Media Ethics — AEJMC Hot Topics

Ten Years Young, the Media Ethics Division Continues to Meet Ethical Challenges

July 12, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

By Jack Breslin, Iona College | Media Ethics

In reflecting on our first decade as an AEJMC division, the Media Ethics Division leadership must continue to attract and inspire members with an open and engaging dialogue about crucial media ethics issues.

This on-going dialogue should not only promote relevant and innovative scholarship, which MED’s panels, research sessions and publications have demonstrated over the past decade. But this ethical “marketplace of ideas” must also inspire students and professionals to create their own ethical identities to discover insights and solutions for existing and new ethical challenges in our global media environment. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Features Tagged With: AEJMC, Iona College, Jack Breslin, Media Ethics

Social Media–Sources for News?

July 7, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

By Dr. Jane Marcellus, Associate Professor
Middle Tennessee State University

Are posts on social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace public or private? Should journalists quote them? What about linking to someone’s social media site in a news story? Does it matter if the person is very young?

These questions have come up in a listserv discussion I’m part of. The original post concerned a local paper’s coverage of a 17-year-old charged in a vehicular homicide case. The paper linked to the 18-year-old victim’s MySpace page, which included photos of him and the motorcycle he was riding when he was killed (http://www.themonitor.com/articles/reflect-28475-bravo-ricardo.html).

A subsequent post concerned a different case, in which a paper had quoted Facebook posts praising a student who had died. The student’s friends were angry; they considered the posts private.

Good reporting or invasion of privacy? The answer isn’t obvious. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Features Tagged With: Critical Thinking, Facebook, Jane Marcellus, Media Ethics, Myspace, New Media, Privacy, Social Media

Ethics are easy when nothing is at stake

July 7, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

By Michael Bugeja, Director, Greenlee School, Iowa State University

The Iowa State Daily has a strong online, new media presence, with video, audio and text in an innovative design that also is easy to navigate.

Things should be looking up, but revenue is down.

The Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication has a historic relationship with the independent student newspaper, housed in the same building. Many on staff are our students. Alumni who won Pulitzer Prizes worked there. Our top benefactors have been editors.

But mostly we want the Daily to succeed because it holds the university (and at times, us) accountable.

In addition to directing the School, I am a former college media adviser at Oklahoma State University. For a decade now, my research in media ethics and my reporting for The Chronicle of Higher Education (and other outlets) have analyzed how Internet has changed the nature of journalism and education. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Features Tagged With: Media Ethics, Michael Bugeja, New Media

Physician-journalist guidelines proposed in wake of Haiti earthquake

June 24, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Electronic News | In the wake of extensive television news reporting in Haiti by physicians such as Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN, guidelines for physician-journalists in covering disasters are proposed in the current issue of Electronic News, published by SAGE.

Within two days after the January 12 quake, CNN had sent Gupta, its chief medical correspondent, to the scene. Other network physician reporters, including Drs. Richard Besser (ABC News), Nancy Snyderman (NBC News), and Jennifer Ashton (CBS News), arrived in the week following the quake. The physician reporters faced an immediate question. Should they exclusively report? Or should they attend to the sick and injured? Or should they do both? And if so, how should they balance the duties and responsibilities of their two professions?

All four chose to spend some or most of their time attending to injured and dying Haitians. On returning, physician-journalists faced criticism that by reporting about their own medical efforts, they were exploiting their good deeds for crass ends. [Read more...]

Filed Under: News, Research Tagged With: AEJMC, Association of Health Care Journalists, CNN, Haiti, Jennifer Ashton, Media Ethics, Nancy Snyderman, Physician-journalists, Radio-Television Digital News Association, Radio-Television Journalism, Richard Besser, SAGE, Society of Professional Journalists, Tom Linden, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Discussing JMC with… Erik Collins

June 23, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Dr. Erik Collins is the Associate Director for Graduate Studies and Research at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. A native of New York, Collins previously served as a senior public relations manager for major corporations including Miller Brewing Company and Philip Morris and taught at Syracuse and Ohio State universities.

