Implications of Audience Ethics for the Mass Communicator
By James L. Aucoin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Communications Department
University of South Alabama
UCOM 1000
Mobile, AL 36688-0002
(334) 380-2806
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Submitted for presentation to the Qualitative Studies Division, AEJMC
annual meeting, Washington, D.C., August 1995.
Abstract
Implications of Audience Ethics for the Mass Communicator
By James L. Aucoin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Communications Department
University of South Alabama
The use of a journalism-as-public-conversation model provides an
interpretative framework for the understanding of mass media audience
members' ethical responsibilities as well as the ethical obligations
of
mass communicators. This consideration expands the discussion of
mass
communicator ethics but coordinates closely with previous
discussions of
mass media ethics by Lambeth and Fink. A topology of obligations is
constructed. Additional obligations of the mass communicator include
producing messages that recognize they carry no monopoly on truth and
providing easy-access reader and viewer feedback channels for a more
robust public dialogue.
Implications of Audience Ethics for the Mass Communicator
It is not unusual for commentators on the mass media to ascribe certain
responsibilities to audiences of mediated messages. For example,
columnist David Broder concludes his critique of the modern press by
admonishing the reading public to read critically. The press's
presentation of reality is distorted by journalists' presuppositions and
prejudices, Broder admits, so readers must "correct the `spin' those
twists impart" (1987, 366).
While Broder suggests vaguely that the media audience member must "hold
up" his/her "end of the dialogue" with the press, others have been
more
explicit in assigning a responsibility to the audience. CNN anchor
Bernard Shaw, on a C-SPAN panel to discuss infidelity allegations
against then-candidate Bill Clinton, remarked that the media were
duty-bound to report the allegations and the public had the
responsibility to assess the accuracy of the reports (Altschull, 1992,
3). Les Brown, suggesting a rights-based ethics for television
viewers
based on case law and the Constitution, argues that citizens have an
obligation to assert their statutory rights and become "a conscience
imposed on an industry obsessed with increasing its revenues and
profits" (1979, 10). Doig and Doig urge mass media audience members to
be "consumer/editors" paying attention to "nuances of the news" and
evaluating the evidence presented in news reports, balancing themselves
"between gullibility and cynicism" and demanding information needed
for
making informed self-rule and consumer decisions (1972, 16, 60).
Mass media ethicists, however, rarely include audience responsibilities
in their discussions of mass media ethics (Cunningham, 1992, 239).
Ellul (1981) and Moran (1979), however, discussed audience ethics in
relation to propaganda, and Johannesen (1990, 1979) considered
audience
responsibilities as an aspect of the ethics of persuasion. In
addition,
Code (1987) and Stocker (1982), writing within the philosophical
framework of epistemology, argue that receivers of messages have
responsibilities. Code, for example, argues that an individual ought to
preserve a degree of objectivity, think clearly, and be responsible
for
what one knows (1987, 68). There has been little attempt, however,
to
explicate a theory of mass media audience ethics.
Literary and speech theorists, on the other hand, have written
extensively about the "ethics of reading," rhetorical ethics, and the
function of writing (Clark, 1990; Miller, 1987; Bazerman, 1980;
Farrell,
1983, 1976; Johannesen, 1971; McKeon, 1975; Perelman, 1963; and
Rosenfield, 1980). And others have written about the conversational or
dialogic model of communication and the communication model of
reality,
which have relevance to a discussion of audience ethics (Baynes,
1994;
Fish, 1980; Habermas, 1989; Rehg, 1994; Warner, 1992; Kreckel, 1981;
Todorov, 1984; Stuart, 1978; Bennett, 1985; Sullivan, 1965; Bitzer,
1980; Burke, 1969, 1973; and Bruffee, 1986). Taken together, the
concepts of the ethics of reading, epistemic ethics, and the social
construction of reality through public dialogue can contribute to an
enriched understanding of mass media audience responsibilities.
