This contribution provides theoretical insights into a planned dissertation project which discusses the massmedia as a stakeholder of a company, suggesting that a complex understanding of the massmedia, their public-sphere function and their mode of operation is crucial for analyzing the media’s role in conferring corporate legitimacy. Terms such as ‘corporate citizen’ or ‘stakeholder democracy’ or the notion of corporations as civil or political actors imply a link to the public sphere, which in (...) modern democracies is primarily constituted through the massmedia. However, up to now, there has been hardly any discussion about the role of the massmedia and the public sphere in the realm of stakeholder theory. (shrink)
This article analyzes news coverage of mass murders in Time and Newsweek for the period 1984 to 1991 for evidence of disproportionate, perhaps politically motivated coverage of certain categories of mass murder. Discusses ethical problems related to news and entertainment attention to mass murder, and suggests methods of enhancing the public's understanding of the nature of murder.
Concentration and lack of plurality of media control is significant and appears to be increasing. The potential danger to a democracy of a lack of plurality of media control is serious. There are opportunities for greater plurality and freedom of expression through professional employee decision making partcipation. There are practical precedents for professional employee management participation in the media. Therefore, professional media employee management participation deserves to be seriously considered. Limitations of the principle are also considered.
Background: The global expansion of biobanks has led to a range of bioethical concerns related to consent, privacy, control, ownership, and disclosure. As an opportunity to engage broader audiences on these concerns, bioethicists have welcomed the commercial success of Rebecca Skloot’s 2010 bestselling book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. To assess the impact of the book on discussion within the media and popular culture more generally, we systematically analyzed the ethics-related themes emphasized in reviews and articles about the (...) book, and in interviews and profiles of Skloot. Methods: We conducted a content analysis of a population of relevant English-language articles and transcripts (n = 125) produced by news organizations and publications in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain/Ireland, and Australia/New Zealand. We scored each article for the emphasis and appearance of 9 ethics-related themes. These were informed consent, welfare of the vulnerable, compensation, scientific progress, control/access, accountability/oversight, privacy, public education, and advocacy. Results: The informed consent theme dominated media discussion, with almost 39.2 percent of articles/transcripts featuring the theme as a major focus and 44.8 percent emphasizing the theme as a minor focus. Other prominent themes and frames of reference focused on the welfare of the vulnerable (18.4 percent major emphasis; 36.0 percent minor emphasis), and donor compensation (19.2 percent major; 52.8 percent minor). Ethical themes that comprised a second tier of prominence included those of scientific progress, control/access, and accountability/oversight. The least prominent themes were privacy, public education, and advocacy. Conclusions: The book has been praised as an opportunity to elevate media discussion of bioethics, but such claims should be re-considered. The relatively narrow focus on informed consent in the media discussion generated by Skloot’s book may limit the ability of ethicists and advocates to elevate attention to donor control, compensation, patenting, privacy, and other ethical issues. Still, ethicists should view the book and a pending major TV film translation as opportunities to highlight through media outreach, consultation exercises and public forums a broader range of bioethical concerns that would otherwise be under-emphasized in news coverage. Such efforts, however, need to be carefully planned and evaluated. (shrink)
BackgroundThe global expansion of biobanks has led to a range of bioethical concerns related to consent, privacy, control, ownership, and disclosure. As an opportunity to engage broader audiences on these concerns, bioethicists have welcomed the commercial success of Rebecca Skloot’s 2010 bestselling book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. To assess the impact of the book on discussion within the media and popular culture more generally, we systematically analyzed the ethics-related themes emphasized in reviews and articles about the book, (...) and in interviews and profiles of Skloot.MethodsWe conducted a content analysis of a population of relevant English-language articles and transcripts (n = 125) produced by news organizations and publications in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain/Ireland, and Australia/New Zealand. We scored each article for the emphasis and appearance of 9 ethics-related themes. These were informed consent, welfare of the vulnerable, compensation, scientific progress, control/access, accountability/oversight, privacy, public education, and advocacy.ResultsThe informed consent theme dominated media discussion, with almost 39.2 percent of articles/transcripts featuring the theme as a major focus and 44.8 percent emphasizing the theme as a minor focus. Other prominent themes and frames of reference focused on the welfare of the vulnerable (18.4 percent major emphasis; 36.0 percent minor emphasis), and donor compensation (19.2 percent major; 52.8 percent minor). Ethical themes that comprised a second tier of prominence included those of scientific progress, control/access, and accountability/oversight. The least prominent themes were privacy, public education, and advocacy.ConclusionsThe book has been praised as an opportunity to elevate media discussion of bioethics, but such claims should be re-considered. The relatively narrow focus on informed consent in the media discussion generated by Skloot’s book may limit the ability of ethicists and advocates to elevate attention to donor control, compensation, patenting, privacy, and other ethical issues. Still, ethicists should view the book and a pending major TV film translation as opportunities to highlight through media outreach, consultation exercises and public forums a broader range of bioethical concerns that would otherwise be under-emphasized in news coverage. Such efforts, however, need to be carefully planned and evaluated. (shrink)
Media in Question sets the agenda for a revitalized debate on the hybrid communicative practices that constitute the postmodern media landscape: practices that cross the boundaries between fact and fiction, information and entertainment, public knowledge, and popular culture. In this challenging and provocative collection, the individual contributors rethink key issuesùthe meaning of the public interest, the quality of media performance, and deregulation. In the process they raise questions rarely addressed in normative media theories, for example, the (...) ethics of sports reporting, the moral reasoning in popular culture, and the required professional standards for infotainment genres such as reality television and gossip journalism. Accessible and wide-ranging, The Media in Question will be essential reading for students in mass communication and political communication studies. (shrink)
Insights from First Amendment considerations and from developmental psychology are utilized in suggesting that whatever value codes of ethics may hold for the massmedia, they represent serious difficulties in inculcating substantial ethical values in individual journalists and in the profession as a whole. Evidence from developmental psychology suggests that codes are probably of some limited value to the neophyte working in the media. Codes also help assure non?journalists that the industry really is concerned about ethics. However, (...) codes probably should be relegated to a framed wall hanging for any journalists who have advanced beyond their internships. Confusion reigns because codes are often founded on moralistic rather than moral?philosophical bases, and there is a blurring between general precepts and specific practices covered in codes. As individual professionals mature intellectually and ethically, they should transcend socially?approved conventions codified by ?regulators,?; and begin to become social catalysts in their own rights, according to this essay. (shrink)
This webliography has several functions: for teaching faculty to consult as a tool to aid in enhancing the media ethics curricula; contribute to the scholarly exchange of ideas; and perhaps cultivate a new awareness and direction for exploring secondary and tertiary nonprint sources involving ethics and massmedia.
