IndexPublic ManipulationCorruptionLogical FallaciesSeductionConclusionStrategic communication is the practice of communicating with a grand agenda or some sort of master plan. It instills the idea of ​​pushing messages to the audience and delivering them to the target audience. This was a fairly recent emergency in the field of communication, as strategic communication was born due to the rise of social media, where the relationship between the public and information has been brought closer than ever. It differs from public relations (PR) in the sense that strategic communication is the broadest and broadest set in the field of communication of which PR is a subset. To communicate strategically, a professional must draw a fine line between achieving goals and achieving goals unethically. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The issue between ethics and strategic communication has been a hot topic that has been the subject of debate among scholars in the field, especially when there are impacts with respect to the audience or audience involved. The said issue can be seen through the movie “Thank You for Smoking”, released in 2005. This movie was directed by Jason Reitman and produced by David O' Sacks, starring Aaron Eckhart, Katie Holmes, William H. Macy and Cameron Bright . “Thank You for Smoking” is a film that revolves around the working life of Nick Naylor, a tobacco industry lobbyist. Over the course of the film, Nick's profession has come under intense scrutiny from the anti-smoking public. This is because the industry Nick works for supports smoking for the sake of the tobacco manufacturing business. Nick's scope of work includes advocating for smoking among American consumers. His job as a lobbyist falls into what Lock, Seele, and Heath (2016) have called “classical” lobbying, in which he drives the information necessary to have influence on the public mind. This responsibility of Nick was not accepted well by the audience, as shown in the beginning of the film where Nick was one of the participants on the Joan Lunden Show on TV. The crowd hurls boos and curse words at him before he even speaks. He also suffered a slight complication when introducing the goals of his profession to his son, Joey, and his classmates, where he had to distort and rotate some of the children's ghosts. The course of the film was driven by Nick's motivation towards his work. , his practices in fulfilling his responsibilities, as well as his self-reflection when it comes to setting an example for his son. Throughout his career, he has joined the "Nuremberg Yuppie Defense," blaming it for unethical behavior in mortgage payments. This has become a norm among lobbyists, particularly through the “Death Merchants” trio, where lobbyists normally have a standard set of norms (Berg, 2012), in this case, the aforementioned “defense.” Nick also had to meet Heather Holloway, a journalist who manipulated him into disclosing the ugly side of the industry he was investing his time and energy into. The film ended with him leaving the tobacco industry and founding his own company specializing in strategic communications. . As mentioned above, there are several ethical issues that were brought into question by Nick and Heather's practices while they were carrying out their respective responsibilities. The above issues can be classified, analyzed and criticized from the following aspects: public manipulation; corruption; logical errors; and seduction. Public Manipulation This is the most obvious ethical issue committed, inthis case, by Nick Naylor himself. Throughout the film, Nick uses his talent for speaking and arguing to manipulate the public's opinions, reception and attitude towards smoking. Of course, even if their attitude towards the concept of smoking was initially negative, through his eloquence, Nick managed to manipulate them, for example, to draw their attention to another problem, or to convince them that it is okay to smoke by citing the concept of personal choice. Nick's unethical conduct in terms of public manipulation will be discussed further in this section. First, in the 'Joan Lunden Show' scene, Nick intercepted Ron Goode's (Senator's spokesperson) speech, immediately drawing everyone's attention to what he wants to convey. He mentioned something along the lines of calling out the reported blame placed on the tobacco industry, then shifted focus to the government (in the film, Ron Goode was the government representative), in which he stated that “they want the Robins Willigers die,” as if to quote Nick's line in the film. The shift in guilt clearly affected the crowd as their facial expressions softened into nods of agreement and admissions towards the issue they were focusing on. As a result, Ron Goode did not get his turn as expected; instead, the show immediately went on hiatus, cutting off his opportunity to disprove the blame. This is clear unethical conduct on the part of the lobbyist, where he has not addressed the truth about the industry he is serving, but has simply shifted the public's attention to something else. This goes against the ethical conduct of transparency. Another example of public manipulation committed by Nick was the idea of ​​introducing smoking into films and shows; as in giving examples in the form of famous people to tell the public that smoking is a norm and it is not a bad thing that can happen in humanity. The cinematic idea of ​​having Brad Pitt and Catherine Zeta-Jones have sex in space and smoke while doing so, as well as naming a new cigarette after the space station/area, represents a positive public representation of the image of act of smoking. Nick's meeting with Hollywood super-agent Jeff Megall further solidifies Nick's unethical conduct as a lobbyist or public relations representative for the tobacco industry in an attempt to instill in the public awareness that smoking is a good conduct, when in truth it is not. The third form of public manipulation committed by Nick Naylor is the scene where he took advantage of his life or death situation to further convince the audience that smoking, or in this case nicotine, saved his life. Before this scene, Nick was kidnapped by someone in the audience and stamped with many nicotine patches, an act that would have killed him due to the sudden overdose of nicotine in his system. The doctor himself proved that it was a miracle that Nick survived the accident. Later, Nick invited reporters and claimed that smoking had saved his life. This is clearly a twist and manipulation of the situation and it worked well for Nick and the industry's cause. It is unethical and immoral because people around him i.e. Joey, his ex-wife, BR etc. were very concerned about his well-being. He simply acted in a workaholic state of mind, not paying attention to his surroundings and his situation. The final example of public manipulation in this film was during the public hearing, or conference, regarding whether or not the "Poison" label should be included on cigarette packages. Nick appeared to testify and