Moreover, an understanding of audience ethics, in turn, sheds light on
the responsibilities of mass communicators. For if, as Berger and
Luckmann (1967) suggest, reality is socially constructed and, as Burke
(1969) and Bakhtin (1981) argue, meaning is created through a
dialogue
between the message sender and the message receiver(s), the
importance
of ethical communication is evident. It follows, then, that ethical
public dialogue is crucial if ethical choices on questions involving
public issues and policies are to be made. This becomes particularly
important considering the recent encouragement of "public," or
"civic"
journalism (Miller, 1994; Anderson, Dardenne, and Killenberg, 1994;
Rosen, 1993; Lambeth, 1992a; and Clark, 1990).
The ethical responsibilities of journalists, public relations
practitioners, and other public communicators, when seen in the light of
audience ethics, go beyond the traditionally noted duties derived
from
either the Aristotelean-based conception of the right-acting
practitioner, the critical studies concern over political economy, and
the communitarian synthesis of the two.1 All three perspectives
locate
ethical behavior in the message sender(s), and without consideration
of
the role of the audience, the resulting lists of requirements for
ethical practice are limited.
This paper first repositions the audience into the equation of mass
communication ethics and then outlines the corresponding ethical
requirements for audience members and mass communicators.
The Concept of Audience Ethics
To say that mass media audience members have responsibilities in the
communication process implies a theory of mass communication that
posits
1) an active audience and 2) a role for audience members in creating
the
meaning of the mass communication messages.
Media scholars working from a variety of theoretical perspectives have
accepted the concept of a mass media audience with some level of
activity in relation to media messages (Burton, 1990, 153-156; Jensen,
1986). Considerable disagreement remains, however, over the degree
to
which audience members can affect the meaning of a message. At one
extreme, critical and cultural industry theorists, as well as
agenda-setting theorists, generally argue that the mass media manipulate
audience members (Grossberg, 1984; Williams, 1975, 1977, 1980;
Althusser, 1969, 1970, 1971; Adorno and Horkheimer, 1972; Gitlin, 1980;
Schiller, 1986; Altschull, 1984; Entman, 1989; and McCombs and Shaw,
1972; Noelle-Neumann, 1984; Altheide, 1976). At the other extreme,
semiologists and some structuralists situate control of a message's
meaning totally in the audience (Fish, 1980; Fry and Fry, 1985; Barkin
and Gurevitch, 1987; Liebes and Katz, 1988; Wren-Lewis, 1983;
Scholes,
1982). Occupying a middle ground, social and meaning
constructionists
argue that meaning occurs through negotiation between the message
sender
and the message receiver (Geertz, 1973; Tuchman, 1978; Hall, 1982;
Jensen, 1986; Burke, 1969; Bakhtin, 1981; Barthes, 1977; Park, 1940).
Morgenstern (1992) offers a reasonable integration of theories through
the use of lay epistemic theory. She argues that audience autonomy:
is a capacity one can exercise to different degrees at different times,
that is both made possible by and confined by the amount and
kind of
culture and information accessible, the relative accessibility of
alternative theories of the world, and opportunities within the
community in question for critical discussion and (informal)
prediction
and testing (306, italics and parenthesis in original).
It is within this context of social constructionist theory coupled with
Morgenstern's conception of individual audience members as
"theorists in
their own right" that the concepts of mass media audience ethics and
mass communicator ethics become intertwined.
For social constructionists, mass communication is dialogic or
conversational in the sense that reality is socially constructed through
public discourse carried and encouraged by mass media (Anderson, et
al.,
1994; Dewey, 1954). Clark (1990) distinguishes between eristic
discourse and dialectic discourse. "Discourse that is eristic in its
purpose treats knowledge as something we possess and language as the
vehicle we use to transport what we know to others" (21). In this
conception of discourse, the message sender assumes the authority of
"one who has privileged access to truth" (21). Linear conceptions of
mass communication theory and much that is taught about mass
communication ethical decision-making conceives mass communication as
eristic. To see discourse as dialectical, however, is to treat
knowledge as "current consensual interpretations of common experience,
and language as the activity of social interaction through which
people
develop those interpretations and share them" (21). In this
conception
of mass communication, the message sender becomes but one voice in a
"pluralistic process of collaborative exchange through which a
community
of equals discover and validate what they can collectively consider
true" (21). It is this dialogic conception of mass communication that
is embraced by Anderson, et al., in The Conversation of Journalism
and
is found in the writings of Carey (1989), Dewey (1954) and Park
(1940),
among others.
