This week's lecture had Dr. John Harrison talk to the class about ethical practice in communications. He said that there were 3 broad categories of ethics; 'deontological' ethics, 'consequentialist' ethics, and the 'virtue theory' ethics. A deontological approach to ethics would be built on absolute rules and duties, such as a code of ethics. A consequentialist approach would be to achieve the best possible result. An approach built on "virtue ethics" would be on the concept that humans have virtues such as "justice" or "benevolence" instilled in them naturally and would therefore not require external indotrination. "Consequentialist" ethics can quite easily degrade into "the ends justify the means" like arguements, and are therefore often derided. Most Journalistic practices were dictated by a code of ethics, (deontological in nature) to prevent unethical offences.
Dr. Harrion pointed out that sometimes it is quite difficult to point out what would be classed as unethical and what would be classed as poor quality or low brow. The line between the two is grey and changes between whoever you speak to on the subject. Different countries have different perceptions on the word "bugger" for instance or "bloody". Distinctly unethical practice would be something like "astroturfing" (faking grass roots sources to gain credible objectivity) or "sock puppeting"(creating a fake persona to publish web material that serves your cause).
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