media ethics
The question of media ethics is increasingly relevant in the digital age. At its core, ethics is a social system of deliberating and prioritizing shared values and principles to provide moral guidance toward ideal actions. In the context of communication, media ethics is a process whereby media practitioners examine moral dilemmas and hard choices to determine which standards of conduct best meet professional and societal expectations and responsibilities for truthfulness, fairness, and minimization of harm in order to promote the integrity of information and a diversity of people and perspectives in a global society. Given the economic and social power of mediated communication and its pervasiveness in people’s lives, this involves consideration of everyone affected by one’s communication; these entities can be deemed moral claimants or stakeholders, including society at large, specific publics (e.g., minority groups, children, wildlife), clients, customers or subscribers, audiences, sources, competitors, employers and coworkers, one’s profession, and oneself.
This entry provides an overview of ethics in media and then explores ethical decision-making, codes of ethics in media professions, distinctions between the law and ethics, and issues related to social responsibility, minimizing harm, and promoting truth and justice.
Overview
While some ethical decisions are black-and-white and obvious, such as avoiding plagiarism and lying to the public, media ethics scholars spend much of their energy debating gray areas, or moral dilemmas, where it is unclear which competing options are most ethical because of an underlying tension over which values to prioritize in the situation. Common tensions to resolve with ethical decision-making in media include:
" height="20" alt="HEW Logo">
- conflicting loyalties (e.g., Can public relations [PR] professionals serve both the client and the public? Should journalists be primarily influenced by what is in the public interest or what interests the public?)
- conflicts of interest (e.g., Can a news organization owned by a powerful company adequately fulfill its duty to hold the powerful accountable? Should an advertising representative whose father works for a major restaurant chain recuse herself from taking on a competing restaurant chain as a client?)
- conflicting values (e.g., freedom versus security, disclosure versus confidentiality)
- revealing truths versus minimizing harm (e.g., whether to show a graphic image during war or protect the subject and the public from offense or violence)
- helping the individual versus helping social groups (e.g., whether to publish a politician’s private information if it might be of public interest)
Ethical Decision-Making
Those studying media ethics draw upon ethical philosophy to aid decision-making when deliberating moral dilemmas. Popular Western moral philosophies (ethical theories) include utilitarianism, duty-based ethics, virtue ethics, and ethics of care. Credited to John Stuart Mill, utilitarian ethics makes impartial decisions based on which act would produce the least harmful consequences, benefiting the greater number of people, or serving the greatest overall good. Duty-based ethics, often based on Immanuel Kant and expanded by W. D. Ross, is less situational and follows universal rules of action that fulfill duties to society, such as truth telling, fidelity, avoidance of harm, reparation, and justice. Virtue ethics, attributed to Aristotle, focuses on which character traits make one a good person, such as emulating virtuousness embodied by role models. Ethics of care is a contribution of feminist scholars to include traditionally feminine concepts into ethical decision-making (although it is meant to apply to all sexes), such as caring and caretaking, maintaining relationships and a sense of community, being partial to certain individuals and the specific context, and being responsible for meeting the needs of others where one is able.
Most Western media ethics scholarship and textbooks, while primarily secular, are informed by Judeo-Christian values, even if less overtly. Media ethics textbooks are starting to include some non-Western philosophies, such as Eastern religious principles from Islam and Buddhism, Chinese communitarian principles from Confucius, and African humanitarian principles such as Ubuntu.
To put these ethical theories into action, media ethics textbooks propose various ethical decision-making models, but they often include similar steps such as defining the core issue or tension, considering relevant facts and sociopolitical context, considering the interests of stakeholders and one’s responsibilities to each, identifying the two or three most feasible and ethical courses of action to decide among, then applying ethical theories and codes of ethics to examine the strengths and weaknesses of each course of action, and selecting a course of action and defending it. It is important to note that reasonable people may come to different conclusions regarding the most ethical choice to resolve a moral dilemma, even though everyone may be following the same ethical decision-making process and applying the same codes of ethics. Yet the process of being thoughtful and careful in deliberation, and considering professional standards and the interests of many affected parties, in general ensures that media professionals’ decisions can be well explained and defended, potentially deserving respect, even if some may disagree with their final choice.