From the social constructionist perspective, Clark (1990) explains,
we communicate with others who share similar experiences for the purpose
of coming to a common understanding of our circumstances, an
understanding that not only binds us together as a cooperating community
but also provides a foundation for our continued communication
(4).
This "understanding" is the "images in our head," as Lippmann (1922)
called them, that control how we respond to public issues and public
policy decisions. Lay epistemology shows how that understanding
develops in the individual from exposure to experience, ideas, and
facts, which in industrialized societies often come from the mass media
(Morgenstern, 1992).
Audience ethics focus on the responsibilities of mass media audience
members as they are exposed to "experience, ideas, and facts"
presented
by the mass media. It is incumbent upon audience members to
actively
engage in the conversation of public discourse coming to them via the
mass media if the discourse concerns matters of public policy. It is
not enough for audience members to cancel subscriptions, change
channels, or, indeed, even to adopt resisting or opposing
interpretations (Cohen, 1994, 99-100; Condit, 1989, 110). Ethical
behavior as a member of a democratic society demands more. If audience
members demur to the mass media's message either by ignoring it,
unilaterally interpreting it, or by uncritically accepting it, they risk
becoming irrelevant to the governing process by "allowing the
discourse
that addresses them to define their beliefs and values for them, to
stand among them as unmediated assertions of power" (Clark, 1990, 49).
To repeat Broder's admonition, audience members must hold up their
end
of the conversation.
Positioning mass communication as a dialogic exercise between mass
communicator and audience member(s) enriches the conception of mass
media ethics. To be a member of a conversation inherently means that
certain behaviors occur, must occur, if there is to be a
conversation.
These ethical requirements apply as well to instances of public
dialogue. To fail to meet them allows the discourse to deteriorate into
soliloquy by the message sender, which is seen by some researchers
as
inherently an unethical communicative act (Clark, 1990, 21;
Cunningham,
1992, 238-240; Sullivan, 1965).
Being involved in a conversation carries certain obligations
(Johannesen, 1975, 53-56; 1980). In the context of public discourse,
these expectations are applicable to both audience members and public
communicators. They include:
1. Be motivated by social and professional ethics in one's desire to
communicate.2
2. Be fair in one's arguments and use of evidence and be fair in one's
assessment of others' arguments and evidence.
3. Be accurate and truthful in what you say, in what you hear, and in
how you interpret what you hear.
4. Be open to alternative understandings and opposing evidence. Be
willing to be persuaded when good arguments are made; admit errors
when
wrong.
5. Be respectful of others in the conversation, respecting them as
individuals or, in the case of news organizations, as individual
institutions.
6. Provide effective feedback and use feedback received.
7. Foster an atmosphere of openness, freedom, and a willingness to
resolve conflicts that need resolving and reach understandings.
The use of reader ethics theory and epistemic responsibility theory,
furthermore, can be used to suggest some audience responsibilities
that
are specific to people as members of an audience of mass
communication
in a democratic society.
Code (1987) argues that people must have good reasons for "what they
claim to know or understand" (12). To say, then, that something is
true
because it was printed in a newspaper or shown on a video or
broadcast
on a television show is not sufficient evidence that it is indeed
true.
Audience members must evaluate media messages critically, assessing
the
evidence that is presented, comparing and contrasting the
information to
past knowledge, and demanding narrative cohesiveness from the
message.
