Arguably, media today is one of the influential factors in the globe. Together with improvement of technology and Information Communication Technology (ICT), media remains the most powerful in society. It influences are sectors of human life, which include social, political, economic, and religious. The media and its responsibilities remain controversial in the world, in that it has received many critics on how it presents its news and other form of communication. The sector remains the most powerful and influential institution in undertaking its responsibilities, yet it is among the least trusted due to biasness, as well as least accountable in its responsibilities. Basically, its mechanisms are generally weak, but compared to other institutions the public have confidence in media on delivery of information and advocating for human rights and freedom.
In this case, media and its responsibilities is one of the ethical issues in society today. Media either is important institutions that can can the society positively, or plunge it into darkness. As a matter of fact, media have various responsibilities that the public expect them to deliver. It acts as the eye and the public tool to delivery their grievances to the concern stakeholders (Alia, 2004 pp45-46). Media as well as, its responsibilities are very diverse; hence, its presents a lot of unique and ethical problems, of which some are directly related while others are indirect. Actually, media on its own cannot present ethical problems, only the workers are in a position to present both ethical and unethical issues. Ethical problems presented by media arise in various areas of media responsibilities, for example, journalism, entertainment, democracy, accountability, transparency as well as, biasness.
Conversably, the ethical problems presented by media, depends on the issues of morality, this emphasizes on issues that are either wrong or right. These ethical issues include sensationalism, exploitation, privacy invasion, as well as offensive materials. Moreover, other ethical problems presented by media in executing its responsibilities include making stories that lack objectivity, integrity, accuracy, accountability and fairness (Banks, 2004 p4). For example, media are supposed to report issues that unite the nation, but in some occasions, they fail, and their mistake may cause violence in the nation. Additionally, politicians may use media to speared hate speech, and tribalism, racism. The social responsibility of media is to develop and enhance stability in modern society, but, in many occasion, they fail due to neglect of moral obligation and social responsibility (Holmgren & Geirsson, 2010 p47).
Theoretically, the ethical problems presented by media and its responsibilities could be solved by various classical theories which include deontology, utilitarianism, as well as virtue ethics. Utilitarianism has in most cases denoted media ethics for many decades. Ethical problems presented by media and its responsibilities can are solved by utilitarianism. Utilitarianism, it is an ethical classical theory that emphasizes on maximization of happiness. In this case, what matters in a form of consenquentialism emphasizing on moral worth of media action of which must be focused on the outcome (Drushel, B & German, 2011 pp23-26). The media and its responsibilities can be corrected by use of utilitarianism. Perhaps, the action of media should reduce harm and maximize on happiness of the public and the affected stakeholders. For example, journalists need to uphold to media responsibilities while minimizing the pain and harm on others.
Additionally, deontological theory believes that moral principles matters as it binds, regardless of its consequences. In this scenario, some actions of media and its responsibilities are always wrong despite the fact that its consequences are right. Therefore, in order to resolve ethical problems presented by media through deontological theory must be guided by the principle of morality to doing the right thing. These principles include honesty, loyalty, fairness, justice, promise keeping and rights. Moreover, virtue ethics emphasizes on resolving problems through character. For example, journalists and other media presenters should focus on characters before the consequences. In fact, in all media activities the good should always be prior to the right (Banks, 2004 p34).
Contrastingly, relativism asserts that there is no absolute true; hence, it may justify the action of the media and its responsibilities. As a matter of fact, it justifies why media spread rumors and other relative truths. The relativism mode of ethics, thoughts and principles become applicable on limited contexts of media responsibilities. On the other hand, emotivism is an ethical thought, which asserts that morality in all aspects of life is an emotional response to various situations. The theory argues that morality develops on emotional awareness of individuals (Fieser & Pojman, 2008 p65)
Therefore, the decisions made by media need to be developed through emotional awareness. For example, if media makes public a charity event and feel satisfied and good to the decisions, then the positive feeling is part of the emotional reward from the moral act. Ethical egoism is also another contradictory concept on moral issues. It asserts that the moral agents are supposed to do things based on their self-interest (Fieser & Pojman, 2008 p87). According to this theory, it is not necessary that moral agents such as media should serve and help others. It actually contradicts ethical utilitarianism. Furthermore, agents such as media are not supposed to harm others when executing their duties.
References
Alia, V. (2004). Media Ethics and Social Change. Cambridge: Cambridge Press.
Banks, C. (2004). Criminal Justice Ethics: Theory and Practice. New York: Springer.
Drushel, B & German, K. (2011). The Ethics of Emerging Media: Information, and Social
Norms. New Jersey: Wadsworth.
Fieser, J & Pojman. (2008). Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong. London: Wiley.
Holmgren, M & Geirsson, H. (2010). Ethical Theory: A Concise Anthology. California: John
Wiley & Sons.
