For its first issue in 2023, Journalism and Communication Monographs published Stephen Bates’s research, titled “Busybodies With Time on Their Hands: Accountability, Research, and Resistance.” The...

This project explores the ethical obligations of food journalists. Using history, normative, and feminist theory, I argue that if specific media is going to be considered food journalism, then we should be able to identify its service to citizens. This project thus seeks a unified view for evaluating the democratic and caring potential of food journalism. I outline some of the contours of quality food journalism – its principles, practices and forms – through both historical and contemporary examples. I show (...) how both sets of food journalists adhere(d) to traditional notions of democracy-serving communication while also employing a more situated ethic of care. Ultimately, I argue that quality food journalists should adopt this care ethic addressing citizen-eaters, as this nourishes the relationships necessary for democratic worldmaking and gives us the best opportunity of collectively eating and living well. (shrink)

This project investigates the ethical frameworks in place for Pakistani television news journalists reporting cases of domestic violence. It also examines the provision and structure of training for Pakistani media professionals to support accurate and balanced reporting of such violence. The research comprised in-depth semi-structured interviews with a small group of television journalists. The findings reveal that there was no formalized code of ethics guiding how journalists represent incidents of this crime, its victims, or perpetrators. Moreover, it was revealed that (...) due to a paucity of formal professional development opportunities, journalists negotiate the challenges of reporting domestic violence on-the-job, resulting in instances of irresponsible reporting practices. (shrink)

The Commission on Public Relations Education (CPRE) found that early-career professionals are not meeting their supervisors’ expectations in ethics knowledge. The purpose of this study was to identify what ethics competencies public relations practitioners perceive are essential and how they evaluate themselves and their colleagues regarding mastery of these competencies. The study surveyed 314 U.S. public relations and communication practitioners and revealed they perceive the most important ethics competencies to be integrity, leadership and critical thinking. Other valued competencies included a (...) personal code of ethics or values system and ability to identify ethical issues. Early-career professionals were overconfident regarding their mastery of these skills and abilities, while mid-career and senior professionals were modest in their self-assessments. Practitioners who have obtained accreditation/certifications had more confidence in their preparedness to provide ethics counsel and engaged in ethics counseling more frequently. Recommendations for enhancing personal ethics competencies are provided. (shrink)

Articles in this issue focus on long-standing ethical issues in journalism and public relations.Food is always more than just about getting nutrients, and food journalism, at its best, is also more...

Objectivity plays a central role in Western news media, being considered the cornerstone of professionalism and quality. However, as traditionally and passively practiced, critiques of objectivity include journalists overlooking inherent subjectivities in newsgathering, the impacts of journalists’ ideology on news representation, replication of existing power structures, and portrayals of false balance. These critiques have led to increasing scholarly and professional interest in alternative forms of journalism, including constructive journalism – an approach intended to improve the quality and usefulness of news (...) content. We position constructive journalism as a series of techniques: solutions, future orientation, inclusiveness and diversity, empowerment, context, and co-creation, and consider the relationship of each to an active form of objectivity, clarifying the contested relation of constructive journalism to objective reporting. Further, we describe how constructive techniques help journalists ethically and transparently navigate subjectivity in news reporting, with an aim toward improving the accuracy and quality of news. (shrink)

As the multiple issues of the digital public sphere threaten our democracies and the cohesion of our societies, most attempts for a betterment of the digital networks and platforms revolve around a risk-response approach. This paper takes the opposite approach and develops a positive definition of the ideal ethical public sphere, combining normative features with original taxonomies. In view of defining common standards for a healthy digital public sphere, this paper offers an interdisciplinary literature review, and original recommendations, before discussing (...) potential leverages for implementing these changes. The suggested ethical normative features derive from a positive approach to the digital public sphere, as ideal common standards. Sustained by the underlying assumption that the composite landscape of the media ecosystem and its different layers (networks, platforms, users) cannot be steered by government regulations alone, the normative (deontological) approach serves to understand and justify the need for a normative approach, to help envision new pathways for an ethical transformation. (shrink)

The fashion industry has faced many criticisms of racial insensitivity in recent years. In December of 2018, luxury brand Prada was criticized for displaying merchandise and storefront figurines th...

This study offers gamers’ insights to a worldwide popular loot-box game that is widely associated with gambling: FIFA. Through an ethical lens, this study looks at how gamers perceive loot-box promotions, their enduring attitudes toward the game, as well as the role of gaming addictions. A mixed-method study revealed that while gamers found loot boxes and promotions ethically questionable, gaming addiction is positively correlated with perceived ad ethicality, suggesting coping and possible cognitive dissonance.

Concerns about fake news, corrupt governments, and fragile economies are driving distrust across the globe along with increasing class divisions. These are the findings of the 2023 Edelman Trust Ba...

Gucci’s $890 USD “wool balaclava jumper” (Gucci, 2019) was discontinued due to criticism of its offensive design, and executives apologized. That this design, a knit-top sweater with a pullup neck,...

Influencer marketing is an increasingly important and ubiquitous component of strategic communication campaigns, yet one that remains ethically fraught, due largely to the nonexistence of, and objections to, ethics codes and/or regulation guiding its use or disclosure. This article describes a unique academic/industry hybrid study conducted in the Czech Republic combining (a) mixed-methods research in which marketing professionals, industry associations, influencers, and consumers served as participants and (b) a case study of the subsequent development and implementation of – and positive (...) responses to – that nation’s first “Fair Influencer” Code of Ethics, whose content was based directly on the research findings. To date, the Code has 150 signatories, representing all constituencies of the influencer-marketing sphere, and has been lauded by Czech and Slovak consumer and media outlets as well as influencers themselves, suggesting the applicability of similar efforts in other nations where influencer marketing thrives but still lacks – and encounters resistance to – ethical or regulatory oversight. (shrink)

Conspiracy theorizing can sometimes have regrettable features that speak for suppressing it. Yet, given that an adequately knowledgeable citizenry is a prerequisite of a healthy democracy, the public should be informed about politically important events, including political conspiracies. In this article, I focus on the relationship between informing citizens about political conspiracies and the kind of conspiracy theorizing that arguably should be suppressed. More precisely, I maintain that informing citizens about political conspiracies threatens to lead to the kind of conspiracy (...) theorizing there is reason to suppress, and I examine how the potential drawback ought to be dealt with. I propose that informing citizens about political conspiracies should both proceed in light of pertinent research on conspiracy theorizing and pay heed to adequate knowledge about the circumstances in which conspiracies are publicized. (shrink)

The Journal of Mass Media Ethics publishes case studies in which scholars and media professionals analyze a particular ethical problem. Cases are drawn from actual experience in newsrooms, corporat...

This issue addresses a wide range of vital media ethics questions – gender inequity, moral language in news, child-targeted marketing, and why journalists use fake names to protect themselves.First...