Public relations practitioners' attitudes towards the ethical use of social media in Portuguese speaking countries

Based on Toledano and Avidar (2016) method and questionnaire statements, and inspired by its theory, this paper focuses on studies about internet-related public relations from an ethical standpoint. As such, this study's objective is to assess the attitudes of public relations practitioners (PRs) while using social media professionally, identifying some ethical issues and the implications of their perceptions, by means of a quantitative study supported by an online survey. A questionnaire, which included thirteen attitude statements related to transparency, authenticity, truthfulness and respect for competition, plus five demographic questions, has been applied to PRs from Portugal and Brazil. Research questions include concerns about PRs' attitudes towards ethically acceptable or non-acceptable online public relations practices and the influence of socio-cultural environments, namely, of countries' human freedoms respect and levels of transparency in PRs' ethical attitudes. Results show no significant differences between practitioners from Portugal and Brazil. Portuguese and Brazilian PRs share common cultural attributes that might explain similar perceptions around professional ethics. As for ethical dimensions, authenticity and transparency are not vehemently defended in both countries.