Media Ethics

The Media and its Responsibilities

Introduction to Ethics and Social Responsibility

April 21, 2014

Thesis

This paper will address and discuss the media and its responsibilities to society in perspective classical ethical theories of utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics. It will also examine the different perspectives of the media introduced by relativism, ethical egoism, and emotivism. This paper will apply such theories and perspectives to the media and its responsibilities to society, in describing and comparing the ethical theories and perspectives, along with analyzing the issues and behaviors of the media and its responsibilities to society. I will address how each theory can help us think about what would constitute virtuous or ethical behavior, breaches in ethical behavior in the media and what are the ethical issues associated with its responsibilities to the society. In this paper I will also state issues, problems, and possible solutions on how these theories and perspectives can help or offer solutions to how media approaches society and how it needs to stay responsible in order to have a positive effect in today's world.

The Media and its Responsibilities

When addressing the topic of media and its responsibilities to society, media is very broad and comes in different forms. When media comes to mind, it can refer to technology, mass, and personal media. the definition of media is, "the main means of mass communication and plural form of medium." (Merriam Webster, 2014). Radio, television, magazines, and internet are all solid forms of media that society highly depend on, in fact we live in a media itself, and are products of our environment. The purpose of media is to provide society with information, news, and entertainment. What is media responsible for? Media is responsible for giving information that is socially acceptable and ethical in terms of righteousness, and virtuous...