Social Media Ethics

1. Social Media Ethics
Chapter 10
By: Sam, Beyanka, Emily, Courtney,
Dre

2. “Hyping transparency distorts media ethics in
several ways: It misunderstands the basis of media
ethics, while blurring crucial differences among
concepts; it wrongfully implies that transparency
can replace other principles and can resolve
ethical issues created by new media.”
- Stephen J.A. Ward (@MediaMorals,
2013)

3. What are Social Media Ethics?
● Raises important ethical issues
because it can be perceived as
anonymous
● Editorial independence
● Builds media relationships
● Provides a human face for a
company

4. Done by: Emily Booth

5. Theories and Philosophies
● Media ethics developed as a field within the context of issues surrounding
the 20th century mass media
● Media ethicists have advanced thinking to bring it into into global and digital
media context, which creates an “open media ethics”.
● Opening media ethics is a matter of:
○ Meaningful participation
○ Significant influence on the course of discussion
○ Content determination and revision
○ Transformation related to citizen-based new media with:
■ A potential to create a global ethics discourse

6. “Media may decide to publish ‘even if some people get hurt or are misunderstood,’ if they value
the information as representing truth.”

7. Idealism and Relativism
● Ethical idealism of truth, independence, and minimization
of harm has been altered by digital realities.
● The Internet allows us to see what other people actually
think.
● Storytelling via social changes and interrupts the course
because of various opinions

8. Moral Development
● While traditional ethics seeks to cultivate indigo moral development
through its principles, rules, codes and processes, the emergence of
fluid community narratives might've a function of interpersonal and
small group communication and agreement.
● The reliance upon benevolence and universalism themes is not
surprising, given that nearly all of these codes were created by
organizations that espouse some level of social responsibility.. and
desired by the code-writing organizations to reflect values that society
would respect. (p. 122)

9. Trust and Transparency
● Social media communications practitioners think that it’s possible to build
trust while being transparent, however, it’s not very effective.
● Bowen list fourteen other values:
○ Fairness, avoiding, deception, dignity and respect, eschewing secrecy, reversibility,
viewpoint identifications, rationally, clarity, disclosure, verification, responsibility, intention,
community good and consistency (2013, 190).
● “Whereas trust of one’s outer circle was a good predictor for variety of online
behaviors [...] political openness was found to be more sensitive to
difference be types of spaces preferred for gaining political information”
(Himelboim, Lariscy, Tinkham, & Sweetser, 2012, 191).
● Social Media communications spaces can be useful for people to voice their
opinions. Done by: Emily Booth

10. Human Dignity Frameworks
● Depiction is an ethical violation of human dignity
● “Deliberately concealing sponsorship, astroturfing, and flogging are
practices that violate the moral duty communicators have to society to be
universally honest, to communicate with dignity and respect, and act with
goodwill” (193).
Done by: Emily Booth

11. Practical Social Media Ethics
As social media continues to develop over the years, the traditional way of media
organization has had to adapt to the new interaction with audience members.

12. Equality and Fairness
Lack of disclosure to the public raises issues of fairness. Paid tweets by
celebrities is an example; some earn about thousands of dollars to just be
involved in twitter.

13. Natural Law and Harm
Despite the legal implications of potentially harmful social media
communications it is more than ethical to follow the principle to not do harm.
Communication professionals who implement social media initiatives would be
well advised to consider the harm to their reputations that can be caused by
ignoring ethics in thee the technological spare.
The approach emphasizes media literacy rather than rules to cultivate and
develop ethical reflection and conduct as a key foundation.

14. Reconsidering Community
- “Realize that different communities - online and offline - have their own
culture, etiquette, and norms, and be respectful of them.”
- The global nature of social media has challenged ethicists “to account for a
diversity of ethical perspectives globally, while avoiding cultural relativism.
- While media practitioners in the U.S push for First Amendment freedoms, a
global perspective must take into account stages of development and
cultural assumptions within the language used to describe normative ethics.

15. Limitations of Ethics
- Social media ethics
- Typically applied as a set of professional guidelines
- Formal law rarely governs them
- Organizations have attempted to use traditional ethical guidelines based on
values
- However these guidelines may differ among online communities
- Social media communication tends to follow traditional media in testing out our ideals about
freedom and social responsibility
- The best hope is to align individual notions of morality and ethics

16. Discussion Questions: Strategies and Tactics
1. Is there a proper role for activist journalists within social media?
How should traditional or mainstream journalists differentiate their
work?
2. Which values are most important for ethical behavior within social
media? In what ways may it be difficult to be governed by traditional
ethical guidelines?
3. How are global norms of ethics a challenge to U.S. rules? In what
way will global social media communication influence future
directions in ethics?
Done by: Emily Booth