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Archive for category Ethics
Framing Gay Marriage
Posted by Kate Nacy in Ethics, Media Politics on August 16, 2010
New research tracks coverage of gay marriage debate.
Are you for “family values” or “human equality”? Not that you actually have to choose one over the other, despite the prevalent belief that the two are mutually exclusive. If you’re a Family Values reader, you might look to the Chicago Tribune for your latest in gay marriage info, whereas if you’re of the Human Equality variety, you’d better go for the New York Times. A new study published in the Social Science Journal takes a look at coverage of gay marriage in Read the rest of this entry »
Lessons from Wikileaks
Posted by Marcello Foa in Crises and Scandals, Ethics, Media Effects on August 1, 2010
Reflections on Wikileaks’ Afghan War Diary.
Swaying the media is much easier than academics and reporters are willing to admit. Knowing that 80 percent of the news comes from institutional sources, the transparency of information depends, above all, on the integrity of the people who work in such institutions.
If the government, or in this specific case the White House and Pentagon, select a line to follow and demand discipline from staff (avoiding unwelcome leaks), they are able to control not just a newspaper, but the media as a whole.
Unfortunately, as demonstrated in the book Gli Stregoni della Notizia (Witch Doctors of the News), scoops are often deceptive as they tend to be deliberately planted Read the rest of this entry »
The Ghosts of Users Past
In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.
The cyberworld, it seems, is condemned to the same ineludible limitations. Facebook users are dying. So are Twitterers, MySpacers, Flickrers and Tumblrers. But as social media users eventually pass on to the great unknown, what are companies to do with carefully crafted online personas and profiles? Facebook, as explained in a recent NYT article written by Jenna Wortham, occasionally suggests users “reconnect” with deceased friends and relatives who’ve created accounts. This is, for lack of gentler terms, totally creeping people out.
Yet with users over 65 converting to Facebook at a greater pace than any other age group, the issue of cyber life-after-death will surely become more pressing. According to the NYT article, Facebook’s original strategy was to simply delete profiles of anyone Read the rest of this entry »
BP, Pollution and Information Strategies
Posted by Marcello Foa in Crises and Scandals, Ethics, Public Relations on June 20, 2010
Corriere del Ticino, June 19, 2010
In the Gulf of Mexico BP is desperately trying to stop the oil leak, but that’s not the only front it’s fighting on.
The other is that of the media, with interesting and, in many ways, disturbing implications. For starters, the fears of those who believe that American democracy is overly influenced by lobbies have been confirmed. Let’s suppose the accident had occurred off the coast of any other country. What would have happened? Public interests would have prevailed Read the rest of this entry »
How Free Are We?
Posted by Kate Nacy in Ethics, Regional Studies on April 29, 2010
Study finds restrictions on press freedoms tighten across the globe.
Freedom of the Press 2010: A Global Survey of Media Independence, a study conducted by Freedom House, an independent watchdog organization, registered declines in press freedoms in nearly all corners of the world. This is the eighth consecutive year such declines were recorded by Freedom House, where a sorry one out of six persons is considered to be living in a country that can claim a free press. In fact the only region to boast improvement is Asia-Pacific, where gains were attributed to transformations in Bangladesh, Bhutan, and the Maldives.
Restrictive laws, violence against journalists, political conflict and heightened governmental grasp on Internet freedoms are among the standard batch of explanations for freedom’s grim status. Read the rest of this entry »
Move Over, Tea Party
Canada’s Pirate Party receives official status.
Take a seat, Tea Partiers. There’s a new batch of troublemakers taking names. On April 12th, the Pirate Party of Canada – a party whose platform includes securing the downloading of movies, music and other media for noncommercial purposes – was granted official party status. Aside from promoting what is now “illegal” downloading, the Pirates also intend to curtail government surveillance of the Internet. The central argument is this: With regard to current copyright law, if it criminalizes an act nearly everyone commits, Read the rest of this entry »
Media Accountability in Romania
Posted by Tina Bettels in Ethics, New Media, Regional Studies on April 7, 2010
Interview with Mihai Coman of the University of Bucharest’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Q: Are there successful examples of media accountability in Romania?
It depends on perspective. On an institutional level there are a few examples one could call successful. There is a code of ethics in Romania that has been accepted and implemented by all journalistic associations. Now there is also an ombudsman in public television. From a social, sociological perspective we have to ask ourselves who controls the journalistic profession. There is a constant struggle between top and low-level journalists, between media owners and journalists, between politicians and journalists – they all want to control the field. We are involved in the process of transformation in Romania. We believed that the transition to capitalism would occur quickly, however we discovered that such a change takes Read the rest of this entry »
MediaAct Interview: Colin Porlezza
Posted by Tina Bettels in Ethics, Regional Studies on March 29, 2010
Interview with Colin Porlezza, communications researcher at the Università della Svizzera italiana and EJO collaborator.
Q: Are there successful examples of media accountability in Switzerland?
It depends on what one understands as a successful example. Is the existence of a press council already a success – although it has only limited possibilities to impose a sanction? Or can one regard the existence of ombudsmen as positive, even though they are hardly present in public? The infrastructure of journalistic quality management is relatively broad and consistent in Switzerland. A quite successful example is the way TV and radio licenses are allocated – certain quality standards are prerequisites to receiving one. Furthermore, the quality awareness seems to be in general quite high in Switzerland, although this can’t Read the rest of this entry »
Working for Free
Posted by Kate Nacy in Ethics, Journalism Training on March 29, 2010
A study conducted by Skillset – a UK media training body – concludes that 44 percent of workers in the creative media industry perform unpaid labor in order to secure positions in the field.
According to Skillset, entering the industry still remains largely contingent on “who you know” culture, rather than open, merit-based opportunities. Incorporating feedback from a selection of media interns from organizations like the BBC and Global Radio, Skillset reacts against this paticular form of media elitism by compiling a set of “best practice” guidelines and case studies. Compensation of at least Read the rest of this entry »
MediaAct Interview: Epp Lauk
Posted by Tina Bettels in Ethics, Regional Studies on March 24, 2010
Interview with Epp Lauk, Institute of Journalism and Communication, University of Tartu, Estonia.
Q: Are there successful examples of media accountability systems in Estonia?
There are two press councils in Estonia – the Newspaper Association’s Press Council (since 2002) and the Estonian Press Council (since 1991). As there is no cooperation between the two councils and there even is an agreement among the newspapers who are members of the Newspaper Association to ignore the Estonian Press Council, I would say that both have little effect.
Q: Do you believe there should be a new ethical code specifically for online journalism? Read the rest of this entry »
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