kcb101 week 10

ETHICS

ETHICS

• The first of our ‘issues’ lectures (context)

• Important for assignment 3!

• Understanding ethical questions/positions in contemporary communication practice

• Will not give you easy ‘answers’.

ETHICS

THE SUPER SIMPLE VERSION:

•Communication in theory

•Communication in practice

•Communication in context

ETHICS

3 KEY ASPECTS:

•Transparency

•Representation

•Treatment of Participants

TRANSPARENCY

•Motivations should be made known to the audience, not kept secret.

•Key issue in a larger trend: the blurring of Editorial/Advertising content.

•E.g. Cash for Comment scandal

•Unethical when people cannot distinguish between the two

REPRESENTATION

• All people (of all races, colours, creeds, religions, sexual preferences… etc.) should be treated with equal respect, and represented in the media fairly.

• It is therefore wrong to make jokes based on the colour of one’s skin...

ETHICS

There are usually no clear ‘answers’ to ethical questions. They are up for debate

and argument, depending on personal beliefs and context.

TREATMENT OF PARTICIPANTS

• All participants should be given the opportunity to provide fully informed consent, and be given full knowledge of all possible uses and potential consequences of their participation.

• ... Unless there is an overriding public interest/benefit.

• Making people aware of, and mitigating against, possible risk.

“If portraying participants without fully informed consent can result in foreseeable, substantial negative consequences for participants, the portrayal must serve an overriding public interest.” – Cenite (2009: 31


BORAT

“The fraternity boys are likely to suffer embarrassment as a result of the film, and they may even lose job offers, but such consequences are justifiable given the attention the film brings to their aggressively hateful words." (Cenite, 2009)


BORAT

"I think part of the movie shows the absurdity of holding any form of racial prejudice, whether it's hatred of African-Americans or of Jews… By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice, whether it's anti-Semitism or an acceptance of anti-Semitism.” – Sacha Baron Cohen


CONCLUSION

•Ethical questions not always a matter of black/white

•How are ethical questions in communication being affected/changing as a result of increased ‘user-led’ communication?

•Digital media (e.g. UGC, social networking) presents special challenges in terms of transparency and informed consent.

kcb101 week 10

Spiritual