Public Relations Review 42 (2016) 573–581 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Public Relations Review The “Holy” Triad in Media Ethics: A Conceptual Model for Understanding Global Media Ethics Katerina Tsetsura a,∗ , Chiara Valentini b a Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA b Department of Business Communication, School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 21 July 2015 Accepted 25 February 2016 Available online 7 April 2016 Keywords: Media Public relations Ethics Decision-making Personal values Professional values Environment values Conceptual paper a b s t r a c t Media ethics is an area of inquiry that has been of great concern among journalists and pub- lic relations professionals as well as scholars across the world. Empirical research on media ethics of comparative nature has increased, providing a descriptive account on the current situations across different countries. Yet, theoretical efforts to explain global media ethics are so far inexistent. The scope of this paper is to provide a conceptual model for explaining media ethics decision-making processes that takes into account personal, professional and environment values as main influencing forces. The proposed model suggests that besides considering personal factors, such as education, background, experience, gender, etc., and country specific factors, such as political, economic, socio-cultural conditions, one should first and foremost understand the degree to which personal, professional, and environment values influence one’s judgment. This model is the first of its kind in providing an explana- tion of differences in global media ethics by considering the interconnectedness of different values at micro, meso, and macro levels. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Media ethics has long been at the center of attention for media scholars and public relations professionals. The level of ethical standards employed by both journalists and public relations professionals impacts how media relations activities are conducted and what types and quality of contents may shape public opinion. Media ethics are devolved on fundamental values of democracy, freedom, truth, honesty, objectivity, and privacy (Craig, 2010). A prominent line of research in media ethics concerns with the study of those factors and variables affecting fundamental media values and consequently the level of media ethics in a country. Early studies indicate that public relations is one of those key factors because public relations practitioners act as sources of information and even influencers of media agenda (e.g., Cameron, Sallot, & Curtin, 1997; Shin & Cameron 2003). Specifically, the approach used by public relations professionals to influence journalists’ news decision making has implications for media ethics in terms of transparency and self-censorship (Tsetsura, 2011), and as such it deserves to be studied together with other factors that may influence journalists. Previous studies on media ethics, which considered public relations influence, have, for instance, focused on the concept of transparency and interests’ disclosure in media relations, for the reason that low levels of media ethics are often imputable to both journalists and public relations professionals’ non-transparent practices. Such studies pointed out that ethics in media ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: tsetsura@ou.edu (K. Tsetsura), c.valentini@bcom.au.dk (C. Valentini). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2016.03.013 0363-8111/© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.