Abstract

Problem: The task of developing an ethics for the media according to constructivist principles is heavily loaded in two respects. On the one hand, critics of constructivism insist that this discourse generally legitimates forgery, arbitrariness, and laissez-faire -- a hotchpotch of facts and fictions; on the other, constructivists protest that their very school of thought inspires the maximum measure of personal responsibility and ethical-moral sensibility. Method: Taking as its point of departure a media falsification scandal that received wide publicity in Germany, this article seeks to outline some of the fundamental questions of a constructivist media ethics. The close scrutiny of the scandal involving the interview fabricator, Tom Kummer, leads the author to identify three fundamental questions of a constructivist media ethics: (1) the question of autonomy; (2) the question of fact and fiction; (3) the question of responsibility. These questions are discussed at length, and with particular attention to the current debates regarding the ethics of media and communication studies. Findings: The author is able to show that constructivist premises and postulates will certainly help to create ethical-moral sensibility, but cannot supply, as immediate derivatives of constructivist epistemology, programmes for action or concrete regulations of behaviour that can be implemented step by step. For an ethics of the media, constructivism can thus primarily provide meta-reflections and meta-rules.