Code further argues it is epistemicly irresponsible to believe
something "for which the evidence is scanty" or to believe something so
confidently that evidence suggesting something different is
systematically or categorically ignored (90). She also classifies
negligent examination of evidence as a type of irresponsiblity (91).
Ellul (1981) argues that people manipulated by propaganda participate
in the manipulation because propaganda fulfills their desires for
simplistic solutions to complex social problems, confirmation of
existing prejudices and beliefs, affirmation of self-worth, and other
unconscious desires of people living in a technological world (121).
Cunningham (1992) stresses that the "propagandee is not an innocent
victim" but, rather, a willing participant in the "pattern of
co-dependency and addictiveness in which, paradoxically, the propagandee
progressively surrenders the power of choice by choosing to reduce
it"
(240).
It is only through ethical viewership or readership that mass media
audience members can effectively respond to the potentially dominating
message of the mass media. By engaging the mediated message and
joining
the public dialogue, audience members empower themselves and their
fellow community members. Engagement of the mediated message can be as
private as thinking about the message or can become more public by
discussing the message with family members, friends, or community
members.
Engagement of mediated messages can involve being quoted in a news
story or writing a letter to the editor. The engagement can be carried
even further, though, when one feels compelled to do so. An
assistant
principal of a public school in Mobile, Alabama, joined the
considerable
public dialogue about whether children from low-income families
should
receive federally funded free breakfasts and lunches at school. In
response to discussion in the news columns, in letters to the editor,
and in the local daily newspaper's reader call-in comment column, as
well as a guest editorials, Principal Gillion wrote a guest editorial
column. "All of us are aware of the newly loud voices of our middle
class screaming about the government wasting tax dollars," Gillion
wrote. And, answering those voices, she continued: "We cannot and
should not enjoy this life and expect to pay no dues and have no
responsibility for those who do not have . . . an abundant life"
(Gillion, 1995). In this way, Gillion added her voice to the public
debate.
A citizen in Omaha, Nebraska, took another route to engage the local
mediated message. Although having no prior training or experience in
journalism, Frances Mendenhall began a monthly newspaper, the
Nebraska
Observer, in which she and others responded to stories and
editorials
appearing in the local daily newspaper and reported on issues not
covered by the city's mainstream paper. Her explanation for the venture
was that she "and a lot of other Nebraskans with a taste for public
issues began seeing that the [Omaha] World Herald was either not
reporting or under-reporting taboo subjects" (McCarthy, 1991).
Clark (1990) stresses that public rhetoric is "inevitably propelled by
private purposes" that must be overcome by the people to whom the
rhetoric is addressed (56). "Although no rhetorical statement can be
pluralistic in its purpose," Clark asserts, "the people it addresses
can
make it pluralistic and thus public in the way that it functions
within
their community" (56). The people do this by countering the
rhetoric
with their own alternative visions with which to judge the rhetoric's
truthfulness. "They expose that rhetorical statement as an assertion
of
an ideology, judge it as such, and present in response alternative
ideological claims for public consideration" (57).
Only when mass media audiences assume the responsibility of answering
the rhetoric of the media outlets and their sources can they nurture
democracy and counter the "mediaspeak" described by Cross (1983) and
the
media dominance and control described by Schiller (1973) and
Altschull
(1984). If the social constructionists are correct that reality is
negotiated through public dialogue, "we must hold ourselves responsible
for that meaning we help to make" (Clark, 1990, 9; Bakhtin, 1981).
Mass media audience ethics, then, can be summarized by the following
rules:
1. Agree to converse. Agree to engage in the public dialogue. Talk
back to your TV sets, your newspapers, and your magazines.
2. Demand sufficient evidence before you accept a report or story as
representing a truthful account.
3. Retain a healthy degree of skepticism even when you are willing to
accept a report as truthful. No report can be the final word. What
will the next report say? What will the next source tell you?
Truth-seeking about public and social issues must by nature be a
continual process. It can never be an arrival.
