JOUR1111- Week 8

Ethics

This lecture was delivered by Donna Meikeljohn . I found it addressed on of the ongoing questions that I have had in relation to journalism. That is the formation, application and the use of an ethical code.

While the term “ethical” is often thrown around and used to describe the appropriateness of media and actions, I have never actually been able to define what ethics are in depth, nor have I ever been able to decide why certain material is deemed to be ethical or unethical.

Donna first showed us some supposedly ethically questionable advertisement. I found none of these to be remotely offensive as I thought the humorous intentions behind the adverts was more than enough to rectify any possible offensiveness.

The most interesting points that I gleaned from this lecture were the paradigms of determining ethical value that Donna presented.  These paradigms encompass all ethical codes that could possibly exist. They are as such:

Deontology: These are the underlying rules and codes that we base our social behaviour around. All ethical codes make use of these base assumptions of appropriateness. As a result of this all ethical codes can be considered as deontological.

Consequentialism: This paradigm can be viewed as results focused. Ethical actions are judged by the consequential results of the actions. The phrases “the end justify the means” and “the greatest good for the greatest number” embody the rationale of consequentialist thinking.

Virtue: This paradigm of ethical thought judges actions by a code of virtues. Actions are ethical if they are in accordance with a moral code. These virtues are not set but are created by the individual. They are often virtues such as courage, honesty, temperance and prudence.

Despite this lecture clearly illustrating the paradigms of ethical behaviour and showing samples of ethically dubious material, I still find it impossible to clearly determine the exact characteristics that make me personally think something is unethical.

The most important point that I learned from this lecture was regarding public interest. The lecture taught that journalist’s actions should always be in the public’s interest.  I find that public interest should be the defining aspect of determining ethics.