Among their uses, massmedia codes of ethics declare the values of groups of media practitioners. This paper uses Schwartz's social psychology typology to identify and compare 216 values stated or implied in 15 codes of ethics for associations of journalists, bloggers, advertising/marketing practitioners, and public relations practitioners. Despite differences in their communication goals, codes generally share many of the same general values types yet often use similar words to describe different values and loyalties.
(2013). Visualizing a Mass Murder: The Portraits of Anders Bering Breivik in Danish National Dailies. Journal of MassMedia Ethics: Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 64-67. doi: 10.1080/08900523.2013.755083.
This study applies evolution theory to visual ethics and argues that social comparison theory favored by scholars of eating disorders is actually a Darwinian maladaptation to the media's widespread digital manipulation of women's bodies creating the thin ideal. An evolutionary perspective suggests how the media is enmeshed and why social comparison of the mediated ?mono-body? will continue. This study has three sections: 1) evolution theory and morality; 2) social comparison, biology of the social gaze, and anthropological evidence of (...) Western media's role in the global rise of eating disorders; and 3) rethinking visual ethics to expand Newton's (2001) mass interpersonal relationship. (shrink)
Recent advances in moral psychology and applications of virtue science have created promising opportunities to refine theories of media practice and ethical principles. This article sets forth the theoretical foundation for a model of virtuous action among media exemplars that is multidimensional, inductive, and informed by these developments. The model draws on a range of psycho-social assessment tools to explore five key dimensions of virtuous behavior: story of the self, personality, integration of morality into the self, moral (...) ecology, and moral skills and knowledge. The model's structure is designed to strengthen the empirical basis used to make normative and predictive claims about media practice. (shrink)
Thought experiments are employed for a number of reasons and in many different disciplines. This paper explores the work of Novalis in relation to the method of thought experiments in theology, with a special focus on the encounter between Christianity and the science of his day. In a first step I revisit the ongoing philosophical discussion on thought experiments in order to highlight the lack of interest in the literary features of thought experiments. Step two is dedicated to a (...) discussion of the work of Novalis as far as his metaphysics of phantasy and imagination is concerned as it plays out in his romantic poetry. Building on the results of this discussion, in a third step I discuss the relationship (a) between thought experiments in theology and other disciplines, (b) between current discussions of thought experiments and previous periods of philosophical investigation into the ‘laboratory of the mind’, (c) between Christianity and science, and (d) between literary fiction and cognition. (shrink)
In Beauty and Revolution in Science, James McAllister advances a rationalistic picture of science in which scientific progress is explained in terms of aesthetic evaluations of scientific theories. Here I present a new model of aesthetic evaluations by revising McAllister’s core idea of the aesthetic induction. I point out that the aesthetic induction suffers from anomalies and theoretical inconsistencies and propose a model free from such problems. The new model is based, on the one hand, on McAllister’s original (...) model and on further developments by Theo Kuipers in his “Beauty, a Road to the Truth?”. On the other hand, it is based on empirical findings about affection and emotion, and a naturalistic aesthetic theory. The new model is thus a naturalistic model with a wider explanatory range and much more internal consistency that McAllister’s. (shrink)
This paper gives a philosophical outline of the initial foundations of politics as presented in the work of Plato and argues why this traditional philosophical approach can no longer serve as the foundation of politics. The argumentation is mainly based on the work of Latour (1993, 1997, 1999a, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008) and consists of five parts. In the first section I elaborate on the initial categorization of politics and science as represented by Plato in his Republic. In the (...) second section I discuss the gap between humans and non-humans and how they are tied together in actual real life political topics. In the third section I elaborate on the concepts of political and scientific discourse and how they are thought of as separated fields based on the ancient constitution of human society. In the fourth section I link the concepts of matter of fact and matter of concern. In a final section I present a redefinition of the nature of politics as represented in the work of Bruno Latour as an alternative foundation for the study of political systems. (shrink)
The thesis that the practice and evaluation of science requires social value-judgment, that good science is not value-free or value-neutral but value-laden, has been gaining acceptance among philosophers of science. The main proponents of the value-ladenness of science rely on either arguments from the underdetermination of theory by evidence or arguments from inductive risk. Both arguments share the premise that we should only consider values once the evidence runs out, or where it leaves uncertainty; they adopt (...) a criterion of lexical priority of evidence over values. The motivation behind lexical priority is to avoid reaching conclusions on the basis of wishful thinking rather than good evidence. The problem of wishful thinking is indeed real---it would be an egregious error to adopt beliefs about the world because they comport with how one would prefer the world to be. I will argue, however, that giving lexical priority to evidential considerations over values is a mistake, and unnecessary for adequately avoiding the problem of wishful thinking. Values have a deeper role to play in science than proponents of the underdetermination and inductive risk arguments have suggested. (shrink)
In this essay I raise a dilemma for science journalists based on recent skepticism raised by scientists about the credibility of published results in many fields. Due to systematic biases in the publication record, most published findings in these fields (including psychology and biological subfields) are almost certainly false. So should science reporters stop reporting these findings, given their mission to report verified truths? Or should they report the findings while saying they are almost certainly false?