4. Identify and challenge ideologies of message senders. What
unspoken beliefs about the world have molded and shaded the message
being sent?
5. Recognize and challenge private motives of public communicators.
What hidden agendas have affected the message?
6. Bring to a mediated dialogue one's own understandings derived from
past experiences and fact gatherings and contrast and compare them
in a
critical way with the mediated message. Insist that the message's
narrative "hang together" in a logical manner. Insist that it make
sense before you believe it.
Responsibilities of the Message Senders
Once the audience becomes repositioned as a participant in public
communication, the concept of communicator ethics broadens. It is not
sufficient to limit the discussion of ethical principles for
journalists
or public relations practitioners and advertisers to the Aristotlean
ethical principles of truth-telling, humaneness, autonomy,
stewardship,
and justice (Lambeth, 1992b; Fink, 1994); or to reduce the ethical
obligations of public communicators to the clarity of rules such as "do
no harm," "be courageous," "keep your promises," "be honest," and
other
strictures outlined by Ross (1930) and Gert (1988). These are
sufficient when outlining the duties and responsibilities and virtues of
the journalist or public relations practitioner. But when the
indivi
dual journalist or public relations practitioner is seen as a party to
a
public dialogue, the range and nature of responsibilities are
broadened
and enhanced (Anderson, 1994, 183-188; Newcomb, 1991).
The ethical purpose of public communication is not to transmit
information objectively or describe reality to an audience, nor to
impose a dominant interpretation of reality. It is to enter into a
collaboration with the audience to constitute reality (Clark, 1990, 1;
Anderson, et al, 1994, 14).
For the connection between journalists or public relations
practitioners and their publics to be truly a collaboration, rather than
an attempted imposition of the public communicators' view of the
world,
the communciation must be a conversation, or a dialogue. Clark
(1990)
explains:
When we assert as complete and absolute truth what is really but one
interpretation, our discourse is eristic in its attempt to impose
that
interpretation upon others. But when we present an
interpretation to
others for them to judge, opening it to their modifying
response, we
contribute through our discourse to the kind of dialectical
exchange
that enables people to collaborate in discovering and validating
what
they can collectively consider true (19).
Sullivan (1965) argued that all assertions of truth are by nature
tentative and incomplete and, therefore, any public communication should
be made in recognition that more information always will contribute
to a
better understanding of reality. According to Sullivan, public
communicators should operate in such a way as to provide information
that is as accurate and complete as it is possible to assertain and to
encourage members of the public to contribute additional information
or
analyses. This demands the creation of feedback mechanisms that are
easily accessible and inviting to audience members.
James Agee and Walker Evans (1966) provide one of the better examples
of journalism that meets the requirements of openness, recognition
of
vulnerability as to truth-telling, and willingness to have readers
participate in the creation of meaning. Agee begins Let Us Now Praise
Famous Men with a staking out of territory that declared upfront the
limitations of journalism. "I can tell you of him (his subject) only
what I saw, only so accurately as in my terms I know how," Agee
writes
(11). Fishkin (1990) argues that Agee's insight was that the book
"would be `true' only to the extent that it acknowledged its own
incompleteness" (149). Agee, in a passage that captures the ethical
implications for journalists and their audiences of writing about the
lives of real people for readers who likely will have little in
common
with his subjects, continues:
I am liable seriously, and perhaps irretrievably, to obscure what would
at best be hard enough to give its appropriate clarity and
intensity;
and what seems to me most important of all: namely, that these
I will
write of are human beings, living in this world, innocent of
such
twistings as these which are taking place over their heads; and that
they were dwelt among, investigated, spied on, revered, and
loved, by
other quite monstrously alien human beings, in the employment of
still
others still more alien; and that they are now being looked
into by
still others, who have picked up their living as casually as if it
were
a book . . . (11-12).
In the book's preface, Agee alerts readers that they are "no less
centrally involved than the authors and those of whom they tell," and he
invites readers to write Evans and him to actively "participate in
the
subject, in whatever degree of understanding, friendship, or
hostility"
(xv).
