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The topic of ethics is always a tricky one because there is always some kind of opposing forces that are exerting their will on what seems to be “right” There is of course the overall ethics of Journalism that we should in some way adhere to, but then there are also your personal ethics which will have an influence on your behaviors, as well as the wills and opinions of those you are working for as well. These are just some examples of what we as journalists have to deal with.
I personally have always thought the only true thing that a journalist can control is their own ethics; it is what makes them who they are. Really no two journalists are going to be the same no matter how close their ethics may come.
But this new era of digital journalism is making journalists make new and harder decisions. Where at one point the control of the information was strictly in their hands now with nearly anyone with access to a computer can put information out there regardless of their own personally ethics. Is it now getting to the point where a journalists ethics have to be thrown out the window for the sake of a story? If you were to find something out but you don’t feel comfortable revealing it, but then someone else does and that end up being the biggest piece of news to the story, you could possibly lose the creditability for not revealing all of the information, as well as your job.
Now there is almost no protecting friends or the sacredness of privacy. Nearly everything needs to be revealed anymore it seems. That is why TMZ seems to be more right than wrong most of the time. They don’t care who they upset or who lives they ruin. Their ethics are that of revealing the information no matter the cost. Normal journalists just don’t tick that way it seems. But with the way that readers and viewers flock to the TMZ’s of the world it doesn’t seem like the best choice anymore it seems.
Although it may not seem like it to some communicators, Ethics is a huge question when it comes to mass communication in our society. The biggest question I have had throughout the duration of our hybrid class, and many years before that, is the object-ability (or lack there of) of projects created to send a message to broad audiences. After all, there is no such thing as a human being without an opinion. And furthermore, there is absolutely no possible way to create a piece of work without having some sort of bias about the subject. To even begin to comprehend how a subject can come to life through a media portrayal shows that you have passion and an opinion on the matter, otherwise you wouldn’t go through the trouble of bringing the project to life in the first place.
Lauren Kessler has quoted on multiple occasions, “It is only a problem if you don’t think it’s a problem” and I think this absolutely applies to the question of ethics. By assuming that you are being objective in your portrayal of a story, you fall even more into the trap of being controlled by your opinions and biases. However, by understanding your bias on the matter, you are more apt to be transparent about your goals in breathing life into the matter. WITNESS is a great example of one of the multimedia sites we have seen that plays into this transparency. The content creators are clearly showing how they feel about a matter, and allowing viewers to witness the reality behind situations that we were not present for. They are not afraid to play into their bias and therefore, the question of ethics falls on the moral standards of the people that are taking advantage of these citizens without any regards to backlash through the online portrayal. WITNESS videos have been able to serve as a testament to the realities behind these wrongdoings and therefore serve to question the very ethics within their own society.
I believe that this online version of ethical “checks and balances”, when an opinion is clearly defined, will serve us greatly in the future. As we have seen in our texts, online grassroots intermediaries have gained large amounts of ground in keeping conglomerates in check, when they previously did not have the clout and market backing to do so. However, now that they have been provided with online platforms to unify the group’s concerns, they can no longer be ignored by these companies, and are able to create change through their collective voice. I hope that the internet continues to act as an ethical fairground for this type of interaction between the 99% and the 1% that has been previously untouchable. By unifying ourselves through online means, only then can the 99% stand a chance in policy change and social justice. Otherwise, we will continue to be taken advantage of and mutualized by the people that hold the most power and clout in the governments eyes, the fortune 500 companies (and their lobbyists) that have successfully run this country into the ground. (Which is my opinion, but it’s become pretty evident since the fall of the economy).
For the outreach part of our project (public education about the invasive rodent nutria), I think we were all concerned about raising unrealistic expectations with the outside parties that we will be engaging with as key participants in our outreach activities. We are primarily doing this as an academic exercise and none of us are really prepared to be involved beyond the duration of the term.
But as it turned out, there really is quite a big gap out there in raising public awareness about this issue. Our little effort might just be a drop in the bucket but at this point, that is a drop that can go some way in slaking the big thirst for information.