Codes of Ethics in Media Professions
Due to public concerns over media ethics in the early part of the 20th century, such as dishonest advertising, corporate lies, and sensationalized yellow journalism, the media industry established professional organizations to codify standards and professional ideals. Some of the primary professional organizations in journalism, advertising, and PR (particularly in the United States) and their founding dates are the Society of Professional Journalists (1909), National Press Photographers Association (1946), Radio Television Digital News Association (1946), Public Relations Society of America (1947), and the American Advertising Federation (1905). Many countries have their own professional associations, and there are a few international organizations for communicators that have codes such as the International Federation of Journalists and the International Chamber of Commerce (Advertising Marketing codes). Each adopts codes of ethics agreed upon by the leaders and members of the professional organization, which are revised periodically and publicly available. Journalism codes tend to emphasize truth, courage, respect, minimization of harm, fairness, independence, transparency, and accountability. PR codes emphasize honesty, loyalty, fairness, accountability, disclosure, confidentiality, and trust. Advertising codes emphasize honesty, fairness, decency, responsibility, respect, transparency, legality, and minimization of harm.
The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.
SUBSCRIBE
To determine who these codes govern, it is helpful to define the communication profession’s function and purpose. For example, what criteria define a professional journalist in the digital age, where anyone can blog or share newsworthy information? Professional journalists can distinguish themselves from other nonfiction storytellers by following these professional ideals: curating timely information of top public importance, being fair and truthful in reporting it (which involves remaining independent from vested interest and being sensitive to minimizing harm to the innocent), being accountable for the consequences of their communication choices (including correcting mistakes), and continually encouraging peers to uphold professional standards.
Distinctions Between Ethics and the Law
In terms of motivating, guiding, and enforcing standards of conduct, there is overlap between ethics and the law, but they do differ, with ethics being the broader area that governs a wider variety of daily interactions. In democratic countries promoting free speech, laws are often less restrictive of mass communication, giving the media industry much freedom. However, without a sense of professional ethics, this freedom can easily be abused for profit and self-interest and become socially harmful. Therefore, it is incumbent upon media professionals (and corresponding professional organizations) to regulate their own professional behavior via codes of ethics to promote high standards and avoid the need for the state to regulate communication practices. Widespread adherence to a code of ethics has the added benefit of increasing the overall credibility of a profession and further defining the area of expertise and standards expected of any professional.
While many professions are licensed and regulated to ensure expertise and high standards (e.g., medicine, law, architecture, accounting), communication professions are not licensed (again, often out of fear of restricting free speech). This means that adherence to a code of ethics or professional standards is voluntary in the journalism, PR, and advertising fields. For example, an advertiser who misleads clients or a journalist who manufactures facts might face disciplinary action by his employer, including termination, which can damage the professional’s reputation among his peers, but he is not legally barred from working in advertising or journalism again and may not be in breach of any laws (unless he committed fraud or libel).
It is usually deemed ethical for media professionals to abide by the law in most cases. But there may be some circumstances where media professionals believe an existing law conflicts with a moral obligation of their profession. The most common example of this is where journalists in democratic countries will refuse to reveal the name of an anonymous source used in a news story when subpoenaed by the judicial system who may want to prosecute that unnamed source or have her testify in a criminal trial. While not wanting to undermine the justice system, many journalists believe that they can best serve the public interest by maintaining loyalty to their sources and keeping promises of anonymity (especially to whistleblowers), as this enables public trust in the profession and its continued access to information. Particularly in authoritarian or nondemocratic nation-states, journalists can be jailed or harassed for doing their job of reporting on abuses of power. Nonprofit organizations such as International Federation of Journalists, Amnesty International, and Committee to Protect Journalists advocate on behalf of unfairly jailed and oppressed journalists worldwide.
