Week 10: Emily Priebe

One of the ethical issues that seems to pop up frequently in a wide range of media projects is the disclosure of information. Sometimes seemingly unrelated transmedia projects have ties to brands. Those relationships can potentially affect how viewers interpret the content. The example from Spreadable Media with the young woman who was looking for the male owner of a jacket left in a coffee shop springs to mind. The producers of those videos were later revealed to be the jacket manufacturers, and the whole project provoked negative responses from viewers. Do those relationships need to be disclosed right up front? How do those kinds of partnerships affect the authenticity of content?

I know that when it comes to bloggers, my perception of the authenticity of their content is often affected when I see that some posts are sponsored or they’ve been provided with goods for free. With changes in FTC regulations, these types of relationships have to, by law, be disclosed. Many of them also share links to products that they then earn money on when somebody buys the linked-to product through an affiliate program called RewardStyle. I have to question sometimes if they are sharing links and spreading media because they really believe in it or because they are going to potentially reap compensation from the share. Ethical?

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

1 comment to Week 10: Emily Priebe

  • banders3@uoregon.edu

    You gave a really good example of disclosure with the Spreadable Media example and the backlash that followed after it was found out the whole thing was not real. On the flip side of that, I’ll bring up that video that went viral (I’m not sure I’m even supposed to use that term anymore after this class!) recently called “telekinetic coffee shop surprise” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlOxlSOr3_M).

    One aspect I thought about while watching this the first time were the ethical implications by the producers of this content. Was it ethical of them to control a situation that they knew would intentionally scare many people simply so they could use those reactions to entice viewers to go see their movie? Is there a point where the ethical implications start or end? I look at it like their actions are ethical as long as no one gets hurt, whether people fall down and injure themselves while trying to escape or having a heart attack. I think once one of those things happen, a lawsuit could be filed and that negative publicity could have a significant impact on if people go buy tickets to the movie.
    So what is the difference between the jacket example and the telekinetic coffee shop surprise video? Is it just a matter of content (an involved love story vs. a woman who displays supernatural powers in a coffee shop) or is it that we were in on the coffee shop surprise? How ethical is it to the people who were filmed and were not let in on the prank?

Leave a Reply

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>