Etik, öppenhet och relationer : Svenska PR-konsulters syn på sitt arbete

Sammanfattning: This essay concerns PR-consultants and their view on their work. The purpose was to find out which type of communication they use in contact with the target. By target, we mean the group of people the employer wants to reach with help of the PR-consultant. For example: Jägarförbundet wants to get help from a PR-consultant to influence someone in the government so that Swedish hunters can shoot more wolves, than the target group is the one in the government. We also wanted to find out if the PR-consultants are aware of the image the public have of them and if they are trying to change it into a more positive one, by using more ethics, openness and to have more focus on the relations aspect.  PR in the future with new social media (like Internet) was also a subject, where we wanted to know how much they involve social media in their work.    Our main questions were: How do PR-consultants relate to openness in communication, ethics and social media? Which one of Grunig’s PR-models is most occuring in the PR-consultants work?   We made a qualitative study where we carried out interviews with six PR-consultants. They had different alignments and titles but they had PR-work in common. The results showed that the PR-consultants are aware of their image in public and they are active in trying to make a better image of them. They do appreciate openness, truth and ethics and they are willing to inform people about their work and their methods. The study also showed that they use social media as much as the other, more traditional media, but  the choice of medium depends on the target. The general understanding by the PR-consultants is that the social media makes it easier having a dialogue with the target. Regarding Grunig and his PR-models, the result showed that there are several models that occur. These are the public information, the two-way asymmetrical and the mixed-motive-model. Together they fulfil the demands on truth, dialogue and the possibility in compromising. Althogh they all have elements of persuasion and influences.