Global Media Ethics E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 675

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Global Media Ethics

Global Media Ethics
Problems and Perspectives

“The book pleads convincingly that news media outlets and practitioners should urgently reconsider their practices and norms in a world gone global and digitally convergent. The various contributions broach the topic from completely different perspectives to create a very stimulating and constructive framework to identify and face the new ethical challenges of journalism and the news media.”
François Heinderyckx, Université libre de Bruxelles

“News that crosses boundaries of culture and geography means rethinking media ethics. The demands of role, audience, digital transmission, and an industry under fierce economic pressure require the insightful approach to ethical thinking this volume provides. From theory to practice, this book has something for scholars and professionals alike.”
Lee Wilkins, Journal of Mass Media Ethics

Global Media Ethics is a cross-cultural exploration of the conceptual and practical issues facing media ethics in a global world. Focusing on the ethical concepts, principles, and questions in an era of major change, this unique textbook explores the aims and norms that should guide the publication of stories that impact across borders, and which affect a globally linked, pluralistic world.

Through case studies, analysis of emerging practices, and theoretical discussion, a team of leading journalism and communication experts investigate the impact of major global trends on responsible journalism and lead readers to better understand changes in media ethics. Chapters look at how these changes promote or inhibit responsible journalism, how such changes challenge existing standards, and how media ethics can develop to take account of global news media. In light of the fact that media journalism is now, and will increasingly become, multimedia in format and global in its scope and influence, the book argues that global media impact entails global responsibilities: It is therefore critical that media ethics rethinks its basic notions, standards, and practices from a more cosmopolitan perspective.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Notes on Contributors

Introduction: Media Ethics as Global

Plurality of Approaches

Structure of the Book

Themes

Part I: Media Ethics Worldwide

Chapter 1: Why Media Ethics Still Matters

Some Background

The Need for Media Ethics

The Need for Media Ethics

Conclusion

Chapter 2: Universals and Differences in Global Journalism Ethics

The Quest for Ethical Universals

Mapping Differences in Professional Ethics

Conclusions

Chapter 3: The Role of the Journalist in Reporting International Conflicts

The Journalist as Patriot

Safety and Legal Protection

The Journalist as Witness

Witnessing and War Crimes

Conclusion

Chapter 4: Global Journalism Networks: Funding and Ethical Hurdles

Rise of Nonprofits and Networks

Cross-cultural Standards

Funding the Conferences

Conference Independence and Transparency

US Government and Media Funding

Newsroom and Network Transparency

Greater Expectations

Influence and Broad Revenue Streams

Ethics Codes or Guidelines?

Appendix 4.A

Part II: Media and Diverse Public Spheres

Chapter 5: Contextual Ethics and Arab Mass Media

Contextual Ethics

Arab Media's “Special Circumstances” as Context

Cultural Influence

Shari'ah, Media Ethics, and Social Change

Free Religion, Speech, and Press in the Islamic Context

Codes of Ethics: Providing Professional Journalism Context

Al Jazeera's Ethical Dilemmas in Context

Conclusion

Chapter 6: From Journalism Ethics to an Ethics of Citizenship: Evidence from Colombia

The Colombian Context

Trusting Journalists

A Journalist's Trustworthiness

Journalism and Civic Engagement

Citizenship Ethics

Emerging Publics

Chapter 7: Media Ethics in a New Democracy: South African Perspectives on Freedom, Dignity, and Citizenship

Media Ethics in a New Democracy

Procedural Shifts

Substantive Debates

Conclusion: Challenges Ahead

Chapter 8: Democratization by Boilerplate: National Media, International Norms, and Sovereign Nation Building in Postwar Liberia

Those Who Belong Create the Nation: Short History of Belonging in Liberia

Democratization, Postconflict Reconstruction, and Free Press Advocacy

International Experts, Liberian Media, and National Discourse Making

Conclusion

Part III: Global Issues

Chapter 9: The Role of Global Media in Telling the Climate Change Story

How Solid Is the Science?

So Why All the Debate?

