Media Ethics 2002 Abstracts
Media Ethics Division
Moral Language in Newspaper Commentary: A Kohlbergian Analysis • Wendy Barger, Oregon • This study begins with the question of whether the news media are conveying messages that help us as individuals grow morally. Using a Kohlbergian model, the study begins to explore the question by analyzing the moral language in commentaries and letters to the editor within three Oregon newspapers. The study’s content analysis reveals that most arguments presented in the opinion section of the three papers are done so at either Kohlberg’s pre-conventional or conventional levels.
Ethics as a Cross-Cultural and Cross-Boundary Bridge: American and Israeli Journalists’ Views of Ethical Issues • Dan Berkowitz, Iowa; Yehiel Limor, Tel-Aviv University and Jane Singer, Iowa • This study explores how social dimensions of a reporter’s world shape ethical decisions through a survey of reporters in Israel and one state in the Midwestern U. S. We found that personal backgrounds and journalistic socialization were not closely related to ethical decisions, but the broader cultural dimension stood out. The context of specific ethical situations was also important, as was a reporter’s ethical orientation toward the public interest.
The Effects of Visuals on Ethical Reasoning: What’s a Photograph Worth to Journalists Making Moral Decisions? • Renita Coleman, Louisiana State University • Two experiments are used to explore the effects of photographs on ethical decision making in the journalism domain. Both studies found that photographs did have the ability to change participants’ ethical reasoning for the better. Also, both identified mental elaboration as significant in that process; thinking about the people affected by an ethical situation helped improve ethical reasoning. Involvement was also important; when participants were not very involved with the dilemmas, having photographs significantly improved their ethical reasoning.
The Promise and Peril of Anecdotes in News Coverage: An Ethical Analysis • David A. Craig, Oklahoma • This analytical essay assesses the use of anecdotes in news coverage on ethical grounds, pointing both to their promise and to their potential dangers. The argument draws on Craig’s framework for analyzing news coverage of ethics, on Christians et al.’s communitarian ethic, and on Gilligan’s relationship-oriented ethic. Examples from news stories illustrate the ethical complexity of anecdotes. The essay also suggests how journalists can choose anecdotes more critically and points to an adaptation of the anecdotal form that is ethically more supportable.
Covering Kids: Are Journalists Guilty of Exploiting Children? • Romayne Smith Fullerton, Western Ontario, Canada • Social researchers have a well-established body of literature and clear protocols that assist them in their interactions with children. Journalists do not. This paper applies some of the ethical considerations from social research to press practice. Using several recent Canadian cases involving coverage of children, I explore a wide range of ethical concerns that may confront a journalist interacting with and writing about minors. While the examples are drawn from the Canadian media scene, the observations are valid across North American newsrooms and the implications for this discussion are universal.
Ethics and Eloquence in Journalism: A Study of the Demands of Press Accountability • Theodore L. Glasser, Stanford University and James S. Ettema, Northwestern University • This study of ethics in journalism equates ethics with accountability. It argues that the problem of ethics in journalism is not the inability of journalists to know right from wrong but their inability to talk, reflexively and articulately, about it. Our “being ethical-means-being-accountable” theme draws from, but is not entirely wedded to, the model of discourse ethics developed in recent years by Jurgen Habermas.
A Masochist’s Teapot: Where to Put the Handle in Media Ethics • Thomas W. Hickey, South Florida • The task of defining ethics in mass communications can be aided by an interface with religion. The four guiding principles of the Society of Professional Journalists express ethical tension that can be viewed as a conflict between the metaphysical concepts of the one and the many. The doctrine of the Trinity resolves this conflict by uniting both concepts instead of pitting them as opposites. Following this model, a grid can be developed for plotting ethical journalism.
Stalker-razzi and Sump-pump Hoses: The Role of the Media in the Death of Princess Diana • Elizabeth Blanks Hindman, North Dakota State University • This case study examines mainstream newspaper editorials’ discussion of the role, responsibility and ethics of the media in the death of the Princess of Wales. Using attribution theory, it concludes that the newspapers dealt with criticism of the media in the case in several ways. First, they distanced themselves from the photographers who chased her car before it crashed; second, they blamed those outside the media, including Diana herself; and third, they acknowledged some responsibility.
Rwanda, News Media, And Genocide: Toward a Research Agenda for Reviewing the Ethics and Professional Standards of Journalists Covering Conflict • Kevin R. Kemper and Michael Jonathan Grinfeld, Missouri-Columbia • The ongoing United Nations war crimes tribunals for journalists accused of inciting genocide in Rwanda provide the backdrop for a discussion about reviewing the ethics and professional standards of journalists covering conflict. The authors argue that journalists and ethicists – regardless of epistemologies or methodologies – need to frame an ethical paradigm for journalists covering conflict. Possible concepts for study may include autonomy, objectivity, conflict theory, nationalism, intergenerational racism and ethnic hatred and technology, among others.
Generation Y’s Ethical Judgments of Sexual and Fear Appeals in Print Advertising • Jeffrey J. Maciejewski, Creighton University • This study reports the results of an empirical investigation into the ethical beliefs of Generation Y, in particular their moral assessments of sexual and fear appeals in print advertising. The study offers empirical support for the measuring of ethical ideologies, but found that such measures may have limited value in assessing levels of Machiavellianism among individuals. More importantly, the results from this study strongly suggest that the moral appraisals of Gen Y may be significantly differently than other individuals.
Radical Leadership and Debate in the Ethics of Naming Rape Victims • Richard J. Riski, Memphis • The status quo for a majority of newspapers is to not publish a rape victim’s name. Only a handful of publications defy this rule. Since the legal right to publish is established, the question for the media is how to create an ethical policy, or consistent practice, of deciding when — if at all — to name rape victims. This paper explores the ethical reasoning behind the six points of significant debate that separate those who do — and those who do not — publish victims’ names.
Entertaining Media Entertainment Ethics: Prospects for Development • Lawrence A. Wenner, Loyola Marymount University • This paper seeks to answer foundational questions about media entertainment ethics as distinguishable from the broader field of media ethics. The analysis explores the developmental predispositions of a journalism-centered media ethics. Reasons for the limited consideration of media entertainment in the context of media ethics are assessed. A review and critique of three significant works centered in media entertainment ethics aims to inform developmental foundations for a research agenda.
Nelson Mandela and South African Apartheid: The Media as Deconstructive Agent • Alisa White, Texas at Arlington and Vardaman White, Birmingham • The purpose of this paper is to describe deconstruction according to the goals and strategies of Jacques Derrida, examine his essay, “The Laws of Reflection: Nelson Mandela, in Admiration,” and examine the media’s role in the deconstruction process. Derrida seeks to separate the sign from the signified. For him, there is no inherent meaning within the language, rather, meaning emerges through the play of the words.
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