Issues surrounding the ethics and social responsibility of public relations are addressed through a discussion of J. Grunig's (1987) distinction between asymmetrical and symmetric organizational communication. His development of a research tradition for public relations is examined with particular attention given to conceptualizing organizations as political systems and exploring the contrasting presuppositions of asymmetrical and symmetrical models. Symmetrical presuppositions are presented as an ethical and effective framework for public relations theory.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>