Abstract
Too many of us were not formally trained in journalism and media ethics, and yet social media communication, public relations, advertising, and marketing instruction require an ethics-across-the-curriculum approach. The stand-alone ethics course may not be required on your campus, and yet a lack of digital norms of social responsibility present social conflicts and division.
For some of my July to December, 2020, Faculty Development Fellowship (FDF) leave, I have been spending some of this valuable time on an immersion of ethical theory and practice. Christian’s book, in University of Capetown Professor Herman Wasserman’s well-written Forward, is focused upon global and digital concerns, and yet he grounds it in traditional philosophy and theory. He begins with a concern about data privacy and “ . . . ‘filter bubbles’ where people’s worst biases are confirmed, and they are emboldened to spew racist diatribes, hate speech, and character assassinations online that threaten to tear up the social fabric” (p. xi). Wasserman concludes that Christians is less interested in government regulation than the need for “difficult choices” we must make: “ . . . what images we choose to consume, what information we decide to share, what global struggles for justice we engage in” (p. xii). I imagined engaging future students in foundational discussion about their personal choices related to #BlackLivesMatter and other evolving social movements.
Christians, Research Professor Emeritus at Illinois, is worried about distributive justice and equal access to technologies, but he also reflects upon hate speech and violence: Neo-Nazi websites are viciously anti-Semitic, some of them disavowing the Holocaust. Other religious groups are targeted also, such as websites that are anti-Muslim, anti-Hindu, and anti-Catholic. Racist contempt includes comparison with animals and excrement, and the pro-violence websites advocate race war (p. 14).
Christians sees new technologies as magnifying responsibility issues because, “The average end user is reduced to participating in a largely predetermined system through an electronic interface” (p. 50). For example, Facebook reactions are now less limiting than “likes,” but they still represent important boundaries. Christians draws from Lance Bennett’s political communication to highlight “four biases—personalization, dramatization, fragmentation, and politics as a game” (p. 70). The most troubling aspects of “artificial intelligence” (AI) “manifest a form of posthuman identity” (p. 86), and this critique has valuable classroom application. What does it mean to be a human educator or student in a Covid-19 age of “remote learning” through computer modules? While “truth” is a priority in ethics, what is the truth about digital presence? (p. 134). Christians finds human dignity, “which is important within the European privacy legal framework, also can be found within Islamic ethics and elsewhere” (p. 191). Christians’ “sophisticated thinking” and “authoritative voice” is a deep reading for faculty members curious about how to further incorporate ethics into their courses (p. 334).
A more direct pedagogical approach from Elliott and Spence is that of “practical ethics” that “wishes to avoid basic harms,” “justly” treats others, yet tells students that they are “ethically required to do their jobs” (p. 2). A focus of students as journalists, however, seems too narrow within their broader digital life as social media creators and consumers. It is easier to accept the idea that we are functioning within obvious “paradigm shifts” (p. 24). To be fair, Elliott and Spence’s brief chapter on “Citizen Responsibility” applies philosophers to audience engagement and cites Christian and others about “virtual civic activism” with concern over the broader culture (p. 86).
Elliott, Poynter Jamison Professor and chair at South Florida, and Spence, Research Fellow and professor at Charles Sturt, conclude that “storytellers have their own cultural blinders” (p. 192). Nevertheless, journalists’ use of a new set of sources is seen as part of “internet-propelled democracy,” and “journalist-facilitators” doing “sifting, aggregating and reflecting” (pp. 194–195). Students may need our help in sifting through how journalistic gatekeeping differs from the mostly open floodgates of Twitter—even when the platform shuts voices from extreme accounts—human or bot.
Another approach is the deep reading of historical progression of ethics over time. Mellinger, School director at James Madison, and Ferré, professor at Louisville, have an edited volume that traces topics, such as the Progressive Era, Women’s issues, access, and newsroom diversity. Mellinger and Erin K Coyle’s (associate professor at Louisiana State) chapter titled, “‘Blackening Up Journalism,’ An Ethical Imperative for Newsroom Diversity,” settles on “ethical tensions” of the newspaper industry (p. 201). Again, the weight of historical journalism appears to cloud the larger aspect of personal ethics and responsibility.
I wonder aloud whether our journalism and media communication students would benefit from a nonacademic treatment of ethics. Mintz (2019) clearly goes to the heart of it while addressing behavioral moral courage: “One definition of moral courage is doing the right thing even at the risk of inconvenience, ridicule, punishment, or loss of job, security, or social status” (p. 63). This reaches “virtue,” and the need to set aside “self-interest” (pp. 63–64). Too often, though, the desire to encourage “star” students in launching successful careers that recognize our programs and their academic administrators happen within a filter-bubble of professional values and norms. Journalists may seem to lack civility when they aggressively seek an exclusive story, and we may celebrate the outcome without deconstructing moral decision-making. Mintz’s (2019) “Everyday Ethics” chapter quotes U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart: “Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do” (p. 175). This is an understanding that ethics lies beyond First Amendment and other legal freedoms.
Right choices include social media influence authenticity, which goes far beyond journalistic morality, as found in a recent Journal of Media Ethics research article (Wellman et al., 2020). From sponsored content to native advertising, it feels as though moral courage, virtues, and truth are increasingly rare qualities. As professors, we have a responsibility to find the right resources to teach ethics as an important element of every aspect of journalism and media communication.