Personally, it made me realize that there is a whole genre of environmental issues out there that isn’t getting the kind of focused communication thinking that they probably deserve. There are a lot of cute public campaigns out there about invasive species awareness but I am not quite sure if they are connecting with people beyond exciting some interest with the novelty of their approach (e.g. eradication by mastication).
None of the people who attended our event did so out of idle curiosity. There’s already a certain buy-in there. They’ve already had some experience with the rodents, either as part of their job or as private citizens who probably owns a nutria-infested property or knows of one nearby.
Maybe this is one of those issues where, as far as public participation is concerned, you really had to go with a micro approach, digging deep into pockets of constituencies who are ready to listen to you or at least have some prior investment into the issue that they will pay attention.
(Comments have a length restriction, so I made this a post.) In anticipation of the Sam Ford discussion, I am referring to an article that appears this week in the New Yorker and deals with several of the issues you are raising, Melissa.
If we are living in a world of an expanding blockbusters, how will we work with this “winner take all” model juxtaposed against an aspirational and marginalized gift economy?
As I have said before, one of the major unresolved and tremendously important issues in the digital economy is how are we (the 99%, including artists, creators, inventors , journalists, etc) to be adequately compensated for, and be able to earn a living from our creativity and labor? Jaron Lanier takes on this issue in Who Owns the Future?
In his New Yorker magazine review (Dec 2, 2013) of the new book, “Blockbuster,” Kelefa Sanneh writes:
“You needn’t be a mogul to share some version of this anxiety: it is common among cultural producers of all sorts and sizes. Where fans see a glorious profusion of options, some performers see a potentially dangerous imbalance: an ever greater supply, balanced by the kind of soft, digital-era demand that can more easily be measured in eyeballs than in dollars. In “How Music Works” (McSweeney’s), a wide-ranging book of essays, David Byrne expresses a dismay shared by many of his peers. Byrne released his first album, with Talking Heads, in 1977, and he can’t help but be nostalgic for the old industry. Like Elberse, though less happily, he sees labels chasing after “blockbuster hits,” and he broods over the plight of musicians, especially the kind who, like him, once made a pretty good living in the margins of the major-label profit machine. Byrne’s 2004 album, “Grown Backwards,” was a modest success, selling nearly a hundred and fifty thousand copies, and he estimates that, after recording costs and other expenses, his net profit was about fifty-eight thousand dollars, not including royalties. Spread over a few years, that doesn’t seem like much, especially since Byrne can’t expect every album he makes to sell that well. He wonders, “How is a mid-level artist—someone who sells more than five thousand copies of a record but less than a million—supposed to live, given this scenario?”
He goes on to discuss economist Tyler Cowen’s new book, “Average Is Over:”
“Cowen is less troubled by the further enrichment of the already rich. He takes it for granted that America will be increasingly influenced by “labor-market polarization”: productivity will continue to increase, but an ever larger proportion of the gains will go to “a relatively small cognitive elite”—human blockbusters, economically speaking. Meanwhile, more and more workers will find themselves in various service industries, assuming they can find full-time work at all. According to Cowen, future citizens will agree that “America is one of the nicest places in the world.” He predicts that even those with stagnant or falling wages will have “a lot more opportunities for cheap fun and also cheap education.” The formulation “cheap fun” explains much of what makes people so excited, and so anxious, about the future of popular culture.”
How we will deal with these structural vulnerabilities that are shaping our environment now is how we will be able to transform a very volatile and uncertain present for all producers.
Color me a capitalist, but I struggle with the gift economy concept. I understand the idea of an artist giving back to his or her fans as a “thank you” for the sharing and remixing that fans engage in. I understand that such a model increases the spreadability of a particular work. What I struggle with is n
Jenkins, Ford and Green were able to provide examples of artists who were generating significant income through gifting, but is that the norm? It’s hard enough to make a living as a musician or visual artist. While I understand that when gifting art, distribution costs decrease and exposure increases, but income? Does the average “new” artist have the means to produce related merchandise to stimulate purchases related to his or her art as Nina Pauley did?
