Public relations, journalism, marketing and advertising are increasingly overlapping, often leading to ethical conflicts in everyday communication practice. The research project “Blurring Boundaries. Ethical Challenges in Communication Practice” aims to identify possible coping strategies. Gisela Reiter, Teaching & Research Associate, presented the results of the study at the Austrian Communication Day 2023.
Areas of public communication such as public relations, journalism, marketing and advertising are increasingly overlapping. This often leads to ethical conflicts in everyday communication practice and puts experts, journalists and PR professionals in difficult situations. Over the past two years, a research project has been investigating how media and PR practitioners perceive the blurring of boundaries and what ethical challenges and conflicts of interest arise as a result.
The aim of the study “Blurring Boundaries. Ethical Challenges in Communication Practice” is to explore these conflicts and identify possible coping strategies. Based on the results of the study, a course for communication practitioners will be developed that uses case studies to raise awareness of ethical boundaries and discuss and develop different lines of argument.
Gisela Reiter, Teaching & Research Associate in the Journalism & Media Management programme, presented the results of the study at the Austrian Communication Day 2023. The project was funded by the Scientific Senate of the Public Relations Association of Austria (PRVA) and carried out in cooperation with FHWien der WKW, the University of Vienna, the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration and the University of Innsbruck.
For further information on the research project, please contact
