalism and
TV channels, media forget the actual role of it. In such a scenario, compel the professional
communicators to deliver authentic and real information to public is necessary for a strong
democratic country like India. Indian is a one of the largest democratic country in the world
and the role of media in this country is so crucial as it helps the people to knew about their
ethical and constitutional rights and know about what happening around them. However, it
has been noted that autonomy of media and professional communicators leads to some
unethical journalism practice in the country (Kent, 2013). The professional communicators
forget their role and they are following the TRP and publicity in the public. Therefore, it is
really important for the ethical regulations and legal provisions to guide, control, and compels
the professional communicators to consider the public interest with only authentic and true
information (Jones and Pusey, 2010). A professional communicator is responsible to tell truth
and convey authentic message or information to the public. However, if the communicator
forgets its responsibility and convey biased or false message to people then it really affect the
democracy principles of a country. For the example, media in India is so called free and
independent. Indian is one of the large democracies in the world and its population is more
than 1.3 billion. The large number of people watching TV and reading newspaper and these
two are the major sources of providing information to the people (Hansson, 2017). In such a
scenario, if the media share fake news and unauthentic news to the people then it really
affects the interest of people and lead to misshapen in the country. There are so many
professional communicators in Indian print and electronic media. However, the independency
of these media channels and flexibility in law and regulations enables them to provide false
and inappropriate news to the people of India. A strict regulation in the country related to
professional communicators is really necessary because it helps the country to convey only