Understanding the Audience

The Challenge of Addressing Truth Claims

Managing the Tension Between Global and Local

Conclusion

Chapter 10: Ethics of Global Disaster Reporting: Journalistic Witnessing and Objectivity

Journalistic Witnessing as Emotional Labor

Journalism, Disaster, and Geopolitics: Limits of Compassion

Nonprofessional Eyewitnesses

Conclusion: Cosmopolitanism and Crisis Reporting

Chapter 11: Affective Expertise: The Journalism Ethics of Celebrity Sourcing

Celebrity as Cultural Authority

Journalism and Legitimacy

The Mission: News and the Narrative of Salvation

Conclusion

Chapter 12: Global Media Ethics, Justice, and Indian Journalism

Sen's Interpretative Use of Nyaya

Nyaya and Anyaya in Indian Journalism Practices

The Use (and Abuse) of Hidden Cameras

Uneven Injustices: Coverage of Crime

Nyaya in Global Media Ethics

Part IV: Theoretical Foundations

Chapter 13: Global Media Ethics?: Issues, Requirements, Challenges, Resolutions

Digital Media Ethics: A Primer

Cases and Issues in Contemporary Digital Media Ethics

Changing Media, Changing Selves—Changing Politics?

Chapter 14: Global Ethics and the Problem of Relativism

Philosophical Relativism

Moral Absolutism

Universalist Theory

Theories of Global Media Ethics

Conclusion

Chapter 15: Global Media Ethics: Utopian or Realistic?

Skeptical Objections: Utopianism

Responses

Realistic Expectations

Index

This edition first published 2013

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Global media ethics : problems and perspectives / edited by Stephen J.A. Ward.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4051-8392-5 (hardback)— ISBN 978-1-4051-8391-8 (paperback) 1. Journalistic ethics. 2. Mass media— Moral and ethical aspects. I. Ward,

Stephen J. A. (Stephen John Anthony), 1951– editor of compilation.

PN4756.G56 2013

174′.907– dc23

2012037007

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: Relatives of Pakistani national Khalid Mehmood at Wagah border post near Lahore, March 10, 2008. Mehmood, who had gone to India to watch a cricket series in 2005 and was arrested by Indian police, died in police custody. © Mohsin Raza / Reuters.

Cover design by RBDA.

1 2013

To Glenda Louise Thomson: steadfast companion, love of my life, global advocate for justice; a kind and beautiful soul.

Notes on Contributors

Katherine M. Bell is an assistant professor in the Communication Department at California State University, East Bay. She is a career journalist who worked with the Canadian Press news agency as a reporter, editor, and news manager. She holds a PhD in Communication from the University of Washington in Seattle, where she specialized in celebrity and media studies.

Ralph D. Berenger is an associate professor of mass communication at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, where he teaches journalism writing and editing, international mass communication, and theory courses. He has previously taught at universities in Cairo, and has lived and worked in the Middle East for 13 years. In addition to a score of book chapters, he has also published four books on mass media and is finishing his fifth on social media during the Arab Spring, to be published in 2012. He holds a doctorate from Idaho State University in political science. Prior to joining academia he spent nearly four decades as a newspaper reporter, editor, and publisher in the United States and elsewhere.

Clifford G. Christians is a Research Professor of Communications, Professor of Journalism, and Professor of Media Studies Emeritus, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His most recent coauthored book is Ethics for Public Communication: Defining Moments in Media History (with John Ferre and Mark Fackler, 2012). His coauthored Media Ethics: Cases and Moral Reasoning (2011) is in its ninth edition. He edited Key Concepts in Critical Cultural Communication (with Linda Steiner, 2010).

Nick Couldry is Professor of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London and Director of its Centre for the study of Global Media and Democracy. He is the author or editor of 10 books, including most recently Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice (2012) and Why Voice Matters: Culture and Politics After Neoliberalism (2010).

Sharon Dunwoody is Evjue-Bascom Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research explores news making about science from the perspectives of both scientists and journalists, as well as the ways in which individuals use media messages to make sense of risky things. She earned her BA from Indiana University, her MA from Temple University, and her PhD from Indiana University.

Charles M. Ess is Associate Professor in Media Studies, Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo. He has also served as a guest professor at Aarhus University and IT-University (Denmark), Trier University (Germany), the Norwegian University of Science and Technology at Trondheim, and Nîmes (France). He has received awards for excellence in both teaching and scholarship, and has published extensively in both philosophy and media studies.