Invited media scholars and journalists examine the general issue of nuclear waste, risk and the sicentific promises that were made, but not kept, about safe disposal. The massmedia uncovered and reported on nuclear waste problems at Rocky Flats in Colorado and Hanford in Washington. Two environmental journalists review efforts to expose problems at these sites, how secrecy hampered reporting, and the effects of media coverage on nearby residents. An environmental communications scholar evaluates media coverage, (...) the role of the U.S. Department of Energy, and the impact of secrecy on public risk perceptions and attitudes toward government nuclear waste policies. (shrink)
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is optimistically portrayed in contemporary media. This already happened with psychosurgery during the first half of the twentieth century. The tendency of popular media to hype the benefits of DBS therapies, without equally highlighting risks, fosters public expectations also due to the lack of ethical analysis in the scientific literature. Media are not expected (and often not prepared) to raise the ethical issues which remain unaddressed by the scientific community. To obtain a more (...) objective portrayal of DBS in the media, a deeper collaboration between the science community and journalists, and particularly specialized ones, must be promoted. Access to databases and articles, directly or through sciencemedia centers, has also been proven effective in increasing the quality of reporting. This article has three main objectives. Firstly, to explore the past media coverage of leukotomy, and to examine its widespread acceptance and the neglect of ethical issues in its depiction. Secondly, to describe how current enthusiastic coverage of DBS causes excessive optimism and neglect of ethical issues in patients. Thirdly, to discuss communication models and strategies to enhance media and science responsibility. (shrink)
Survey data are presented on opinions about agricultural biotechnology and its applications held by agricultural science faculty at highly ranked programs in the United States with and without personal involvement in biotechnology-oriented research. Respondents believed biotech holds much promise, but policy positions vary. These results underscore the relationship between opinion and stakeholder interests in this research, even among scientific experts. Media accounts are often seen as causes, rather than artifacts, of the existence of public controversy; European and now (...) U.S. opposition to food biotechnology is often explained away in terms of such a relationship. The authors argue that where even experts are divided, public opposition cannot reasonably be attributed to poor public understanding or sensationalistic media accounts. Ethical implications for communicating science are explored. (shrink)
'Animals sell papers' : the value of animal stories -- Media and animal debates : welfare, rights, 'animal lovers' and terrorists -- Stars : animal performers -- Wild : authenticity and getting closer to nature -- Experimental : the visibility of experimental animals -- Farmed : selling animal products -- Hunted : recreational killing -- Monsters : horrors and moral panics -- Beginning at the end : re-imagining human-animal relations.
BackgroundIn 2009, Dr. Paolo Zamboni proposed chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI) as a possible cause of multiple sclerosis (MS). Although his theory and the associated treatment (“liberation therapy”) received little more than passing interest in the international scientific and medical communities, his ideas became the source of tremendous public and political tension in Canada. The story moved rapidly from mainstream media to social networking sites. CCSVI and liberation therapy swiftly garnered support among patients and triggered remarkable and relentless advocacy (...) efforts. Policy makers have responded in a variety of ways to the public’s call for action.DiscussionWe present three different perspectives on this evolving story, that of a health journalist who played a key role in the media coverage of this issue, that of a health law and policy scholar who has closely observed the unfolding public policy developments across the country, and that of a medical ethicist who sits on an expert panel convened by the MS Society of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to assess the evidence as it emerges.SummaryThis story raises important questions about resource allocation and priority setting in scientific research and science policy. The growing power of social media represents a new level of citizen engagement and advocacy, and emphasizes the importance of open debate about the basis on which such policy choices are made. It also highlights the different ways evidence may be understood, valued and utilized by various stakeholders and further emphasizes calls to improve science communication so as to support balanced and informed decision-making. (shrink)
Massmedia campaigns are widely and successfully used to change health decisions and behaviors for better or for worse in society. In the United States, media campaigns have been launched at local offices of the states’ department of motor vehicles to promote citizens’ willingness to organ donation and donor registration. We analyze interventional studies of multimedia communication campaigns to encourage organ-donor registration at local offices of states’ department of motor vehicles. The media campaigns include the use (...) of multifaceted communication tools and provide training to desk clerks in the use of scripted messages for the purpose of optimizing enrollment in organ-donor registries. Scripted messages are communicated to customers through mass audiovisual entertainment media, print materials and interpersonal interaction at the offices of departments of motor vehicles. These campaigns give rise to three serious concerns: (1) bias in communicating information with scripted messages without verification of the scientific accuracy of information, (2) the provision of misinformation to future donors that may result in them suffering unintended consequences from consenting to medical procedures before death (e.g, organ preservation and suitability for transplantation), and (3) the unmanaged conflict of interests for organizations charged with implementing these campaigns, (i.e, dual advocacy for transplant recipients and donors). We conclude the following: (1) media campaigns about healthcare should communicate accurate information to the general public and disclose factual materials with the least amount of bias; (2) conflicting interests in media campaigns should be managed with full public transparency; (3) media campaigns should disclose the practical implications of procurement as well as acknowledge the medical, legal, and religious controversies of determining death in organ donation; (4) organ-donor registration must satisfy the criteria of informed consent; (5) media campaigns should serve as a means of public education about organ donation and should not be a form of propaganda. (shrink)
Since seminal essays like Adorno’s ‘The Culture Industry’ and Benjamin’s ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,’ the massmedia has been of central concern for Critical Theory. Yet Critical Theorists have produced relatively little in the way of systematic analysis of the concrete institutions of mass communication. Early on, Habermas seemed to be headed in this direction, especially with the publication of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. However, in Habermas’s later years, (...) this concern is eclipsed, on the one hand by an ideal theory of communication which says relatively little about non-ideal institutions that “systematically distort” communication, and on the other hand by an increasing focus on properly “political” institutions and the formal structure of law, exemplified by his later work Between Facts and Norms. In this essay, I will show how the colonization of public space by private interests, via technological media, remains sorely under-theorized in Habermas’s work, and that this is not just a peripheral oversight but a central problem that Habermas fails to resolve. I will then give some preliminary suggestions as to how one might expand and develop the critique of systematically distorted communication in more fruitful directions by developing the idea of a politics of meaning. My argument is located within the extensive discussion generated by the relatively recent translation of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere into English, which has produced many useful and important criticisms. (shrink)
