Media Ethics Notes PDF

MEDIA ETHICS NOTES Ethics Ethics is a branch of philosophy used to study ideal human behaviors and ideal ways of being. The approaches to the study of ethics have varied overtime, from Aristotle to immauel Kant Ethics is a systematic approach to understanding, analyzing, and distinguishing matte...

MEDIA ETHICS NOTES Ethics Ethics is a branch of philosophy used to study ideal human behaviors and ideal ways of being. The approaches to the study of ethics have varied overtime, from Aristotle to immauel Kant Ethics is a systematic approach to understanding, analyzing, and distinguishing matters of right and wrong, good and bad, what is admirable and deplorable as they relate to the wellbeing of and the relationships among individuals. Ethical determinations are applied through the use of formal theories, approaches and codes of conduct. It is an active process rather than a static condition. As such, some ethicist used the term doing “ethics”. When people are doing ethics they need to support their beliefs and assertions with sound reason. On the other hand, morals are specific beliefs, behaviors and ways of being derived from doing ethics. When people consider matters of ethics they usually are considering matters about freedom in regards to personal choices, one’s obligation to others or judgement about human behaviors. The term unethical therefore is used to describe ethics in its negative form Billington 2003 delineates the features between morals and ethics. They include 1. No one can avoid making moral or ethical decisions because the social connection with others necessitates people considering moral and ethical actions 2. Other people are always involved with one’s moral and ethical decisions. Private morality does not exist. 3. Moral decisions matter because every decision affects someone else’s life, self esteem or happiness level. 4. Decimate conclusions or resolutions will never be reached in ethical debates. 5. In the areas of morals and ethics people cannot exercise moral judgement without being given a choice. In other words, is being able to choose an option from a number of choices. 6. People use moral reasoning to make moral judgments or to discover right actions. Types of ethical inquiry or study 1. Normative ethics 2. Meta ethics 3. Descriptive ethics Normative ethics is an attempt to decide or prescribe values, behaviors and ways of being that are right or wrong, good or bad, admirable or deplorable. When using this method. Inquiries are made about how humans should behave, what ought to be done I’m certain circumstances, what type of character one should have or how one should be. The focus of meta ethics which means about ethics is not an inquiry about what ought to be done or what behaviors should be prescribed, instead meta ethics is concerned with understanding the language of morality through an analysis of the meaning of ethically related concepts and theories such as the meaning of good, happiness and virtuous character. For example a nurse who is actively engaging in a meta ethical analysis might try to determine the meaning of a good nurse patient relationship. And finally, descriptive ethics is often referred to as a scientific I rather than …. It is an approach used when researchers or ethicist want to describe what people think about morality or when they want to describe how people actually behave that is their morals. Professional moral values and behaviors can be described through nursing research. An example of this ethics is research that identifies nurses attitudes regarding telling patients the truth about their terminal illnesses. Ethical thinking, valuing and reasoning fall somewhere along a continuum between two opposing views. The first being ethical relativism and the second ethical objectivism. Ethical relativism is the belief that it is acceptable for ethics and morality to differ among persons or societies. There are two types of ethical relativism. 1. Ethical subjectivism 2. Cultural relativism People who subscribe to a belief in ethical subjectivism believe that individuals create their own morality and that theirs are no objective moral truths only individual opinions. People’s beliefs about actions being right or wrong, good or bad depend on how people feel about actions rather than on reason or systematic ethical analysis. What is believed by one person to be wrong might not be viewed as wrong by one’s neighbor depending on variations of opinions and feelings. These differences are acceptable to ethical subjectivist. (Pence 2000) define cultural relativism as the ethical theory that moral evaluation is rooted in and cannot be separated from the experience, beliefs and behaviors of a particular culture, hence what is wrong in one culture may not be so in another. People oppose to cultural relativism argue that when it is practiced according to its extreme or literal meaning, this type of thinking can be dangerous because it may theoretically may support reletivist exploitative or hurtful actions. An example of cultural relativism is the belief that the act of female circumcision is a moral practice. though not considered to be a religious ritual, this act is considered ethically acceptable by some groups on countries that has a Muslim or Egyptian heritages. I’m other countries however, it is seen as a violation of the United Nations declarations of human rights. Ethical objectivism is the belief that universal or objective moral principles exist. Many philosophers and health care ethicist hold this view to some degree. Examples which support this view are Deontology, Utilitarianism and the natural law theory. Copyright Whereas privacy laws allows individuals to limit public dissemination of private information about themselves, copyright allows authors to control how their creative expression is copied, distributed and performed. Copyright protects books, musical compositions, videos, newspaper articles, recordings, software, tv programs, advertisements, podcasts, emails and other original expressions from unauthorized copying and performance. Copyright laws punish to owe who infringe the rights and authors to control the reproduction, distribution, display and performance of their original works. Within mass communications, copyright is increasingly important especially in today’s globalized marketplace. Intellectual property refers to original creations of the mind such as poetry, choreography, jewelry designs, business signs, names and inventions. These original expressions are recognized as items of value and worthy of protection through intellectual property rights (IPR). So liar to rights given to proprietors of traditional forms of tangible property, (land, house) creators and innovators are owners of their creative works and have exclusive control over the exploitation of their works for the period of time prescribed by law. The protection of IPR is important to: 1. Acknowledge and appreciate the creative expression of the human imagination. 2. To empower creative persons to earn an equitable remuneration from the use of their talents. 3. To encourage investments in further innovation and new creations which in turn benefit the general society. The world intellectual property organization (WIPO) states that “an efficient and equitable property system can help all countries realize intellectual property potential as a powerful tool for economic development and social and cultural wellbeing. The intellectual property system helps strike a balance between the interest of the innovator and the public interest providing an environment in which creativity and invention can flourish to the benefit of all” (You cannot copyright a word or term that is generally accepted for everyone) In media, as it is in academia, Intellectual property matters for a number of reasons: 1. Financial prospects - for many individuals, the creative industry is their way of living. 2. The legal ramifications- media groups need to maintain a high level of integrity in order to survive. This means that media entities and media practitioners must give consideration to the legal framework laws, provisions and regulations which govern copyright. In the same way in which plagiarism is wrong in academia, the utilization of persons work without crediting them, without obtaining consent and without paying the relevant fees due is illegal. When media practitioners and media entities protect the intellectual property rights of others it also safeguards against infringements of their own creation. 3. It matters to media houses are creators of content.