Jo Ellen Fair is a professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has served as a trainer in several journalism workshops across Africa. The Vilas Associates program of the Graduate School at University of Wisconsin-Madison supported this research.

Thomas Hanitzsch is Professor of Communication at the University of Munich, Germany. He founded and chaired the Journalism Studies Division of the International Communication Association. His teaching and research focuses on global journalism cultures, war coverage, celebrity news, and comparative communication research. He is the editor-in-chief of Communication Theory (2012–14), and has coedited The Handbook of Journalism Studies (2009) and The Handbook of Comparative Communication Research (2012). He also has published more than 70 journal articles and book chapters. He is a former newspaper and radio journalist and received his PhD from Ilmenau University of Technology, Germany in 2004.

Brant Houston is the Knight Chair in Investigative Reporting at the University of Illinois where he teaches and oversees regional newsroom projects. He is cofounder of the Investigative News Network and the Global Investigative Journalism Network. He coauthored The Investigative Reporter's Handbook (2009) and is author of Computer-Assisted Reporting (2003). He served as executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors for a decade and was an investigative reporter at Metropolitan Newspapers for 17 years.

Magda Konieczna is a PhD student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on media economics and political economy, specifically examining how changing funding structures of journalism are affecting communities. She has a Masters of Journalism from the University of British Columbia and has worked as a journalist for Canadian magazines and newspapers.

Tim Macafee is a doctoral student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research interests involve the implications of political social network site use, motivations for using social network sites in political ways, and the role of information exchange in emergent forms of online political participation.

Mervi Pantti is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Sciences, Media and Communication Studies at the University of Helsinki, and director of the International Master's Program Media and Global Communication. She is the author of Disaster and the Media (with Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Simon Cottle, 2012) and has published widely in international journals on mediated emotions and disaster reporting. She is the editor of Amateur Images and Global News (with Kari Andén-Papadopoulos, 2011).

Patrick Lee Plaisance is associate professor at Colorado State University. His research focuses on media ethics theory, moral psychology, journalism values, and media sociology. He is author of Media Ethics: Key Principles for Responsible Practice (2009). He also has published several book chapters and more than a dozen articles in journals including Communication Theory, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journal of Mass Media Ethics, and Journalism Studies. His book project, Virtue in Media: The Moral Psychology of Excellence in News and PR, is forthcoming. He worked as a journalist at numerous American newspapers for nearly 15 years and received his PhD from Syracuse University in 2002.

Shakuntala Rao is Professor of Communication Studies at State University of New York, Plattsburgh. Her research areas are global media, ethics, and popular culture. She has published extensively and influentially in many communication, journalism, and interdisciplinary journals. Her most recent book is an edited anthology titled Explorations in Global Media Ethics (with Muhammad Ayish, 2012).

Hernando Rojas is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research interests include the deployment of new communication technologies for social mobilization in a variety of contexts, the influence of audience perceptions of media (and audience perceptions of media effects) on both public opinion and the structure of the public sphere, and the conditions under which media support democratic governance.

Elizabeth A. Skewes is an associate professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado–Boulder. Her research focuses on media sociology and news practices, the media's role in electoral politics, factors that influence media content about political campaigns, and politics in popular culture. She is the author of Message Control: How News is Made on the Presidential Campaign Trail (2007) and the author or coauthor of several book chapters and journal articles. She is a former newspaper reporter and magazine editor, and she received her PhD in mass communications from Syracuse University in 2001.

Mustafa Taha is an assistant professor of mass communication at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. He holds a doctorate from Ohio University and has taught public relations and mass communication for more than 11 years at universities in the UAE. His areas of research and teaching include public relations, media representation, new media and society, media and conflict, image management, and public diplomacy. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a diplomat at the Sudan mission to the United Nations, New York, UN peacekeeping missions in Somalia and Liberia, and as Sudan's consul general in Ethiopia. In 2012, he published a book on media behavior in the 2000 US General Election.

Howard Tumber is Professor of Journalism and Communication, and Director of the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism at City University London. He has published widely in the field of the sociology of news and journalism and is the author, coauthor/editor of eight books including Critical Concepts in Journalism (four vols., 2008), Journalists under Fire (2006), Media at War: The Iraq Crisis (2004), Media Power, Policies and Professionals (2000), News: A Reader (1999), Reporting Crime (1994), Journalists at War (1988), and Television and Riots (1982). He is a founder and coeditor of the journal, Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism.