Functional reductionism concerning mental properties has recently been advocated by Jaegwon Kim in order to solve the problem of the 'causal exclusion' of the mental. Adopting a reductionist strategy first proposed by David Lewis, he regards psychological properties as being 'higher-order' properties functionally defined over 'lower-order' properties, which are causally efficacious. Though functional reductionism is compatible with the multiple realizability of psychological properties, it is blocked if psychological properties are subdivided or crosscut by neurophysiological properties. I argue that there is (...) recent evidence from cognitive neuroscience that shows that this is the case for the psychological property of fear. Though this may suggest that some psychological properties should be revised in order to conform to those of neurophysiology, the history of science demonstrates that this is not always the outcome, particularly with properties that play an important role in our folk theories and are central to human concerns. (shrink)
First steps are taken in the following toward the study of present-day philosophy of science in Iran, by choosing various examples in the hope of showing that philosophy of science in Iran has emerged predominantly as an apologetic and ideological discourse. I start by pointing out the complexities of method in such a study. I then criticise two writing samples by two well-known Iranian scholars, which exemplify the first Iranian reaction to logical positivism. The study continues with a (...) survey of the mistakes in the Persian translation of T. S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a study of the status of research in philosophy of science in Iran, and a critique of attempts by Iranian scholars at indigenising philosophy of science through the reconciliation of modern science with Islamic faith. (shrink)
In recent years, historians David S. Wyman and Deborah E. Lipstadt have contended in carefully documented books that the U.S. media provided inadequate coverage of Holocaust developments. Thus, these historians contend, American media helped create public apathy, which led to inadequate responses of the Roosevelt administration to requests for aid to Holocaust victims. Wyman believes ?several hundred thousand?; Jews might have been saved from gas chambers if the United States had insisted on determined Allied rescue action earlier than (...) belated efforts of the War Refugee Board, established in 1944. This paper examines U.S. media responses to Holocaust news and the reasons for those responses. It contends the objectivity ethic and violations of other ethical standards by U.S. media may have contributed to the magnitude of the Holocaust tragedy. (shrink)
This article attempts to provide empirical assessment of the nature and extent of ethical dilemmas confronted by librarians working in the news media. Sixty-eight librarians randomly selected from the membership of the News Division of the Special Libraries Association were surveyed to identify prevailing ethical attitudes, specific ethical problems, and the frequency with which those problems were encountered on the job. The study found (a) a widespread concern about ethical issues among news librarians; (b) 9 widely experienced ethical dilemmas; (...) and (c) although ethical challenges are experienced by a majority of news librarians, they are not encountered with great frequency and therefore a crisis situation is not perceived to exist. These findings raise serious issues for both journalism and library professionals. (shrink)
The widespread impression that recent philosophy of science has pioneered exploration of the “social dimensions of scientific knowledge‘ is shown to be in error, partly due to a lack of appreciation of historical precedent, and partly due to a misunderstanding of how the social sciences and philosophy have been intertwined over the last century. This paper argues that the referents of “democracy‘ are an important key in the American context, and that orthodoxies in the philosophy of science tend (...) to be molded by the actual regimes of science organization within which they are embedded. These theses are illustrated by consideration of three representative philosophers of science: John Dewey, Hans Reichenbach, and Philip Kitcher. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]. (shrink)
Mass communication researchers face ethical dilemmas during the course of their work, and those dilemmas are more than the trilogy of informed consent, deception, and privacy. As part of a project for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, we surveyed members of the association's Communication Theory and Methodology Division. Researchers, in an open?ended question at the end of the survey, said their concerns about ethics in research ranged from journal publication practices to proprietary research.
Conditions for philosophy of science in the Netherlands are not optimal. The climate of opinion in Dutch philosophy is unsympathetic to the sciences, partly because of the influence of theology. Dutch universities offer no taught graduate programmes in philosophy of science, which would provide an entry route for science graduates. A great deal of Dutch research in philosophy of science is affected by an exegetical attitude, which fosters the interpretation and evaluation of other writers rather than (...) the development of original theories. Doctoral candidates in particular should be trained to greater originality and assertiveness. Nonetheless, much good research in philosophy of science is conducted in the Netherlands, both in philosophy faculties and in institutes dedicated to the foundations of the special sciences. Distinguished work is done also in the neighbouring disciplines of logic, history of science, and social studies of science. (shrink)
The public communication of science and technology has become increasingly important over the last several decades. However, understanding the audience that receives this information remains the weak link in the science communication process. This essay provides a brief review of some of the issues involved, discusses results from an audience-based study, and suggests some strategies that both scientists and journalists can use to modify media coverage in ways that can help audiences better understand major public issues that (...) involve science and technology. (shrink)
Increasing numbers of news organizations have formal codes of ethics for their personnel. This paper looks at the content of media ethics codes, how these codes are written and what comprises a news organization's fixed value system. Results show that many written policies were devised in recent years, and a noticeable number of other news organizations said they have firmly established unwritten policies. The written codes represented in this survey clearly draw lines around certain activities and label them as (...) acceptable or unacceptable for journalists. Teaching, unpaid appearances (such as on a television talk show), and participation in charitable activities are outside interests more acceptable than political activities in behalf of another person, or holding elected or appointed office. Certain activities which remain as unfinished business include: uniformity of enforcement, management ethics, financial interests, and spouse or friend conflict of interest. (shrink)
Poor Eliza -- Pax Americana : the case of Show boat -- National brands, national body : Imitation of life -- Uncle Sam needs a wife : citizenship and denegation -- Remembering love, forgetting everything else : Now, voyager -- "It's not the tragedies that kill us, it's the messes" : femininity, formalism, and Dorothy Parker -- The compulsion to repeat femininity : Landscape for a good woman and The life and loves of a she-devil.