Social Responsibility
Opposing perspectives on the scope of professional obligations exist on a spectrum with social responsibility views on one end and libertarian views on the other. The former dictates that because of their power and social influence, media professions have a duty to contribute prosocial benefits that extend beyond simply avoiding harm, whereas libertarian views are less paternalistic and tend to see the media as independent businesses who are free to respond to consumer and market interests in the pursuit of profit, which may or may not be helpful to society as a whole. While a market-driven libertarian view need not mean that media act unethically (as that may depend on public demands), media ethicists tend to lean toward a social responsibility view as being more ethically focused. Journalism ethics scholar Deni Elliott defines the social responsibility role of journalism as reporting information necessary to inform a citizenry so they can be self-governing. PR scholar James Grunig proposes that excellent PR is less persuasive and more dialogic—a two-way communication between an organization and its publics, where the organization is open to adapting to the needs of stakeholders. And a socially responsible advertising profession is not all about persuasion and instead respects the rights, intelligence, and well-being of consumers and considers society as a whole when raising awareness about the benefits of the client’s products or services. To prioritize loyalties, professionals must determine who they are primarily serving—their employer, the client, or society—and in what way.
Those in the media also debate where accountability lies for minimizing harm—with the media practitioners, with regulators, with parents, or with the public (as consumers or citizens). For example, in the case of a news organization or advertiser causing offense, should professions avoid doing this in the first place, or should regulators step in to prevent or penalize it? Or should offended consumers simply change the channel or stop financially supporting that company? Or should citizens publicly demand media makers improve? Ethics examines questions like these over where the burden for reform lies, and whether society is harmed more by irresponsible speech or by having that speech restricted.
Issues in Minimizing Harm
One of the primary ways communication industries can minimize harm is to be respectful of people’s privacy. Some in advertising and marketing are surreptitiously surveilling customers online and gathering consumer data that they use to make more strategic and personally targeted offers. The main issue here is the lack of permission or choice given to consumers and lack of information about what data of theirs are being gathered and how they are being used, reducing consumer autonomy, agency, and protection from manipulation.
Privacy has long been identified as a primary ethical issue for the journalism profession, particularly if citizens feel the news is reporting a person’s or organization’s private information that is not newsworthy. The key to the ethicality of reporting on personal or unflattering information is if the information is deemed essential or necessary for the public to make informed decisions as consumers or citizens. In utilitarian terms, journalists should only invade someone’s privacy if it is necessary to achieve the greater good. In terms of Kantian ethics, journalists should not use anyone as a means to an end. Conversely, if journalists protected people’s privacy at all costs, news organizations could be accused of not fulfilling their responsibilities to inform the public, so they must make hard decisions about what private information is newsworthy to publish. One important determinant is that there are different levels of expected privacy based on whether the source is a public figure (e.g., a government official or a celebrity) versus a private citizen (i.e., a nonfamous person in the community who is not utilizing public funds or actively seeking fame or widespread attention). The less someone voluntarily seeks public attention, the more privacy he deserves. Thus, the private citizen is legally afforded more privacy protection than public figures, and journalists generally respect these distinctions between public and private. Public figures are more newsworthy in general but should still have some degree of privacy accorded them as human beings. Private citizens may only become newsworthy when they are involved in a crime or caught up (sometimes through no fault of their own) in a significant, newsworthy event.
Media ethicist Lou Hodges proposes guidelines that instruct journalists to only publish personal or private information of celebrities if it does not seriously harm the celebrity but interests the public, whereas personal information should only be published about public figures and officials if it is relevant to their official public duties, not merely if it is interesting. Relatives of public figures are to be treated as private citizens. For private individuals, Hodges proposes the most privacy for victims of tragedy, recommending that journalists only publish about them if they give permission to publish. For criminals, personal information should only be shared if it helps the public understand the criminal act. As a vulnerable group, children should have their privacy respected most and ideally would have their parent’s or guardian’s permission before any photos or information were shared in a news story. Exceptions may be made for photos taken of children during a newsworthy tragic event of public significance (e.g., terrorist attack, natural disaster, sinking ship carrying refugees, or war).