Karin Wahl-Jorgensen is Reader in the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University. She is the author of Citizens or Consumers (with Justin Lewis and Sanna Inthorn, 2005), Journalists and the Public (2007) and the recently completed Disaster and the Media (with Mervi Pantti and Simon Cottle, in press). She is the editor of several volumes, including The Handbook of Journalism Studies (2009) and is currently at work on a book about media, political participation, and emotion.

Stephen J. A. Ward is Director of the George S. Turnbull Center in Portland, Oregon. The center is the Portland base of the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication. Previously, he was the Burgess Chair of Journalism Ethics and Director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of the award-winning The Invention of Journalism Ethics: The Path to Objectivity and Beyond (2005). In addition, he wrote Ethics and the Media: An Introduction (2011), and Global Journalism Ethics (2010). He is coeditor of Media Ethics Beyond Borders: A Global Perspective (2010). Professor Ward is associate editor of the Journal of Mass Media Ethics. His articles and reviews have appeared in such journals as Journalism Studies, Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics and the Journal of Mass Media Ethics. He was a reporter, war correspondent, and newsroom manager for 14 years.

Herman Wasserman worked as a print journalist in South Africa before earning his doctorate from Stellenbosch University in 2000 and embarking on an academic career. He has published widely on media in postapartheid South Africa, including the monograph Tabloid Journalism in South Africa (2010). Edited collections include Popular Media Democracy and Development in Africa (2011) and Media Ethics Beyond Borders (with Stephen Ward, 2010). He is currently Professor and Deputy Head of the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. He edits the journal Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies.

Introduction

Media Ethics as Global

Stephen J. A. Ward

Global media ethics seeks to articulate and critique the responsibilities of a news media that is now global in content, reach, and impact. It is the project of developing aims, principles, and norms of practice specifically formulated for a global, media-linked world.

The context for global media ethics is the current, often disorientating, revolution in media (Ward 2011a). Two major trends of this revolution are worth noting. First, the emergence of a “mixed news media” that is interactive and online. News media is “mixed” for two reasons. First, it is mixed because practitioners use many types of technology to create media content, for example, printed newspapers, blogs, websites, and social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Second, it is mixed because of the democratization of media—the fact that citizens have access to publishing technology. As a result, the number of media practitioners has increased dramatically in recent years, going far beyond the ranks of professional journalists to include web writers for NGOs, scientists with blogs, and citizen journalists.

A second and related trend is the globalization of news media, and media in general. We live in a world where “reality” is defined and mediated by a ubiquitous and powerful global media. News media are global in content because they report on global issues or events, whether the issue is immigration, climate change, world trade policies, or international security. News media are global in reach because they have the technology to gather information from around the world with incredible speed, and to use this information to create stories for a global public. News media are global in impact because the production of stories has impact across borders, sparking riots in distant lands or prompting global responses to natural disasters.

These two trends, mixed media and globalization, define the subject matter for global media ethics. The two trends create the problems and opportunities that motivate scholars and others to study global media ethics. However, to be clear, global media ethics is not the empirical study of globalization as a complex phenomenon affecting culture, economics, and communication. It is the analysis of the normative implications of globalization on a news media whose practices and norms were created for a nonglobal, nonmixed media.

The argument for global media ethics can be summarized in one short sentence: Global power entails global responsibilities. It is therefore appropriate—some would say urgent—to ask about the ethics of global media, and to what extent it differs from the previous ethics of a nonglobal media rooted in individual nations and regions of the world. The need for a global ethics is due not only to technological innovation and new ownership patterns; it is due to changes in the world that journalism inhabits. Of primary importance is the fact that our media-connected world brings together a plurality of different religions, traditions, ethnic groups, values, and organizations with varying political agendas, social ideals, and conceptions of the good. Media content deemed offensive by certain groups can spark not just domestic unrest but global tension. As happened with the publication of the cartoons of Mohammed by a Danish newspaper, news media (and other media) can spark cultural tensions and violence that ripples across borders. In such a climate, the role of media, and its ethics, must be re-examined.