This study examined the organizational ethics of 51 Chinese media outlets by investigating their organizational statements through breaking them down into three components: definitions, loyalties and values (functions and purposes), and ethical principles (consequentialism vs. formalism). The impact of three characteristics on organizational ethics was also tested. It was found that the Chinese media are most loyal to organizational development, then to the government; and least loyal to their audience. Furthermore, media organizations tend to use consequentialism rather (...) than formalism to justify their moral decisions. This pattern is particularly salient in TV stations compared with daily newspapers. (shrink)
Media argumentation is a powerful force in our lives. From political speeches to television commercials to war propaganda, it can effectively mobilize political action, influence the public, and market products. This book presents a new and systematic way of thinking about the influence of massmedia in our lives, showing the intersection of media sources with argumentation theory, informal logic, computational theory, and theories of persuasion. Using a variety of case studies that represent arguments that typically (...) occur in the massmedia, Douglas Walton demonstrates how tools recently developed in argumentation theory can be usefully applied to the identification, analysis, and evaluation of media arguments. (shrink)
En el presente artículo se lleva a cabo el análisis del discurso de las revistas nacionalistas católicas Cabildo, El Fortín y Restauración en torno a un conjunto de medios de comunicación y determinadas personalidades ligadas a ellos, los cuales operaban en Argentina durante el tercer gobierno peronista (1973-1976). Este trabajo se concentra en el estudio de las modalidades de autorrepresentación y de representación de estos “otros” como rivales, adversarios o enemigos, mediante las contribuciones de los estudios sobre prensa en combinación (...) con los de la Sociolingüística Histórica y el Análisis Crítico del Discurso. The article carries out the analysis of the discourse of the nationalistic catholic magazines Cabildo, El Fortín and Restauración concerning a set of materials from the massmedia and certain personalities tied to them, which were operating in Argentina during the third peronist government (1973-1976). This work is centered on the study of the modalities of self-representation and the representation of these "others" as rivals, adversaries or enemies, by means of the contributions of the studies on print media in combination with those of the Sociohistorical Linguistics and the Critical Discourse Analysis. (shrink)
The term ?boson? appears in almost all discussions on elementary particles and carries a reference to the name of Satyendra Nath Bose, the co-founder of quantum statistics. Yet, in spite of this wide use of a term coined after his name, Bose himself remains a shadowy figure in the history of science. This article is an attempt to reconstruct how Bose arrived at the statistics for which he is now remembered, and his subsequent two-year brief role in international (...) class='Hi'>science. Through the lens of Bose's practice, I seek to grasp the contexts of those peripheral scientists who enter the practice of science from outside of the main group, and yet somehow manage to create a lasting contribution within it. (shrink)
Claims that science should be more democratic than it is frequently arouse opposition. In this essay, I distinguish my own views about the democratization of science from the more ambitious theses defended by Paul Feyerabend. I argue that it is unlikely that the complexity of some scientific debates will allow for resolution according to the methodological principles of any formal confirmation theory, suggesting instead that major revolutions rest on conflicts of values. Yet these conflicts should not be dismissed (...) as irresoluble. (shrink)
We initially characterize what we’ll call existence problems as problems where there is evidence that a putative entity exists and this evidence is not easily dismissed; however, the evidence is not adequate to justify the claim that the entity exists, and in particular the entity hasn’t been detected. The putative entity is elusive. We then offer a strategy for determining whether an existence problem is philosophical or scientific. According to this strategy (1) existence problems are characterized in terms of causal (...) roles, and (2) these problems are categorized as scientific or philosophical on the basis of the epistemic context of putative realizers. We argue that the first step of the strategy is necessary to avoid begging the question with regard to categorization of existence problems, and the second step categorizes existence problems on the basis of a distinction between two ways in which an entity can be elusive. This distinction between kinds of elusiveness takes as background a standard account of inference to the best explanation. Applying this strategy, we argue that the existence of a multiverse is a scientific problem. (shrink)
It is obvious that technology is rapidly changing the world around us. Nowhere is that change more evident than in the revolution occurring for those with physical and mental limitations-their portrayal in the media, their use of the media to achieve group aims and their use of the new on-line media to communicate with others who have limitations and the non-disabled world. In a very real way the growing sense of community among those with disabilities has been (...) linked to the media. (shrink)
Analysis of a European Union funded biotechnology project on plant genomics and marker assisted selection in Solanaceous crops shows that the organization of a dialogue between science and society to accompany technological innovations in plant breeding faces practical challenges. Semi-structured interviews with project participants and a survey among representatives of consumer and other non-governmental organizations show that the professed commitment to dialogue on science and biotechnology is rather shallow and has had limited application for all involved. Ultimately, other (...) priorities tend to prevail because of high workload. The paper recommends including results from previous debates and input from societal groups in the research design phase (prior to communication), to use appropriate media to disseminate information and to make explicit how societal feedback is used in research, in order to facilitate true dialogue between science and society on biotechnology. (shrink)
Science is continually faced with describing that which is beyond. This book, through contributions from nine prominent scholars, tackles that challenge.