Live reporting of breaking news or tragic events creates many ethical dilemmas for journalists, particularly in broadcasting of violent acts such as mass shootings or bombings. Because situations are unfolding quickly and are often filled with uncertainty, journalists should avoid sharing unconfirmed information that might promote panic, compromise the ability of authorities to do their jobs, incite persecution of a minority group, or damage the long-term reputation of a falsely accused individual (as well as the news organization). Additionally, there will be innocent victims of the disaster who are already suffering, and journalists should treat these people with sensitivity when approaching or photographing them, such as putting the victim’s well-being above the journalist’s desire to tell an interesting, albeit relevant news story. As a sign of respect, when violence results in fatalities, journalists should avoid revealing the names of victims before families are notified, so families do not experience the shock and additional suffering of learning about a loved one’s death on the news.
To minimize harm and support care-based ethics, all media professionals should take special care to protect any vulnerable or less powerful groups who may be adversely affected by media portrayals or manipulative appeals, such as the poor or less educated, minority groups, the elderly, innocent victims of crime or tragedy, animals and nature, and children. Protection of children and their healthy development is something especially pertinent for those in the entertainment media or advertising professions. While laws about advertising and marketing to children vary by country, it is considered more ethical for advertisers to avoid targeting young children at all, avoid manipulative or deceptive appeals, be age-appropriate in products targeted to certain age groups, avoid increasing children’s insecurities or lowering their self-esteem, be upfront with children and parents in distinguishing paid commercial messages from entertainment programming, represent diversity and gender equity, and promote products that are healthy and values that are prosocial, avoiding overtly sexual or violent messages.
In general, media makers should be cognizant of cultural values or taboos to avoid morally offensive content, such as those insulting to religious beliefs or sexual mores, and representations considered to be racist, sexist, ableist, ageist, or homophobic. An exception is when the goal of provocative or controversial material is prosocial rather than selfish—to challenge discrimination and foster productive dialogue on social issues rather than to sensationalize or garner ratings and profit.
Issues in Truth
In communication ethics, truth helps promote understanding, engenders trust and maintains relationships, and gives individuals accurate information to make better, informed decisions. In journalism, truth encompasses several factors: accuracy of information, inclusion of a diversity of relevant perspectives on an issue including an appropriate balance between legitimate opposing viewpoints, and context and completeness to create understanding. Related to accuracy and completeness, if journalists publish false information that damages the reputation of an individual, they may be legally guilty of libel or defamation, particularly if they show malice or reckless disregard for reporting the truth about a public figure or merely show negligence in reporting accurately on a private citizen. In a broader sense, truth-telling is related to independence in journalism in terms of news organizations making gatekeeping decisions about which stories the public needs to hear—decision-making free from bias, vested interests, or undue pressures, whether the pressures be from advertisers subsidizing the news, corporate owners of the news organization, key sources of recurring value to journalists, government threats or pressures, a reporter’s own biases or selfish interests, or anyone attempting to pay for favorable news coverage or cover-ups of wrongdoing.
Journalism is supposed to uphold transparency, not only in being a watchdog of government and corporations but also in its own reporting practices. It is best if editors reveal how any important stories were investigated and how information was obtained and from whom, publicly acknowledging any unavoidable conflicts of interest on the part of the news organization or its sources. This shows accountability and responsiveness, addressing any public concerns over the veracity and integrity of the news and thereby increasing the overall credibility of the news profession. Part of being transparent in news reporting is revealing all the news sources by name, so that the public can verify the information and adequately judge its value and consider any biases or vested interests of sources; this is why anonymous or unnamed sources are to be used prudently and in a limited fashion. However, if every source was always named, then that would prevent journalists from telling some stories of vital public interest in cases where the source feels public knowledge of her involvement might be personally or professionally threatening. This risk of retaliation would reduce the instances of whistleblowers coming forward. Therefore, in support of the greater good, use of unnamed sources by journalists should largely be limited to protecting whistleblowers who are taking risks to reveal wrongdoing on important issues affecting the public.