A globally minded media is of great value because a biased and parochial media can wreak havoc in a tightly linked global world. North American readers may fail to understand the causes of violence in the Middle East or of a drought in Africa if they are not reported properly. Jingoistic reports can portray the inhabitants of other regions of the world as a threat. Reports may incite ethnic groups to attack each other. In times of insecurity, a narrow-minded, patriotic news media can amplify the views of leaders who stampede populations into war or the removal of civil rights for minorities. We need a cosmopolitan media that reports issues in a way that reflects this global plurality of views and helps groups understand each other better. We need globally responsible media to help citizens understand the daunting global problems of poverty, environmental degradation, and political instability.

However, one may ask: Why not apply existing principles of media ethics to the problems raised by a globalization of media? The answer is: Traditional media ethics is insufficient because traditional media ethics was, and is, parochial, not global. For traditional media ethics, the media owed responsibilities to a public within the borders of a nation. For traditional media ethics, journalists were first and foremost citizens of specific countries who should be patriotic in serving their country's national interest, not global citizens seeking to create global understandings or global justice. Therefore, we must reconceive media ethics as dealing with issues surrounding transnational publics and global problems.

For some or all of these reasons, global media ethicists believe that the rise of global media calls for a simultaneous development of a global media ethics. In my concluding Chapter 15, I discuss to what extent this project of global media ethics might be realized. Yet, whatever the answer is to the question of realization, the fact remains that the world needs a global ethics for its media.

Plurality of Approaches

Even if we understand the need for global media ethics, this does not mean that “global media ethics” refers to something clear and singular. As a field of study, “global media ethics” does not refer to a well-defined science with a consensus on methods and aims. It is not a mature academic discipline which builds, rigorously and systematically, upon previous established knowledge. “Global media ethics” does not refer to one thing, such as one, internationally accepted, code of media ethics. Instead, global media ethics refers to an evolving field. It is a “felt need” that motivates a loosely connected set of activities and studies united by the belief that ethics must go global, for the reasons cited above.

Another commonality among advocates of global media ethics is the view that journalists and other media practitioners need to undergo a global revolution in their self-consciousness and in the way they practice their craft. For example, some global ethicists argue (Ward 2010) that journalists and news outlets need to regard themselves as global citizens. They need to see their responsibilities from a cosmopolitan view that challenges the often negative influence of various forms of parochialism, such as narrow patriotism or extreme nationalism. If journalists become globally minded, they will change how they cover global issues and events.

These common beliefs leave plenty of room for different answers to questions about the most effective methods of inquiry, the most important problems, and the most important principles of a global media ethics. Today, global media ethics is characterized by a plurality of approaches, a plurality of types of theorizing, and a plurality of contending views concerning what global media ethics is or should be.

As the chapters in this book indicate, there are numerous types of inquiry in the field of global media ethics. Types of inquiry can be divided roughly into four kinds, depending on the degree of normative and philosophical emphasis in the studies: empirical, empirical-normative, applied, and philosophical.

The empirical category includes comparative studies of media cultures and surveys (Weaver 1998) of the attitudes, working conditions, and practices of journalists and other media practitioners in different countries. Empirical-normative studies include surveys and cross-culture comparisons, but these studies are more focused on the implications of such studies on our conception of global media ethics. Empirical-normative studies also examine the normative similarities and differences among media practitioners. For example, Chapter 2 of this book, by Hanitzsch, Plaisance, and Skewes, draws conclusions about universals and differences in journalism based on a multinational survey of journalists.

The third form of inquiry works in the area traditionally known as applied ethics—the study and critique of the principles of media professions. Applied ethics, in global media ethics, means a creative and bold extension of existing ideas to media as global. Global applied ethics means the construction of new principles, the critique of existing principles, and the reinterpretation of norms for the guidance of global media. For example, in this book several chapters question the relevance of traditional notions of journalistic objectivity and neutrality for certain types of media coverage and for different media cultures.

The fourth type of inquiry works at the meta-ethical (or philosophical) level. Inquirers examine the theoretical foundation of global media ethics. Foundational topics include the goals and basic principles of global media ethics, the existence of media universals, and the challenge of ethical relativism. For instance, in Chapter 14 of this book, Clifford G. Christians argues against relativism as a major obstacle to the construction of global ethics.1

Given these lines of research, global media ethics is best described as a project. A project is a practical affair. It brings together people of varied skills and interests in an attempt to realize valued objectives. To be a project is to be an ideal not yet realized. Global media ethics is a project in this sense, in that it is an ideal not yet realized. Global media ethics—as a widely accepted explicit set of principles—does not exist. What is more, the project of global media ethics is controversial. Advocates see the construction of global ethics as a worthy project, required by today's media. Yet plenty of ethicists and media practitioners are not engaged in the project. As I discuss in Chapter 15, some people regard the project as utopian or undesirable.