Maybe I’m just too cautious. Or conservative. But I continue to wonder, if the gifting economy is financially viable, why Jenkins, Ford and Green haven’t gifted Spreadable Media. Gifting the version we’re reading should, in theory, stimulate the sale of the “expanded version” they frequently reference. While I can’t participate in the phone discussion with Sam Ford on Thursday, I have sent Helen that question. I’ll be very interested to hear his answer.
I think it’s interesting that Helen asked us to think about ethical questions this week since that was the subject of yesterday’s Foundations of Strat Comm class. We discussed the ethics of ghost blogging and learned that PR industry professionals and the general public have very different expectations when it comes to ghostwriting, especially when it comes to nonprofit communications. The reality in the industry is that nonprofit CEOs are most likely going to have their speeches, columns and press release statements ghostwritten, while the public expects that these statements actually come from the person to which they are attributed.
This is just another example where producers and audiences have very different expectations, as well as perspectives, on what is acceptable. Here are three particular issues I’ve seen in our reading this term:
- Is it ethical to take someone else’s intellectual property and appropriate it for your own purposes? The authors of “Spreadable Media” argue that when fans appropriate copyrighted material they often transform it into something that can be beneficial for the producer, which they imply justifies the practice. It’s even arguable that pirating music or TV shows benefits producers by building an audience big enough that some may actually pay for the content. Obviously, many companies disagree, but “Spreadable Media” indicates that attitudes toward the treatment of intellectual property are changing.
- Is it ethical for producers to view audiences as commodities? As audiences visit company social media sites and engage with various brands, these companies amass a great deal of personal information that can be repurposed and monetized without the audience’s explicit permission. A core ethical value is to be respectful, and you can argue that commodification disrespects the audience.
- Then there is the issue of authenticity, which is where the discussion of ghosting comes in. There seems to be a general consensus among practitioners that as long as the person that the message is attributed to agrees and signs off, then ghosting is ethically permissible. But is this really OK if audiences have a different expectation? Is ghostwriting all that removed from astroturfing (artificially manufacturing grassroots support)?
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On a different subject, I won’t be able to participate in the Zoom call with Sam Ford. So I have the following question for Helen to share with him:
Question for Sam Ford: I read in an online interview you did for MarketingProfs that you came to a new understanding of what marketing is as you were writing “Spreadable Media.” Rather than seeing marketing “as a way to persuade or align audiences to the company’s perspective,” you said the role of marketing is “to listen to the audience and find ways to move the company closer to the audience’s wants and needs.” Do you know of anyone who is successfully implementing this kind of approach to marketing, or is this a lesson you think the industry has yet to learn?
Ethically ambiguous videos and stories often generate important conversations around the ethics of participatory media. I have been thinking about the Spreadable media authors’ final plea to vet the information you want to share before spreading it all over the Internet. This seems quite challenging. Recently there are have been some viral tweets and videos, ultimately revealed as hoaxes, that have been spread around the Internet. The man who live tweeted on a plane as he bullied another passenger was a hoax. And though using copyrighted material isn’t new, a recently celebrated video with copyrighted material brought the issue once more into the ethical limelight. The Goldieblox video using the Beastie Boy’s song “Girls” was taken down even though the use of the song would probably stand up in court as fair use. They decided to remove the song after threats from the Beastie Boys. In his will, Adam Yauch said that he didn’t want his music used in a commercial.
Both situations got many people involved in sharing as well as expressing their opinions about social issues, bullying on the one hand and expectations with respect to gender on the other. The uncovering of the hoax or the potential lawsuit against Goldieblox has us going deeper. What are the responsibilities of twitter users to the publics that follow them? What are the responsibilities of companies who use other artists’ works in their ads?
Part of me appreciates people who push the boundaries of ethics because they bring these issues to light. They make the landscape more complicated. It brings out the sleuth in the bloggers and journalists and often reveals some very telling things about social situations. Being able to trust a source is still very important, and vetting stories before you share is ideal, but neither of those is entirely possible. This may be okay though because just as quickly as you can share bad information, that information can be investigated. The two pieces together are a powerful combination. The more interesting story is often the one about the uncovering of the original, questionably ethical story.