How do you define mass communication?

One might, I suppose, define the term by focusing on technology. Let me define it in terms of my idea of its function. Mass Communication is the purposeful intent to communicate information that aids the functioning of individuals in a capitalistic, democratic society through multiple communication channels. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Interviews Tagged With: Erik Collins, Media Ethics, Media Law, New Media, University of South Carolina

Dimensions of News Media Brand Personality

June 22, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

A new research study published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly examines general and robust constructs of news media brand personality that are applicable across multiple news media outlets, including broadcast and cable news networks, national and local newspaper, and news magazines.

Through a series of rigorous exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis procedures with the final set of 48 personality traits, the authors show that that news media brand personality is composed of five dimensions: Trustworthiness, Dynamism, Sincerity, Sophistication, and Toughness.

One of the significant contributions of this study is to provide news media companies a reliable and valid method to assess their brand personality. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Research Tagged With: Cable News, Jooyoung Kim, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Magazine, Media Ethics, News Media, Newspaper, Tae Hyun Baek, Trust, University of Georgia

Discussing JMC with… Bill Cassidy

June 22, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Inspired by the series on social media by Danny Brown, “Discussing JMC with…” features a collection of interviews with academics from across the U.S. and abroad discussing current topics and trends in journalism and mass communication.

Bill Cassidy is an Associate Professor and Journalism Area Coordinator in the Department of Communication at Northern Illinois University. The 2009-2010 head of the Newspaper Division of AEJMC, he teaches courses in print journalism, mass communication theory and graduate research methods.

His research examines influences on news media content, specifically in the areas of online journalism, media credibility and AIDS coverage. Cassidy’s work has been published in journals such as Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Newspaper Research Journal, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Atlantic Journal of Communication, and First Monday.

He earned his Ph.D. in Communication and Society from the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Houston and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tulsa. Prior to entering academia, Cassidy worked for more than a decade as a columnist and correspondent for Daily Racing Form, the leading publication in the Thoroughbred horse racing industry.

How do you define mass communication?

In my classes I initially address this question from the standpoint of “What is mass media?” We start with the word media which, of course, are the different technologies that facilitate communication between the senders and receivers of messages. Then when we introduce mass into the conversation, we arrive at a definition of mass media similar to the one offered in Croteau and Hoynes’ Media Society textbook, “media that reach a relatively large audience of usually anonymous readers.” I find this definition is a good starting point in addressing the fact that the distinctions between mass communication and other forms of communication are no longer so cut-and-dried. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Interviews Tagged With: AIDS, Bill Cassidy, Journalism, Media Credibility, Media Ethics, New Media, Online Communities

Study: Values, Ethics of Sports Reporters Vary by Beat

May 19, 2010 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Sports reporters on the high school beat, often the youngest and most inexperienced in the newsroom, are also the most likely to believe they can operate by more relaxed ethical codes than their counterparts, according to a new survey.

The telephone survey, conducted by researchers in the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State, asked 263 reporters who cover sports at the high school, college or professional level about their attitudes toward ethical codes and professional norms for reporters. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Research Tagged With: Bu Zhong, Marie Hardin, Media Ethics, Newspaper Research Journal, Sports Communication

New study shows how journalism ethics developed

September 11, 2009 By AEJMC Leave a Comment

Three commissions that investigated violence in the 1960s had a significant impact on the development of widely accepted views about journalism ethics, according to a study published in the summer 2009 issue of Journalism & Communication Monographs.

In a monograph titled “Two Visions of Responsibility: How National Commissions Contributed to Journalism Ethics, 1963-1975,” Glen Feighery says it was not just the work of the Hutchins Commission or the Watergate investigation that prompted media organizations to focus more on social responsibility, but that the work of three commissions, The President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, and the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, offered significant advice on how journalists should ethically approach their work. The media responded with revisions of codes of ethics, the creation of news councils and journalism reviews, and increased employment of minorities. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Research Tagged With: Glen Feighery, Journalism, Journalism & Mass Communication Monographs, Media Ethics, University of Utah, Violence