Journalists must avoid deception, but the primary instance when it may be excused is in deceiving certain sources during undercover investigations on an issue of public importance. For a journalist to be considered ethical in using hidden cameras or misleading a source about his identity as a journalist, media ethicist Louis Day contends that all of these conditions must be met: the story is of public importance, the alternatives to deception were considered or tried but deemed ineffective, the benefits to the public outweigh the harm to sources deceived, and the news organization will be transparent and accountable to the public during reporting the story by revealing their undercover newsgathering tactics and justifications.
Especially in the digital age, but even in the film era, truthfulness surrounding images is a key source of ethical dilemmas in all media professions. Because journalism is a nonfiction medium and not an art form, photojournalists must avoid any manipulation of the image or the scene being captured or any postproduction alteration that misleads the public about the reality of the situation. Journalists have been terminated for tampering with the scene itself, adding objects or people to the photograph, splicing elements of two photos into one image, or even significantly altering the photo’s color. Even seemingly benign alterations for aesthetic reasons are prohibited, such as removing the photojournalist’s own shadow or evidence of their camera equipment, removing an unsightly wire or fencepost, or airbrushing someone’s facial features to increase attractiveness. Some cropping of photos is allowed, as the mere act of taking a photo is already a selection and literal framing whereby the photojournalist chooses what to include versus exclude. But if the cropping misleads the public about a relevant aspect of a scene, such as cropping out a person of importance, it would minimize context and be considered deceptive.
Advertising and PR do not have as strict guidelines as journalists when it comes to images, as the public expects these more persuasive professions to produce images that tend to portray the organization and its products in a positive or attractive light, which may include some light alterations or photoshopping. So, while advertising and PR are also supposed to share nonfiction information, they will be more likely to choose favorable images because they are not obligated to reveal all sides or all aspects of their business practices. Additionally, advertising attempts to be more creative and sometimes humorous, so this profession may take liberties with images so long as it is reasonably clear to consumers what is real versus what is illustrated for dramatic effect. Certain nation’s laws may penalize advertisers for false advertising if they doctor images to the point of deception (e.g., cosmetics or weight-loss advertisements using models that are heavily airbrushed in ways that misrepresent the product’s effectiveness).
The PR profession is less commercial than advertising, and because PR is about relationship-building with stakeholders, including building trust, they should also be willing to share some images that may not be as flattering but reveal a truth that their stakeholders deserve to know. This may be especially true during a crisis situation, whether the company is directly at fault or not. When it comes to sharing visual evidence, ethical mandates to protect the public, wildlife, or the environment from harm should trump a PR professional’s concerns about organizational reputation and branding.
Even outside of the realm of images, and speaking more generally to all professional practices in PR and advertising, truth is vital to upholding professional credibility. This is especially important considering that the public does not tend to trust PR or advertising, due to the professions’ vested interest in serving their clients. Thus, they can be perceived as hired guns to spin the truth to make guilty organizations or shoddy products look good. Therefore, these professions must genuinely work to earn and build trust with the public through more truthful representations of their clients’ products, services, and business practices, which would better enable citizens and consumers to make informed decisions in the marketplace and in the political realm.
Truthfulness in PR and advertising requires both accuracy in information and adequate context and completeness to enable understanding. In advertising, in some cases, it may not be highly unethical to exaggerate and say their product is the best or the tastiest but only if the exaggerations are obvious and consumers understand that the superlative claims are a sales technique common to the advertising genre and not to be taken literally. However, it is considered misleading and unethical to engage in whitewashing or greenwashing, which is when a company seeks to conceal unjust or environmentally harmful behavior by brushing over it with a veneer of cleanliness, goodwill, or respectability, thereby avoiding addressing legitimate issues of public importance. But, conversely, to resolve a tension between disclosure and confidentiality, it is ethical for organizations to choose to keep some information private if it is proprietary or unnecessary for the public to know in order to make informed decisions affecting their lives.
Authenticity is helpful in promoting integrity in the communication process. Organizations should reveal their identity and motives as well as the source of any communication. This allows the public to adequately assess the value of the information, knowing if it came from an entity with a vested interest. Front groups are to be avoided, where the company uses a misleading name to give the impression that they are a nonprofit, independent, or grassroots advocacy group instead of a commercial entity with a vested interest in taking a certain stance on an issue—one that is often self-serving.