Thanks to our persistent (and charming) twitter engagement with Sam Ford, he was able to get back to me and offer us a time this week to do a video conference call with the class. He said, “I look forward to the discussion and hope some of the challenges, critiques, and issues come out in the back and forth. I am looking forward to this.”
Although he is not available to Skype with us on Saturday, I am setting up a Zoom Video Call with him for one hour on:
Thursday, December 5 (this Thursday) at 12pm – 1pm (Pacific)
If you would like to join in on the video call/group discussion, you must email me to “register” no later than Tuesday, Dec 3, 5pm. (It will look like a Google Hangout where everyone on the call will be appearing in little boxes)
If you cannot join the Zoom Conference Call, but would like to engage with Sam on some level you can also send me one (1) question and we will integrate it into the group discussion.
I will also record the discussion, and post it on You Tube and our course site!
This discussion opportunity with Sam Ford is a totally optional extra for us. I welcome everyone to join in, but if you cannot, no problem.
How about posting some of your questions/concerns/ideas/experiences here on the blog so that we can look for patterns and clusters to guide our conversation with him?
One of the things that struck me the most deeply with the three websites we viewed this week is how my relationship with a piece of media is altered by how valid my first impression is. While in some situations the power of the content is enough to outweigh a bad presentation of it, there’s no doubting that you can lose or gain interest from an audience by nothing more than that first impression you present to them.
My first impression of Games for Change was “Sweet, combing education with procrastination – my two favorite things!” But after attempting to play a good number of the games listed, I realized they all either required me to download a new program onto my computer or they were only playable on Smart Phones – a technology I do not personally own. So not only was I disappointed that I couldn’t access the majority of their site, I became somewhat spiteful of the whole site for not thinking of folks like me as part of their target audience. While I’m sure this was not their intent, it gave me an unsettling impression – like I was considered a valuable part of their equation.
Still Water had somewhat of a direct opposite effect on me. Their site design is horrendous – at first glance I thought it was a power point presentation from 1993 on CPR practices. While arguably this would potentially turn a good portion of the audience away, I’m a sucker for kitch and thus was intrigued to see what topic such inept users of technology were trying to present to me. Does this mean that I think it’s better to set people’s hopes low? No, but it does seem like a better alternative than having their hopes set too high.
Now Media Storm is a site that many of us have looked at a variety of times this semester, so there was a degree of familiarity here. As Amanda pointed out, I was somewhat surprised when I realized they were a production company first and foremost, and a institute for social change as a secondary, but that’s only because this was the first time I had viewed their homepage. While she was somewhat disappointed after her views of the organization’s moral practices were squashed, it seems to me that there is nothing misleading about the way they present themselves. With no back-story, your first impression is that they are talented practitioners of media crafting and that they have a degree of focus on relevant social issues. In other words, they present a solid initial image, and then that image is only exemplified by the moral social dedicated work interspersed in their creations. In my opinion, their site succeeds by being even more than the initial level of quality that we’re introduced to.
Humor is spreadable. The projects like Dumb Ways to Die reached a vast audience because it was funny. This project includes a funny song released on YouTube. I was surprised that even some of my busy co-workers(teachers) have seen it. Maybe I just live in a cave. I think that funny videos posted online and now a part of casual conversations near the water cooler, or in my case, the copy room. In Spreading Media, humor is defined as part of the “stickiness” in the content. Do people see beyond the humor? If so, how do you ever know?
I am not a big user of Facebook, but I do appreciate how Facebook can enhance the spreadability of media. I logged on to my Facebook account and played the Half the Sky game. The project website boasts about having over one million players of this game on Facebook. I played for a while and learned about the real life struggles that families in India go through. I did anticipate a donation solicitation while playing. Sure enough, it came after I earned enough fake money to take my daughter to the clinic. I had several tasks that included convincing my husband that saving our sick daughter was a worthwhile, picking mangoes from my backyard, and selling the mangoes to the market. I found myself sucked into this virtual world, but unlike other games, I felt like I was learning something valuable and not just killing time. I felt more willing to help because the game made the situation more personal. I am finally convinced that Facebook can be used for more meaningful sharing.
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