The project, then, must establish a beachhead for global media ethics in the face of parochial (nonglobal) ethics and skeptics of the very idea of global ethics, especially in media. To establish a beachhead, the project sometimes takes the form of an ethical movement, usually described as the “search” for a global media ethics (Ward and Wasserman 2010). At the center of the movement are scholars and media practitioners deeply interested in exploring the fundamental ideas of global media ethics. For example, one group have, since 2007, held international roundtables to stimulate discussion on what global ethics means for different media cultures. The roundtables have resulted in seminal publications.2 In addition, an increasing number of books and journal articles appear with global media ethics as their topic. The movement is supported by global media institutes and globally minded websites with an interest in global journalism and its ethics (Ward 2011b). These centers hold global media conferences and publish articles and newsletters which add to the conversation about global media ethics.

Skepticism of global media ethics because of its varied and contending perspectives is misplaced. It betrays a simplistic view of applied ethics and how it evolves. Global media ethics is a valid form of “emergent” applied ethics. A practice is emergent if its key normative elements are less developed than a more mature practice.3 A mature practice enjoys substantive agreement on the goals, methods, and norms of the practice. The normative concepts of emergent ethics may be less developed for two reasons: either because the practice is new, or because the practice is not new but agreement on key concepts has broken down and in a state of flux or reformulation. Reformulation is prompted by engagement with new problems of practice. The need for changes in the applied ethics of technology, the sciences, or professions is based on ever-evolving new conditions in these areas of society. For example, the development of bioethics and the ethics of technology with worrisome military applications are examples of emergent ethics. Some areas of ethics are not emergent and are relatively stable for long periods of time. The ethics of a religion may remain unchanged in essentials over many decades, or centuries. However, among such practices as journalism, emergent ethics is a familiar phenomenon because of regular and rapid changes in the conditions of practice. In the media professions, the need to address new normative problems is so practically urgent that they force practitioners to reformulate ethical guidelines and to gradually codify (and philosophically ground) these responses to problems. Emergent ethics, in media and elsewhere, evolve through a gradual resolution of key issues forged in the crucible of daily practice and public debate. For global media ethics, the new problems created by mixed media and globalization of media force journalists and media scholars to engage in an emergent process that redefines basic concepts.

Structure of the Book

This book takes seriously the idea of global media ethics as a project with many types of contributors and many types of contributions. The four parts of the book were selected to reflect the book's subtitle—the many problems and perspectives in this new field of global media ethics.

Part I introduces the reader to media ethics worldwide. Couldry and Tumber argue for the continuing relevance of ethics for global media in general and for reporting international conflicts. Tumber says the best description of the ethical role of war reporters today is that of “responsible engagement” with events and issues, rather than the view that the role of such reporters is that of the neutral or objective observer. Hanitzsch, Plaisance, and Skewes examine the idea of universals and differences across media cultures; Houston indicates how an emergent ethics is developing among global networks of nonprofit journalists.

Part II analyzes media ethics in different regions of the world. Berenger and Taha examine Arab mass media, while Rojas and Macafee study the impact of new media on the Colombian public sphere. Wasserman explains the ethical tensions among South African media, and Fair questions the approach of international media development agencies in Liberia.

Part III considers how a global media ethics might change practice, especially the coverage of global issues. Dunwoody and Konieczna recommend a number of approaches that would improve media coverage of climate change. Wahl-Jorgensen and Pantti argue for a more cosmopolitan approach to covering natural disasters. Bell questions the use of celebrities as sources on global issues, and Rao shows how Amartya Sen's theory of comparative justice could be used to guide how Indian journalists (and journalists elsewhere) cover stories that involve issues of justice, wrongdoing by officials, and social class.