This paper raises the question of the prominence and use of statistical graphs in science, and argues that their use in problem solving analysis can best be understood in an ‘interactionist’ frame of analysis, including bio-emotion, culture, social organization, and environment as elements. The frame contrasts both with philosophical realism and with social constructivism, which posit two variables and one way causal flows. We next posit basic differences between visual, verbal, and numerical media of perception and communication. Graphs (...) are thus seen as key interactive sites where different media are transformed into more interpretable forms. Examples are taken from Limnology where numbers are transformed into graphs to find patterns in them, and thus, by implication in the environmental materials from which the numerical measurements were taken. Their revisualization by passes a human cognitive limitation, for the direct analysis — interpretation of lists and tables of numbers, visual imaging being a cognitive strength. Sense of problem, conceptual repertoire, and social relations are seen to direct this pattern search and interpretive process. (shrink)
In this article I analyze some of the troubling issues in Canadian media ethics, based on in-depth interviews with more than 50 experts on Canadian media. I begin by reflecting on the cultural considerations involved in the Canadian media's proximity to the United States. Subsequently, I discuss the problems of excessive ownership of the media by a few organizations, arguing that the right to exercise free expression does not include the right to own as many (...) class='Hi'>media organizations as money can buy. In this context are considered the work of two Royal Commissions: the 1970 Davey Commission and the 1980 Kent Commission. Finally, I am concerned with excessive intrusion of individual privacy. When news becomes entertainment (infotainment) and private stories become public spectacle, individual lives can be mercilessly exposed to the glaring spotlight of unwanted publicity. In delineating the boundaries of intrusion, there is a need to distinguish between public figures and ordinary citizens, and between those who choose to live in the spotlight and ordinary citizens who stumble into the public eye. (shrink)
With AIDS increasingly recognized as a potentially devastating disease, no concensus has emerged in the media about such AIDS?coverage questions as use of names of AIDS victims, whether cause of death of AIDS victims should be reported and what moral limitations should restrict AIDS coverage. A study of AIDS coverage in two major newspapers and two news magazines in 1987 identify weaknesses in current coverage of the AIDS phenomenon and suggests guidelines for ethical reporting ? servicing the greater good (...) without violating the integrity of victims. (shrink)
Our report and bibliography concentrate on research in the philosophy of science carried out in Austria within the last 20 years. The term 'philosophy of science' is here to be understood in the broad sense of 'Wissenschaftstheorie', that is, syntactics, semantics and pragmatics of the natural sciences and of the humanities, including law. After a general introduction to the philosophy of science scene in Austria, we report about those institutions in Austria at which relevant research has been (...) conducted, starting with institutions in Graz and then continuing - in alphabetical order - with institutions in Innsbruck, Klagenfurt, Linz, Salzburg, and Wien. Our report is supplemented by a bibliography; please note that this contains only references to original publications which deal mainly with questions in the philosophy of science, hence no contributions to lexica, no reviews, no translations, no articles in massmedia, no editorial and no unpublished works are cited. Finally, there is an appendix, Alphabetical List of Austrian Institutions at which Philosophy of Science is Conducted, to facilitate communication between you and Austrian philosophers in whose work you may become interested by reading this report. (shrink)
Utilitarianism has dominated media ethics for a century. For Mill, individual autonomy and neutrality are the foundations of his On Liberty and System of Logic, as well as his Utilitarianism. These concepts fit naturally with media ethics theory and professional practice in a democratic society. However, the weaknesses in utilitarianism articulated by Ross and others direct us at this stage to a dialogic ethics of duty instead. Habermas's discourse ethics, feminist ethics, and communitarian ethics are examples of duty (...) ethics rooted in the dialogic relation that enable us to start over intellectually. (shrink)
Codified ethics for journalists in Australia has a long history, almost as long as that in the United States. Unlike the United States, however, Australia has a unified code of ethics, that of the Australian Journalists' Association, which is generally accepted by the whole industry, both print and broadcast. But over the last 20 years, media consumers have shown they have a poor and declining view of the ethics of Australian journalists, despite the checks and balances that exist. Recent (...) signs, both from within and outside Australia, indicate growing dissatisfaction with the media, suggesting Australian journalists can expect increasing criticism of their behavior and mounting pressure on them to be more accountable. (shrink)
This study argues that the notion of transparency requires reconsideration as an essence of ethical agency. It provides a brief explication of the concept of transparency, rooted in the principle of human dignity of Immanuel Kant, and suggests that it has been inadequately appreciated by media ethics scholars and instructors more focused on relatively simplistic applications of his categorical imperative. This study suggests that the concept's Kantian roots raise a radical challenge to conventional understandings of human interaction and, by (...) extension, what it means to exercise freedom. (shrink)
_ Americans were forced to decide during an 18-month period of intense uncertainty whether to invade Iraq as part of the war against terrorism. This article reports compelling evidence that mainstream media between September 2001 and March 2003 failed in their primary responsibility: to provide sound news and commentary on which Americans could base critical decisions about war and peace. One reason is that journalists did not use an objective approach-in part because it had been discredited by media (...) professionals and critics who advocated more activist approaches. (shrink)
Rudolf Carnap delivered the hitherto unpublished lecture ‘Theoretical Concepts in Science’ at the meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division, at Santa Barbara, California, on 29 December 1959. It was part of a symposium on ‘Carnap’s views on Theoretical Concepts in Science’. In the bibliography that appears in the end of the volume, ‘The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap’, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp, a revised version of this address appears to be among Carnap’s forthcoming papers. But although (...) Carnap started to revise it, he never finished the revision,1 and never published the unrevised transcript. Perhaps this is because variants of the approach to theoretical concepts presented for the first time in the Santa Barbara lecture have appeared in other papers of his (cf. the editorial footnotes in Carnap’s lecture). Still, I think, the Santa Barbara address is a little philosophical gem that needs to see the light of day. The document that follows is the unrevised transcript of Carnap’s lecture.2 Its style, then, is that of an oral presentation. I decided to leave it as it is, making only very minor stylistic changes—which, except those related to punctuation, are indicated by curly brackets.3 I think that reading this lecture is a rewarding experience, punctuated as the lecture is with odd remarks and autobiographical points. One can almost envisage.. (shrink)
This article explores the relation between the government and the media in post-apartheid South Africa. An overview is given of key developments and tensions between the government and the media in the first 10 years of democracy and the ethical frameworks underlying the respective positions. An overview of the debate between the so-called "national interest" and the "public interest" is given, and linked to normative ethical frameworks of libertarianism vis-a-vis communitarianism. A mean between the 2 is suggested in (...) the form of mutualism, whereas the necessity for conceptual clarification in debating the relation between the government and the media is emphasized. (shrink)
This paper considers the past and future of Psychology within Cognitive Science. In the history section, I focus on three questions: (a) how has the position of Psychology evolved within Cognitive Science, relative to the other disciplines that make up Cognitive Science; (b) how have particular Cognitive Science areas within Psychology waxed or waned; and (c) what have we gained and lost. After discussing what’s happened since the late 1970s, when the Society and the journal began, (...) I speculate about where the field is going. (shrink)
This study examined more than 2,500 war images from U.S. television news, newspapers, news magazines, and online news sites during the first five weeks of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and found that only 10% showed injury or death. The paper analyzes which media platforms were most willing to show casualties and offers insights on when journalists should use gruesome war images or keep them secret.
