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Mass Media Ethics Studies
Coordinator: Mr. Tanvir Aeizaz

Can we get some kind of fix on why vacuous ideas gain traction so easily? Consider the phrase "reality TV". Is it delicious irony? Does the term point toward any actual experience or phenomena? Or does it commandeer the meaning of the term reality? All those sorts of sound byte, bumper sticker messages amount to little more than the diffusion of mutant expressions attempting to replicate. It is as if linguistic mutations - greatly aided by information technology - are seeking to find a permanent residence somewhere in the culture.

The air waves and media prefer to broadcast titillating messages that register on the visceral sensibilities of potential customers. Ideas grand and trivial occupy our thoughts with equal priority. A nearly overwhelming problem needs to be investigated: the taken for granted assumption that language is capable of mirroring facts and objective reality.

Mass media ethics provide a process by which individual mistakes and excesses are corrected without jeopardizing the ultimate objective of a free media - to provide a healthy check on centres of power in order to maintain a free and enlightened society. Journalists everywhere have a vital role to provide the public with knowledge and understanding. But as they practice their craft in a world that is both technologically and geographically changing, systematic standards must guide their work. Only in that way will journalists serve their society in an ethically responsible and constructive fashion.

Mass media ethics is a subdivision of applied ethics dealing with the particular ethical principles and standards of media including broadcast media, film, theatre, the arts, print media and the internet. The field covers many varied and highly controversial topics ranging from war journalism to Benetton advertising.

1. Aspects of media ethics
1.1 Ethics of journalism
1.2 Ethics of persuasion, advertising and public relation
1.3 Ethics of entertainment media
1.4 Media and democracy

2. Contexts of media ethics
2.1 Media ethics and the law
2.2 Media ethics and market
2.3 Inter-cultural dimension of media ethics

3. Meta-issues in media ethics
3.1 Similarities between media ethics and other fields of applied ethics
3.2 Differences between media ethics and other fields of applied ethics

Theoretical

Core Issues - Justice, Value, Right, Duty, Virtue, Equality, Freedom, Trust, Free will.

Key thinkers - Aristotle, Confuscius, Acquinas, Hume, Kant, Bentham, Mill, Marx, Nietzsche, Hare, Rawls, McIntyre, Singer, Gilligan.