Issues in Justice
While minimizing harm and being truthful certainly relate to one’s sense of being treated fairly by media makers, justice also comprises a communicator’s support for diversity and equity for human groups. Therefore, communicators must consider the diversity of their own organizations and professions in terms of staffing and leadership as well as increase the diversity of human representations in media messages. Diversity relates to gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, religion, body type, age, ability, nationality, and even political ideology. Studies released in 2017 from the Radio Television Digital News Association, Women’s Media Center, and the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California detailed how media professions in the United States are male dominated and disproportionately favor white men in leadership positions—an inequity that is especially acute in photojournalism and sports journalism.
As a remedy, media professions should find various ways to increase the college education and training, recruitment, hiring, professional development, pay equity, and promotion of more diverse groups of people who are underrepresented in their organization. Often a goal would be to achieve parity—that is, the organization or profession as a whole includes a diverse group of people in direct proportion to the actual demographic makeup of the community or wider nation they serve. Among the benefits of employing a more diverse work staff, especially in leadership roles, include media content that is more culturally inclusive and aware, and less likely to be insensitive, offensive, or unfair to minority groups. This should serve the greater good and start to fulfill the duty of reparation for past harms, including underrepresentation or stereotyping of women and minority groups.
To be inclusive, media content and communication messages should include a wider variety of people than has been standard in the past, and more awareness of the framing or portrayal of people, especially minority groups who have been misrepresented or underrepresented. In journalism, this means choosing sources and experts that give voice to underrepresented groups. In crime coverage, journalists should create equity by being cognizant of correcting any coverage trends that privilege white groups over people of color, especially stereotyping Black and Latino men as violent. In sports journalism, gender inequity can cause dilemmas over whether journalists should favor more coverage of male sports based on market interest and fan popularity or instead cover male and female sports equitably. Journalism as a whole could better fulfill its social responsibility role by covering social injustice/inequities as an issue of public importance.
The advertising profession can be fairer to human groups if its messages avoid using anyone as a means to an end, such as not objectifying women’s bodies to sell products or attract attention. By avoiding stereotyping, advertisers can help address gender and racial inequity by showcasing a wider variety of gender identities and roles for men and women of all races, including more men competently caring for children and household tasks, and women and people of color holding positions of power in the public sphere. Commercials that show more diversity in family groups and romantic partners, including same-sex couples and interracial families, may over time decrease the ridicule and discrimination experienced by those who are living in nontraditional family settings. And PR (especially for powerful companies or government agencies) can be fairer in its treatment of less powerful groups, social movements, and minorities in terms of listening to and respecting the concerns of those groups and incorporating these concerns in the company’s decision-making. While all of these recommendations may seem socially responsible, dilemmas exist for advertisers and PR professionals whose clients believe these more diverse representations may not be good for their own business, even if they may be good for society at large.
Thanks to the subfield of environmental communication and pressure from social movements, awareness is beginning to build that animals, nature, and the environment are also stakeholder groups affected by media messages; this is because human media consumers are influenced by the cultural values reflected in those messages about animals and nature. As media content is aimed at humans, it tends to be anthropocentric and overlooks opportunities to take a wider biocentric or ecocentric perspective inclusive of the concerns of all living beings or ecosystems to demonstrate that they matter. Admittedly, in media professions subsidized by corporate interests, adequate economic incentive may not exist to challenge business actions or government policies that are environmentally unsustainable or enable the use or exploitation of animals or nature for profit. However, many in the public increasingly care about environmental and animal protection issues, especially as awareness grows about how human activity is causing problems for wildlife, domesticated animals, and nature in ways that also affect human life in an ecologically interdependent world. To facilitate justice for nonhuman life, media professionals can reflect these significant concerns by telling the stories of a biodiverse group of living beings sharing the planet and exploring how individuals, companies, and institutions can help resolve problems and create a more ecologically responsible and just society.
The original version of this article was published by SAGE Publications in The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Mass Media and Society.