Gerd Buchdahl's international reputation rests on his masterly writings on Kant. In them he showed how Kant transformed the philosophical problems of his predecessors and he minutely investigated the ways in which Kant related his critical philosophy to the contents and methods of natural science. Less well known, if only because in large part unpublished, are the writings in which Buchdahl elaborated his own views on the methods and status of the sciences. In this paper I examine the roles (...) of hermeneutics in Buchdahl's reconstruction of Kant's philosophical system and in his own 'transcendental methodological' approach to the philosophy of science. The first section looks at Buchdahl's views on the theory and practice of historical interpretation and at the Husserlian hermeneutic scheme of reduction and realisation that he used in his later accounts of the philosophies of science of Kant and himself. The second section concentrates on Buchdahl's treatment of the grounds of science in Kant; and the third on the hermeneutic strategies Buchdahl employed in articulating and justifying his own views. The paper closes with reflections on the impact and importance of Buchdahl's interpretation of Kant's critical philosophy in relation to the sciences and of his own hermeneutically based philosophy of science. (shrink)
American media, in the face of the Grenada invasion ?lockout?; and the Westmoreland/Sharon libel actions, seem to be running scared. No longer are there accusations of ?imperial media,?; as newspapers, radio, and television news consumption decline. Media response is to look to ethics. Media should learn that corporate consciousness is less important in guiding the medium than is service to public or audience.
Doug McGill published several articles about the massacre of 425 members of the Anuak tribe by the Ethiopian military in 2003 and 2004 on his Web site, The McGill Report. The mainstream news media ignored it. McGill's narrative demonstrates the impact of his reporting on the Anuak community worldwide, its impact on several beneficiary groups in the United States, and the lack of interest by the mainstream news media that failed to fulfill journalism's primary purpose. Two responses follow (...) McGill's narrative. Jeremy Iggers examines the social and economic realities that make it difficult for journalists to fulfill their primary purpose. He suggests that partnerships between journalists and engaged citizens may provide a new model for journalism. Andrew Cline examines the rhetorical and ethical nature of the journalistic transaction between journalist and audience. Who counts as a journalist arises from the experiences of an audience that uses a journalist's work as a civically important text. (shrink)
Me d i a lawyers were surveyed about their perceptions of journalism ethics, whether they discussed journalism ethics with their media clients, and whether they believed such nonlegal counseling were appropriate. The study found that most media lawyers do contribute to ethical decision making i n news organizations and believe the practice appropriate. It concludes that, as a result, indust y and academic proponents of journalistic ethics should target not only journalists but also media lawyers in their (...) attempts to foster ethical decision making and public support for the news media. (shrink)
A recent issue of Report from the Institute for Philosophy and Public Affairs identifies four ethical issues for the 21st century. By not including media ethics, the Report overlooks a crucial logical priority. That oversight is reflected in greater academe where media ethics (unlike, say, biomedical ethics) is scarcely acknowledged. This article argues that communication ethics, as an integral part of the wider enterprise of media literacy, deserves greater prominence in our town-and-gown communities.
The aim of the paper is an extension of the idealizational theory of science in order to explicate intuitions of historians and philosophers of history about unpredictability and contingency of history. The author identifies two types of essential structures: the first kind dominated by the main factor and the second kind which is dominated by a class of secondary factors. In an essential structure dominated by the main factor, the power of influence it exerts is greater than the sum (...) of the power of influence of secondary factors. In an essential structure dominated by secondary factors, their total influence is greater than the influence exerted by the main factor, although the power of the latter influence is greater than the power of influence of each secondary factor taken separately. In the latter kind of essential structure the so-called cascade effect can occur which means that at certain moment the power of influence of secondary factors can be greater than influence of main factor. In the further part of this paper, the author examines consequences of cascade effect for construction of scientific theory and historical narrative. (shrink)
How many letters to the editor published in today's popular magazines discuss media ethics? How do the number of letters to the editor about media ethics compare with lettersfrom an earlier era? To find some answers, this article compares the number of letters to the editor about journalistic standards contained in all the letters published in 10 popular magazines between 1982 and 1992 with those of 10 popular magazines published between 1902 and 1912. Of almost 42,000 letters to (...) the editor published in 10 contemporary magazines studied here, roughly 3.5% discussed media ethics. In sharp contrast, a study of letters to the editor in the magazines published from 1902 to 1912 reveals a much higher percentage of readers' comments about journalistic ethics.This article explores the differences and asks why far fewer letters to the editor about journalism were published in the recent decade than in the past. (shrink)
In summarizing key developments in the study of ethics in journalism and mass communication, problems and opportunities for the future are identified. Major activities contributing to the ethics study trend include a succession of specialized books, a journal, workshops, courses, and student writing contests. These achievements have pulled journalism ethics from the marsh of neglect to a flatland of consciousness, with a four?tiered mountain remaining to be scaled that will propel mainstream communication ethicists into the arena with a growing (...) number of critical theorists and a thrust of critical scholarship. (shrink)
This article examines the challenges surrounding the application of multicultural, outcomes-based curricula for teaching media ethics and communication ethics classes within a small journalism program. The main question to be answered here is: From the perspective of students, does it make a difference to employ a teaching model that is embedded in multicultural values, and rewards personal transformation and "measurable results"? An additional question is: From the perspective of instructors, how can we best assess student learning and personal growth (...) in fields as "subjective" and intangible as communication ethics and media ethics? (shrink)
Critics denigrate the media for launching ethics discussions yet, there should be exploration of motives and recognition of efforts to overcome celebrated weaknesses and to develop climates in which values of information and humanism may be more comfortable with each other in media realms. Schulman has been press critic?columnist at the Louisville, Ky. Times and Courier?Journal.
