Public relations, ethics, and social media: A cross-national study of PR practitioners

•A comparative study examining PR practitioners’ perceptions about ethical practice on social media in two different countries.•A useful research method for conducting a comparison between PR values in different countries.•The paper indicates the existence of a gap between PR practitioners’ attitudes in different countries.

This article seeks to expand the public relations body of knowledge on two levels: firstly, it presents findings from empirical studies on PR practitioners’ attitudes to ethical and unethical practices on social media. Secondly, it compares practitioners’ attitudes to specific ethical issues in social media in two different socio-cultural environments—New Zealand and Israel. Its major goal is to identify practitioners’ current attitudes toward ethics in societies that are ranked differently on international lists comparing levels of democracy in different countries. The findings from online surveys conducted in both countries imply that PR ethics is linked to the culture and social environment in which practitioners function. The article identifies practical ethical challenges in public relations practitioners’ use of social media.