The book's concluding Part IV addresses philosophical questions raised by the preceding parts. Ess argues for a widening of media ethics to include consideration of how communication technology is altering how citizens interact with others, and how this “new media” is affecting conceptions of self. Christians examines the problem of relativism for global media ethics. Ward defends the project of global media ethics against a range of objections, including claims that the project is utopian and will never be realized.

Themes

We obtain a better appreciation of the concerns and the varied lines of inquiry in global media ethics by noting some common themes among the 15 chapters. The chapters show that the controversies in global media ethics are instantiations of much broader controversies in ethics, cultural studies, and philosophy. One of the main controversies is the debate between universalists, who focus on common values among media cultures, and antiuniversalists (or global skeptics), who focus on normative differences among media cultures. Moreover, we see that global media ethics cannot avoid engagement with the difficult philosophical issues around the idea of universalism in ethics. Through this engagement, theory building in global media ethics becomes embroiled in complex discussions and intense debates surrounding the relationship of the local and the global with respect to culture and ethics.

Here are five themes found in the book's chapters that define the current state of inquiry and debate in global media ethics:

Universalism or contextualism?

In this book, the debate between the local and global arises from the assumption that a global media ethics must be a form of universalism. That is, it must assert that there are at least some universal principles that apply to media around the world. But this assertion runs up against at least two forms of skepticism. First, the existence and prevalence of universals: Are the principles of media ethics relative to particular societies? Are there any universal principles in media ethics (or in ethics)? Does the variety of types of media practice and media standards cast doubt on the possibility of universal media ethics? Second, universals and cultural difference: Is ethical universalism a form of cultural imperialism or cultural insensitivity? When we try to apply universal principles across borders do we show disrespect to local and regional variations among media cultures?

In this book, Hanitzsch, Plaisance, and Skewes argue that empirical research shows that there are both universals and differences across media cultures. Berenger and Taha contend that an abstract universalism of principles fails to capture significant ethical differences in the practice of Arab mass media. They prefer an approach called “contextualism” which studies how media norms operate in specific media cultures.

What type of ethical approach?

A second theme is best posed as a question: What approach to global media ethics will be most conducive to finding common values? Ess, Couldry, and Rojas and Macafee agree that media ethics remains important but the scope of media ethics should widen beyond professional journalists to citizens. Couldry argues that the plurality and complexity of media practice today makes a “top-down” approach unattractive in ethics. A top-down approach seeks common values by imposing principles on diverse media practices. Couldry promotes a flexible, “bottom-up” approach based in virtue ethics as the best way to begin a cross-cultural conversation on media ethics.

Interpreting global principles

A third theme is that global media ethics should provide nuanced and culturally sensitive interpretations of whatever concepts are put forward for inclusion in global media ethics. Among the candidates for inclusion are (1) ethical principles such as truth telling and objectivity, (2) forms of journalism such as watchdog investigative journalism, and (3) ideals such as “serving the public” or democracy. Wasserman examines the ways that journalists (and others) in transitional democracies like South Africa interpret the idea of media serving democracy. Should “serving democracy” in South Africa mean adopting a Western-style watchdog journalism focused on official wrongdoing or should it a mean a journalism focused on human dignity and social inequalities? Wasserman shows there is no simple, clear application of the abstract ideal of “media serving democracy.”

Fair draws the same type of moral from her study of how international media development agencies have attempted to create a Western-style free media in Liberia. The notion of a free democratic press, imported from the West, cannot (and should not) be imposed on the complex history, ethnic composition, and political terrain of an African country such as Liberia.

Global approaches to global issues

Another theme is how media, steeped in traditional forms of practice, result in suboptimal coverage of global issues. Dunwoody and Konieczna argue that coverage of climate change is episodic and influenced by a narrow definition of news. Reporters tend to apply a traditional notion of “balance” to climate change stories, which results in reports that give too much credibility to questionable views and experts. They recommend a “weight of evidence” approach to reporting differing viewpoints, and endorse a form of coverage that brings the local and global together.

Wahl-Jorgensen and Pantti contend that coverage of natural disasters is restricted by an attempt to report in an unemotional “objective” manner. In addition, news media cover disasters in a parochial manner. Which disasters they cover and how they cover them is overdetermined by the impact of the disaster on their own country. They recommend that journalists adopt a more cosmopolitan approach toward coverage of disasters, an approach that brings together the emotions and the rationality of journalists.