Popper repeatedly emphasised the significance of a critical attitude, and a related critical method, for scientists. Kuhn, however, thought that unquestioning adherence to the theories of the day is proper; at least for ‘normal scientists’. In short, the former thought that dominant theories should be attacked, whereas the latter thought that they should be developed and defended (for the vast majority of the time). -/- Both seem to have missed a trick, however, due to their apparent insistence that each individual (...) scientist should fulfil similar functions (at any given point in time). The trick is to consider science at the group level; and doing so shows how puzzle solving and ‘offensive’ critical activity can simultaneously have a legitimate place in science. This analysis shifts the focus of the debate. The crucial question becomes ‘How should the balance between functions be struck?’. (shrink)
The study of human intelligence was once dominated by symbolic approaches, but over the last 30 years an alternative approach has arisen. Symbols and processes that operate on them are often seen today as approximate characterizations of the emergent consequences of sub- or nonsymbolic processes, and a wide range of constructs in cognitive science can be understood as emergents. These include representational constructs (units, structures, rules), architectural constructs (central executive, declarative memory), and developmental processes and outcomes (stages, sensitive periods, (...) neurocognitive modules, developmental disorders). The greatest achievements of human cognition may be largely emergent phenomena. It remains a challenge for the future to learn more about how these greatest achievements arise and to emulate them in artificial systems. (shrink)
Cognitive advancement is not always a matter of acquiring new information. It often consists in reconfiguration--in reorganizing a domain so that hitherto overlooked or underemphasized features, patterns, opportunities, and resources come to light. Several modes of reconfiguration prominent in the arts--metaphor, fiction, exemplification, and perspective--play important roles in science as well. They do not perform the same roles as literal, descriptive, perspectiveless scientific truths. But to understand how science advances understanding, we need to appreciate the ineliminable cognitive contributions (...) of non-literal, non-descriptive symbols. (shrink)
This essay addresses the methodology of philosophy of science and illustrates how formal and empirical methods can be fruitfully combined. Special emphasis is given to the application of experimental methods to confirmation theory and to recent work on the conjunction fallacy, a key topic in the rationality debate arising from research in cognitive psychology. Several other issue can be studied in this way. In the concluding section, a brief outline is provided of three further examples.
Hermeneutics, or interpretation, is concerned with the generation, transmission, and acceptance of meaning within the lifeworld, and was the original method of the human sciences stemming, from F. Schleiermacher and W. Dilthey. The `hermeneutic philosophy' refers mostly to Heidegger. This paper addresses natural science from the perspective of Heidegger's analysis of meaning and interpretation. Its purpose is to incorporate into the philosophy of science those aspects of historicality, culture, and tradition that are absent from the traditional analysis of (...) theory and explanation, to re-orient the current discussion about scientific realism around the hermeneutics of meaning and truth in science, and to establish some relationship between the current philosophy of natural science and hermeneutical philosophy. The paper has particular relevance to the history and social studies of science and technology. (shrink)
This paper reviews the uneven history of the relationship between Anthropology and Cognitive Science over the past 30 years, from its promising beginnings, followed by a period of disaffection, on up to the current context, which may lay the groundwork for reconsidering what Anthropology and (the rest of) Cognitive Science have to offer each other. We think that this history has important lessons to teach and has implications for contemporary efforts to restore Anthropology to its proper place within (...) Cognitive Science. The recent upsurge of interest in the ways that thought may shape and be shaped by action, gesture, cultural experience, and language sets the stage for, but so far has not fully accomplished, the inclusion of Anthropology as an equal partner. (shrink)
In this article I examine the status of putative aesthetic judgements in science and mathematics. I argue that if the judgements at issue are taken to be genuinely aesthetic they can be divided into two types, positing either a disjunction or connection between aesthetic and epistemic criteria in theory/proof assessment. I show that both types of claim face serious difficulties in explaining the purported role of aesthetic judgements in these areas. I claim that the best current explanation of this (...) role, McAllister's 'aesthetic induction' model, fails to demonstrate that the judgements at issue are genuinely aesthetic. I argue that, in light of these considerations, there are strong reasons for suspecting that many, and perhaps all, of the supposedly aesthetic claims are not genuinely aesthetic but are in fact 'masked' epistemic assessments. (shrink)
The most promising way to regard thought experiment is as a species of experiment, alongside concrete experiment. Of the authors who take this view, many portray thought experiment as possessing evidential significance intrinsically. In contrast, concrete experiment is nowadays most convincingly portrayed as acquiring evidential significance in a particular area of science at a particular time in consequence of the persuasive efforts of scientists. I argue that the claim that thought experiment possesses evidential significance intrinsically is contradicted by the (...) history of science. Thought experiment, like concrete experiment, has evidential significance only where particular assumptions--such as the Galilean doctrine of phenomena--are taken to hold; under alternative premises, in themselves equally defensible, thought experiment is evidentially inert. (shrink)
The present paper presents a philosophical analysis of earth science, a discipline that has received relatively little attention from philosophers of science. We focus on the question of whether earth science can be reduced to allegedly more fundamental sciences, such as chemistry or physics. In order to answer this question, we investigate the aims and methods of earth science, the laws and theories used by earth scientists, and the nature of earth-scientific explanation. Our analysis leads to (...) the tentative conclusion that there are emergent phenomena in earth science but that these may be reducible to physics. However, earth science does not have irreducible laws, and the theories of earth science are typically hypotheses about unobservable (past) events or generalised - but not universally valid - descriptions of contingent processes. Unlike more fundamental sciences, earth science is characterised by explanatory pluralism: earth scientists employ various forms of narrative explanations in combination with causal explanations. The main reason is that earth-scientific explanations are typically hampered by local underdetermination by the data to such an extent that complete causal explanations are impossible in practice, if not in principle. (shrink)
In Beauty and Revolution in Science, James McAllister argues that a sophisticated rationalist image of science can accommodate two prominent features of actual scientific practice, namely, appeals to “aesthetic” criteria in theory choice, and the occurrence of scientific “revolutions”. The aesthetic criteria to which scientists appeal are, he maintains, inductively grounded in the empirical record of competing theories, and scientific revolutions involve changes in aestheic criteria bu continuity in empirical criteria of theory choice. I raise difficulties for McAllister's (...) account concerning: (a) the nature and scope of “aesthetic” criteria in science; (b) the rationality of appeals to aestheic criteria in science; (c) the rationality of scientific revolutions. (shrink)
