ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the effect of competing schools of public relation (PR) scholarship with their separate approaches to ethics. This generated a set of dimensions of best practice that were then offered as a universal framework for excellent PR. It built on the work of Grunig and Hunt, who wrote the first serious book about the theoretical and strategic principles of PR and formulated the famous four models of public relations communication. As Bivins points out, these tensions are not addressed by Grunigs two-way symmetric model or by the entirely insufficient Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) code of professional standards. The PR advocate is more reliant on marketplace theory than rhetoric. The attorney-advocate is a model of PR that was put forward by Barney and Black and developed by Fitzpatrick and Bronstein. This model recognizes that PR often plays a more asymmetrical or persuasive role than is encompassed by the Grunigian boundary spanner.