convinced the publicdistorting and manipulating the concept of humanism. Humanism is a school of thought that condones the improvement of human life. In the sense of what is conveyed through the film, the debate during the convention was whether Nick would allow Joey to smoke on his 18th birthday. At this point, Nick used his words to convince himself, and the audience, that it is a child's choice whether they want to smoke. The notions of “freedom of choice” and “personal rights” were distorted in this scene and appealed to the American public at the time because historically that was the foundation of American development. To put it simply, Nick's conduct of manipulating the public into believing that smoking is acceptable and not harmful is an unethical performance of his job as a lobbyist and public spokesperson. This is a huge breach of the public relations code of ethical conduct, as he had zero transparency and honesty in doing so. Through this aspect you can also see how lobbyists use the media to manipulate the public. This is supported by Miller, Brownbill, Dono, and Ettridge (2018), where industries use media coverage to impact audiences. Corruption Another unethical conduct performed by Nick Naylor as a tobacco industry lobbyist is the use of bribery to advance his interests. and the cause of the industry. The clearest example of corruption in this film is the part where Nick is instructed by the Captain to deliver a briefcase containing money to Lorne Lutch, a former celebrity, nicknamed Marlboro-Man, in an attempt to silence him on matters relating to the smoke. Lutch has been diagnosed with a number of illnesses linked to his former smoking habit, making him an anti-smoking campaigner. Since he was a public and influential figure, the Captain believed it would be in their best interest to keep him quiet. However, the focus of the unethical conduct is not the Captain, but the method Nick used against Lutch: lying. It seemed difficult to get a dying man to keep quiet about the root cause of his predicament, but Nick had to find a way to get him to take the money, which in turn would lead to him keeping quiet altogether. Nick unethically manipulated and lied to Lutch about the real deal he was accused of convincing the latter to make. Nick twisted the situation by stirring up an imaginary event and issued an ultimatum, which might have just resulted in Lutch taking the money anyway. With the little game about seeing the future, Nick managed to convince him to take the money and stop his anti-smoking movement. This is unethical conduct because it involves total dishonesty towards the public, in this case Lorne Lutch. Honesty is a fundamental code of ethics in public relations, and Nick broke that code, through bribery, to get his job done. In the film, it wasn't just Nick who committed corruption. The Tobacco Academy has also been described as bribing lawyers so that their unethical and illegal behaviors escape legal and public attention. Therefore, it can be said that the act of corruption, although minor, had a huge impact on the audience, as well as leading the characters to commit other violations of ethics such as being dishonest and manipulative. Logical errors Nick Naylor's strong point is arguing and talking, as he himself stated in the film. However, to see his unethical conduct in the film, it is also important to see how his arguments develop through logical fallacies. Logical fallacies can be defined as errors in arguments that have the potential to earn the arguer undeserved credit. Over the course of the film, Nick hasmade many logical errors that led him to argue and unethically convey the messages he was trying to convey. The first mistake he made was the “Appeal to Emotion” fallacy. This logical fallacy appeals to the emotion, compassion, and pity of opponents. Basically, making this mistake means manipulating the audience's train of thought through emotions. This is evident in the scene where Nick attended the "show and tell" event for the fathers of the students at Joey's school. He was bombarded with anti-smoking questions from children, but then influenced their concerns by asking them whether they would choose chocolate even if their parents say chocolate is bad for you. He appealed to their emotion by mentioning something close to children's hearts: chocolate. He also made the same mistake, with the same topic, when he was having dinner with Joey, while teaching him the art of arguing. Subsequently, he made the 'Red Herring' mistake. This mistake is made by raising irrelevant answers or questions, in an attempt to divert attention from the problem at hand. Nick made this mistake several times in the film, but the most glaring example would be the scene where Nick was testifying at Senator Finisterre's conference on applying the "Poison" label and the image of a skull and crossbones on everyone cigarette packs in America. . When asked about the importance of placing such labels, Nick deflected the question by saying that if cigarettes should be labeled as dangerous due to the number of deaths, then so should Boeing airplanes and Ford cars, as well as enter a personal note on the matter. senator stating that Vermont cheddar cheese is a major cause of cholesterol, thus being the leading cause of death in America. This is a clear commission of the 'Red Herring' mistake which, in turn, has clouded its transparency towards the issue and manipulated the public to shift their attention to other issues. These are the two major impactful logical errors that occurred throughout the film. They had an impact because, in a sense, they affected the way Nick performed his duties as an industry lobbyist, leading him to commit unethical public relations behavior. Therefore, it is safe to say that Nick's unethical conduct in the film goes hand in hand with the logical errors made along the way. Seduction In the movie "Thank You for Smoking", Nick Naylor is not the only character to violate the code of ethics in strategic communication. Heather Holloway is a journalist trying to get the scoop on the life of Nick, the tobacco lobbyist, and what his responsibilities are as said official. He went out of his way to get the necessary and impactful information about Nick and his work. Ultimately, his extreme lengths became his downfall as a journalist, tarnishing his reputation and credibility. The medium used by Heather in the film was seduction. She seduced Nick into having a sexual relationship with her, while she dug, piece by piece, for information. This is unethical conduct on the part of a professional journalist, as the act she performed was extremely unethical and uncalled for behavior. It tarnishes the reputation of the field of journalism, as well as defames the reputation it has built on ever since. She was a feared journalist, as mentioned by Bobby, Nick's friend who was also a gun lobbyist. Bobby and their other lobbyist friend, Polly, alerted Nick to Heather's journalistic trip and accomplishments. However, Heather managed to trap Nick in the.