Obviously, daily journalists could not and should not try to match
Agee's journalistic soul-searching on each story they produce. There
are stories, however, that would justify statements from the
reporters
and editors that acknowledge they hold no monopoly on truth and/or
invite readers to contribute to a public understanding of the issue at
hand. Newspapers and magazines already do a version of this when
they
solicit reader stories about "My Favorite Christmas Memory" or other
such feature. Soliciting expanded reader discourse on a public issue
would not be that foreign to newspaper editors. Existing letters to
the
editor columns and reader/viewer editorial columns help, but space
limitations and required standards of rhetorical skill restrict partici
pation. Open phone lines that allow readers and viewers to express
opinions for publication or broadcast have the potential of offering a
convenient and non-threatening forum for public discourse. However,
care must be taken so that the only comments from the public are not
truncated into sound bites, which limit their usefulness to public
dialogue (Anderson, et al., 34). USA Today, for example, provided
several methods for readers to respond to its comprehensive examination
of guns and violence in the United States (Dec. 29, 1993). Under a
headline on the editorial page reading "Tell us your gun story," USA
Today editors solicited reader comments by prominently displaying its
letters-to-the-editors address, its fax number, a toll-free number
for
the hearing-impaired, and a toll-free number for the general public.
The editors asked readers to "tell USA Today readers how guns or gun
violence have affected your life" and declared that they wanted "to
hear
from both sides in this serious national debate [about gun
control]."
They promised to publish selected reader responses in future
editions of
the paper, and they did that the following week. This solicitation
for
public comments was placed next to a "person-on-the-street" feature
in
which a dozen citizens from across the country were photographed and
quoted about the handgun issue (USA Today, Dec. 29, 1993, 10A-11A).
The Charlotte Observer has also reached out to readers. During the
1992 presidential campaign, the paper invited citizens to take part in
the news coverage by helping to define the issues about which the
candidates would be asked (Rosen, 1993, 8). When this concept of
inviting public participation was expanded to the presidential debates,
undecided voters (selected by the Gallup organization) were allowed
to
ask questions of the candidates alongside selected journalists.
Researchers found that the citizens asked questions on different topics
than those asked by journalists, and their questions were less
likely to
be argumentative, accusatory and leading -- characteristics deemed
to be
ineffective according to earlier research (Eveland, McLeod, and
Nathanson, 1994, 404).
Encouraging dialogue with audiences adds voices to public discourse and
provides sources of analysis and information that may not have been
available from the media outlets alone. This is important because if
the mass media fail to provide accurate or adequate information about
public matters, members of a community may not be exposed to the
ideas
and facts they need. "We should," Morgenstern (1992) argued,
"consider
. . . the mass media's power to define the epistemic boundaries
within
which audiences will (actively) test, reaffirm, or change their
beliefs"
(306, parentheses in original).
Open dialogue channels, however, allow audience members to contribute
to the definition of the epistemic boundaries. This occurred, for
example, when anti-abortion activists challenged the Clinton
administration's portrayl of surgeon general nominee Dr. Henry Foster.
The first news reports of Foster's nomination reported his
background as
a ob/gyn specialist in Alabama and Arkansas with a reputation for
fighting teen-age pregnancies. Foster acknowledged performing fewer
than 12 abortions. But within hours, an anti-abortion activist from
Pittsburgh had dug out a transcript from 1978 in which Foster
testified
at a Seattle meeting of the Ethics Advisory Board to the Department
of
Health, Education and Welfare that he had performed "probably near
700"
abortions. The activist posted this information on a computer
bulletin
board and on the Internet, prompting more people to dig in files and
enter into the public record more information about Foster. As a
Knight-Ridder wire service story published in the Mobile Register
reported:
Now, the fax machine and the computer Internet are connecting the
far-flung housewives and their files to national groups such as the
National Right to Life Committee that can immediately wire the
information into congressional offices and news bureaus throughout the
country (Feb. 16, 1995, 10-A).
