The ethics surrounding the media and journalism are most times complicated and very intricate. This blog post will try and help you understand them all better. Ethics nowadays is a branch of philosophy, called moral philosophy. They provide the framework and methods for good moral reasoning. One point that is confusing within ethics and morals: ethics and laws are not the same thing. Something can be very ethical, yet be illegal. Just like things that are very unethical are also legal to do. There are four major systems for ethical reasoning:
VIRTUE ETHICS,
DUTY ETHICS,
CONSEQUENCE ETHICS, and
RELATIONSHIP ETHICS. All of them are very intricate and used together can paint a decent picture if a certain action is ethical for a person to do.
ethics talks about your list of virtues; the things that make up your character. What are the virtues? That's hard to say. Many people have their own, personal list of virtues they try to live by. Most people, Benjamin Franklin included, found it very hard and difficult to live by their list of virtues. Many lists have the same virtues in them, but none are exactly the same. The
Golden Rule ethical principle is included with virtue ethics. The
Golden Rule says that you should find the middle ground in an issue or the 'middle way'; so the mean of the situation to get the greatest possible outcome. While using virtue ethics, you must see if the desired action goes against any of your virtues. If 'kindness' is one of your virtues, and the action causes you to be unkind to someone, or many people, virtue ethics then states that you are not allowed to perform that action.
ethics, or otherwise called Ontology, talks about the things that we need to do. The rules that we live our lives by. What are these rules? Where do they come from? Like virtue ethics, some of them are personal to us, yet some are universal. There is one principle within duty ethics that come up: the
Categorical Imperative (
Golden Rule). The Categorical Imperative, created by German philosopher Immanuel Kant, rules on the premise of not using a person as an end to a mean, but as an end themselves. This is better stated by the
Golden Rule: 'treat others how you would like to be treated.' You would not like to be treated as an end to a mean by someone else, so don't do the same to another person. Another section within duty ethics is the thought of discourse ethics. Discourse meaning conversation in this instance. Created by German theorist Jurgen Habermas (known for public sphere), discourse ethics is the creation of a safe-space and keeping an open mind to be able to find a
Golden Mean. If the action you seek to pursue would go against our rules or the
Golden Rule, duty ethics states that you are not allowed to perform that action.
ethics talks on what happens off of you doing the desired action. Who is affected the most? The worst? The best? Deciding between the good and the bad, determining the greatest good. Two principles in consequence ethics are
Utilitarianism and
Social Justice.
Utilitarianism is all about maximizing the good. Finding the greatest good in a situation. You must weigh out all the people who will be affected if you were to do an action, find out if doing the action or not doing the action will cause the greatest good.
Social Justice is all about fairness. That everyone should have the same rights, but those who are less advantaged should get more help so everything is fair for everyone. If doing the action you desire would cause a large amount of bad, and not doing the action would account for the greatest good, consequence ethics states that you are not allowed to perform that action.
ethics touches upon relationships to you; personal ones. Relationship ethics says that if something within the action is personal, you are allowed to act upon it with your relationship in mind; whether it be a partner or a child, or another family member. You do want to do the greatest good, but if you instead to what is best for your relationship, that's okay with Relationship ethics. This is the harder one to put into reasoning of if you should do an action or not. For sometimes it will go against many of your virtues, agaisnt your duties, and have bad consequences within
Utilitarianism and
Social Justice. If an action were to affect, let's just say, your child(ren), Relationship ethics states that you are allowed to perform that action.
Not all situations will fit into all the systems, but it is useful to put an action into all the catergories to determine how ethical it is. You must always keep the 3 disciplines of legal, prudential, and ethical in mind. A great way to figure out if an action is ethical or not is to use the Potter Box (pictured right).
Next to talk about is Journalism and its ethics. Journalists are protected under the first amendment. However, most journalists have to worry about either informing the public, or losing large coporate sponsors when thinking of a story to pursue. Costs for the news crews are tight and sending out journalists for more training to further their skills is also costly. There is no way around it currently. A question is do journalists give important information or titaling information? That's where all the ethics from above and the Potter Box come in.
There are many ethical dilemnas that a journalist must concern themselves with. Privacy rights vs. the public's right to know, going undercover, victimizing the victim, and misrepresentation or plagiarism are some of them. The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics states to seek the truth and report, to be fair and honest in the gathering of the information as well. Sometimes that if very difficult for journalists.
Advertising can have many ethical issues as well. Puffery (making big claims that are not fully true) and deceptive advertising (lying on the effects of a product) are two that are used to draw a consumer to go and buy the product. There are many conflicts of interests within advertising as well. You must be loyal to your client (the one selling the product) yet you would want to be loyal to the consumer.
or better known as Public Relations has the same amount if not more ethical dilemnas as advertising and journalists. They are hired to give good publicity to companies and hide the negatives. There is a conflict of interests if you were to go work for two companies that are enemies to each other (Burger King and McDonalds). You must also stay loyal with your client even if they dislike and don't use dialog often with their consumers. There is an issue when PR teams create an astroturf campain. This is when they create a movement and style it to look like a grassroots campaign. Grassroots is a term used for a group of actual concerning consumers/citizens who start up a movement. Astroturf, the actual product, is fake grass. So, it makes sense that it would be used as the term for a fake grassroots campaign. This is similar with greenwashing as well; a company appearing to be organic in their ways/products, when in reality they are far from organic.
Entertainment has less ethical issues, mainly because of how much ethics would change television. There are issues of stereotyping, which transmits a powerful force of cultural transmission to others. There is also the issue of sex and violence in entertainment. Many think that violence in entertainment will make children more violent in reality. And the age-old saying of 'sex sells' still exists in the world today.
These ethics are here, have been, and will be for a time longer. What you can do now about it is look for it all, use your own ethical reasoning when determining an action, and try to be as ethical as possible in your own life to come.
Photo creds:
ethics,
virtue,
duty,
consequence,
relationship,
astroturf/grassroots,
pr,
potter box,
or better known as Public Relations has the same amount if not more ethical dilemnas as advertising and journalists. They are hired to give good publicity to companies and hide the negatives. There is a conflict of interests if you were to go work for two companies that are enemies to each other (Burger King and McDonalds). You must also stay loyal with your client even if they dislike and don't use dialog often with their consumers. There is an issue when PR teams create an astroturf campain. This is when they create a movement and style it to look like a grassroots campaign. Grassroots is a term used for a group of actual concerning consumers/citizens who start up a movement. Astroturf, the actual product, is fake grass. So, it makes sense that it would be used as the term for a fake grassroots campaign. This is similar with greenwashing as well; a company appearing to be organic in their ways/products, when in reality they are far from organic.