Parochialism partially transcended

These themes lead back to one fundamental point upon which most of the authors agree: Even if we cannot say with precision what a global media ethics should be, media practitioners should become more globally minded and seek to transcend, at least partially, their parochial attachments. These attachments can distort coverage of events and inhibit the global public's understanding of trends. Even if the project of global media ethics is only beginning, a media that is global in content, reach, and impact cannot escape the responsibility—today—to improve their coverage of global issues.

Notes

1 See Ward (2010) for the foundations of global journalism ethics.

2 Among the roundtable leaders are Profs. Clifford G. Christians of the University of Illinois, Shakuntala Rao of the State University of New York-Plattsburgh, Herman Wasserman of Rhodes University, South Africa, Lee Wilkins of Wayne State University-Detroit, and myself. Roundtables have been held in Stellenbosch, South Africa, in 2007, Dubai in 2010, and Delhi, India, in 2011. Presentations at the South African roundtable became the content for Media Ethics Beyond Borders (Ward and Wasserman 2010). Papers from the Dubai meeting formed the content of a special issue on global media ethics in Journalism Studies in December 2011, Vol. 12(6). Papers from the Indian roundtable will be published by Oxford University Press.

3 Beitz (2009: 43), for example, describes human rights practice as an emergent practice.

References

Beitz, C. R. 2009. The Idea of Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ward, S. J. A. 2010. Global Journalism Ethics. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.

Ward, S. J. A. 2011a. Ethics and the Media: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ward, S. J. A. 2011b. “Center for Journalism Ethics, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison.” Journalism Studies12(3): 392–8.

Ward, S. J. A. and Wasserman, H. Eds. 2010. Media Ethics Beyond Borders: A Global Perspective. New York: Routledge.

Weaver, D. Ed. 1998. The Global Journalist. New York: Hampton Press.

Part I

Media Ethics Worldwide

Chapter 1

Why Media Ethics Still Matters

Nick Couldry

Journalists who work for British tabloid or midmarket newspapers, which have nearly four-fifths of circulation in Britain,1 are trusted to tell the truth by less than a quarter of its population (10% for tabloid journalists, 22% for journalists on the midmarket press). It is small comfort that less than a third of people in Britain trust leading politicians, trade union leaders, or senior civil servants. Only BBC news journalists are trusted to tell the truth by a majority of Britain's population, although trust in them also fell drastically between 2003 and 2010 (Kellner 2010). And yet it is taken for granted that free media are essential to a working democracy.

There is more than a hint of paradox here. Media's freedom to publish does not automatically aid democracy: What if media regularly publish lies or untruths, as so many of the British population believe or suspect? As philosopher Onora O'Neill puts it, “the press has no licence to deceive; and we have no reasons to think that a free press needs such a licence” (O'Neill 2002: 100). The paradox goes further, since an untrustworthy media cannot provide a secure basis for trusting other public figures or processes. As O'Neill notes, “if we can't trust what the press report, how can we tell whether to trust those on whom they report?” (O'Neill 2002: 90). There is easily enough provocation here toward the development of a rigorous framework of media ethics, and indeed codes of journalistic ethics have existed for more than a century in many countries (Bertrand 2000).

I want, however, to argue in this chapter that the status of media ethics in media research is, in many respects, problematic and in need of robust defense. This is for at least two reasons. First, there is the increasingly ambiguous status of institutional media themselves within the proliferating complexity of the digital media age; second, and connectedly, there is the rising demand for a broader ethics of communication that would give no special prominence to the ethical problems raised by institutional media. The best response, I suggest, is to develop a media ethics that is flexible enough to provide starting points for new debate, and not merely the reaffirmation of old rules and norms. Making this argument will bring out the special contribution of the philosophical tradition of , by contrast with other approaches to the normative sphere, such as deontology. The distinction is important, although sometimes blurred in debate about media norms: By “ethics” I mean normative discourse focused on issues of the good and dispositions aimed at the good (virtue), while by “deontology” I mean normative discourse focused on duties (for a sharp treatment of the contrast, see Ricoeur 2007). Getting this distinction clear and so getting clear about the distinctive contribution that an ethics approach can bring to the normative dilemmas posed by media practice may, in turn, lay the foundations for a more robust communication ethics over the longer term.