One anti-abortion lobbyist was quoted as saying that prior to the new
information from the anti-abortion activist being made available,
opposition to Foster was predictable Washingtonian rhetoric. "But once
the hard stuff (the activist's facts from the transcript) came out .
. .
it changed the whole complexion of the debate," he said (Mobile
Register
, Feb. 16, 1995, 10-A).
New technology has opened avenues of dialogue between
citizen-activists, policy makers, and journalists, changing the
composition of the public debate. Whether this will lead to a fuller
and more informed public dialogue has yet to be examined.
To summarize, ethical obligations of mass communicators participating
in public dialogue include the following:
1. In addition to being accurate, comprehensive, and fair, mass
communicators need to recognize they do not monopolize truth. Their
messages should be presented in such a way as to acknowledge this.
2. Mass communicators ought to provide easily accessed avenues for
audience responses to media messages and aggressively encourage
reader/viewer participation in the creation of public messages, and
hence, the creation of reality.
Conclusion
Audience ethics and mass communicator ethics are complementary and
reflexive. They expand the conception of mass communicator ethics, yet
coordinate with recognized mass media ethical principles outlined by
Lambeth (1992) and Fink (1994). They extend the ethical
considerations,
but they do not replace them. The common ethical responsibilities
of
all who participate in a conversation or dialogue, as outlined by
Johannsen (1975), are similar to the ethical principles of
truth-telling, humaneness, autonomy, stewardship, and justice (see
Table
1). In addition, each of the ethical obligations incumbent upon the
mass communicator has a counterpart obligation attributable to
audience
members. This is to be expected in an ethical theory based on the
value
of dialogue and conversation.
____________________________________________________________
Table 1
Audience and Communicator Ethics Matrix
Common Responsibilities Mass Comm. Audience
Accuracy Motivated by Motivated by
Truthfulness professional social
Fairness ethics ethics
(truth-telling and
justice)
Openness to alternative Provide Be willing
understandings/opposing feedback to engage in
evidence and show channels public discourse
respect to
the "other"
(humaneness)
Foster atmosphere Present message Demand
of openness, freedom, in such a way sufficient
and willingness to that limitations evidence,
resolve conflict are acknowledged retain
(stewardship and skepticism,
autonomy) challenge
ideologies
and motives
motives, contribute own
understandings
________________________________________________________________________________
__
By positioning mass communicators within a public dialogue in a
democratic society, the ethical obligations of audience members and
communicators are revealed to be more demanding than previous
theoretical discussions have indicated. These obligations and the more
effective means of carrying them out need to be further revealed and
analyzed through future research.
Notes
1Aristotle, "The Nicomachean Ethics," in H. Gene Blocker, ed., Ethics:
An Introduction, 2nd Ed. (New York: Haven, 1988), 389-448. For a
modern interpretation applied generally to social practices, see
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd Ed.
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1984), esp. 146-255. Edmund B.
Lambeth, Committed Journalism: An Ethic for the Profession, 2nd Ed.
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), applies Aristotlean
ethics specifically to journalism, see especially pages 11-93. For
political economic perspectives, see J. Herbert Altschull, Agents of
Power: The Role of the News Media in Human Affairs (New York:
Longman,
1984), esp. 179-205; and Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, 4th
Ed.
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1992). Clifford G. Christians, John P.
Ferr
and P. Mark Fackler, Good News: Social Ethics and the Press (New
York:
Oxford University Press, 1993) synthesizes the two and offers with a
communitarian approach.
2For a discussion of both social and professional ethics, see
Christians, et al., Good News. MacIntyre, After Virtue, and Lambeth,
Committed Journalism, provides additional insight into professional
ethics.
Sources
Adorno, T. and M. Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York:
Herder and Herder, 1972).
Agee, James and Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (New York:
Ballantine, 1966).
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