Media Ethics

Key Principles for Responsible Practice

NEW TO THIS EDITION:

• A new Chapter 2, Key Frameworks, explains the distinctions, merits, and problems of the three strains of thoughts that dominate the philosophy of ethics: duty ethics, virtue ethics, and consequentialist ethics.
• A new Chapter 4, Technology, introduces students to the philosophy of technology and explores the ethical implications of the world of social media and emerging media technologies. This chapter is designed to more comprehensively link ethics theory to our digital media world. It also is intended to set the stage for substantive discussion on topics such as what values might be embedded in technologies, and how the architecture of social media influences the ways in which we communicate with each other.
• Updated and revised material appears in all chapters.
• New and updated case studies have been added to the Case in Point features and each principles chapter features an added digital media Case in Point.
• New discussions link media “practice” with broader notions of public trust and public service that are inherent in how we define professionalism.

KEY FEATURES:

• Foundational coverage in ethical theory explores ethical principles important to the behavior of media professionals and the judgments of media consumers.
• Chapter-length coverage of central ethical considerations—technology, transparency, justice, harm, autonomy, privacy, and, community—places each principle in the context of media practice.
• More than three dozen relevant, up-to-date media cases and examples (such as the use of crowdsourced news to cover the Boston bombings, the online publication of gun ownership maps following the Sandy Hook shootings, and advertisers’ datamining of shopping behavior to target consumers) illustrate the relevance of key principles to the work of journalism, public relations, and advertising.
• The innovative MERITS (Multidimensional Ethical Reasoning and Inquiry Task Sheet) model helps students apply key ethical principles to media dilemmas.
• Theories from a wide range of disciplines, including mass communication research on media sociology and audience effects, as well as philosophy and sociology, are synthesized and made accessible.
• Ethics theory is applied to the online world to illustrate that ethical values don’t change with the medium, nor should they be driven by technology.