Matakuliah
Tahun
: O0382 – Dasar-dasar Produksi Siaran Televisi
: 2010
THE MEDIA IMPACTS: IT’S A WRAP
Pertemuan 13
Ethics and Truth in Journalism (1/8)
In communication, the ethics are guidelines for moral rules on how
professional communicator should act in a situation that their activities may
provide good or negative effects on others.
As media professionals, someone must understand how much they use the
object of sex, violence, or other sensational material to attract their
audience.
Many magazines use sexy images on the cover to boost sales. It is
important for the media professionals to understand that their activities are
not mainly for profit but they also have social responsibility to hold.
What are ethics and truth in journalism?
3
Ethics and Truth in Journalism (2/8)
What exactly is ethics and how does the word differ from the word moral?
Briefly and generally, moral comes from the Latin ‘mos’, ‘moris’ means
‘way of life’ or ‘conduct’ and is often associated with religious belief and
personal behavior. Moral is when we talk about acting or speaking properly
when interacting with the elderly.
Ethics derives from the Greek ‘ethos’ that means custom, usage of
character. Ethics often involves the balancing of competing rights when
there seems no ‘correct’ answers. Ethics reflects a society’s design on
responsibility, on rightness or wrongness of an act and the distinctions
between virtue and vice.
4
Ethics and Truth in Journalism (3/8)
As with ethics in journalism or communications media, there are classic
principles that people have used in ethical decisions that include:
1.Aristotle’s golden mean holds that “moral virtue is appropriate location
between two extremes”. Moderation and balance are the key points and
this leads the media giving balanced points of view. For example, news
media that covers story on dangerous infected diseases may as well omit
details that would cause panic the public.
2.The golden rule principles – this holds the view if it is not good enough
for you then it would probably won’t good enough for others. For instance,
if you would not like your private story to be covered on media then others
might not like their story to be covered in similar circumstances.
5
Ethics and Truth in Journalism (4/8)
3.
Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative holds that you should ‘act on
that maxim which you will (wish) to become a universal law’. That is,
you must act according to rules that is universally applied. For
example, reporters who would like other reporters to avoid dishonesty
about news sources should avoid such dishonesty themselves.
4.
Situation ethics is the idea that conflicts with Kant’s categorical
imperative and similar universal principles. According to this
approach, moral principles are not absolute but relative to the
situation and everyone may trust their intuitive sense of what is right.
For example, it is allowed to use illegal, hidden recording devices or
dangerous practices for a news story if revealing the story will serve
the public interest.
6
Ethics and Truth in Journalism (5/8)
5.
John Stuart Mills’ principle of utility hold the understanding that we
should ‘seek the greatest happiness for the greatest number’. Mill was
concerned about what would bring the greatest good for society which
he defined as benefiting the largest number of people. For instance, a
reporter could conclude that illegally gathering important information
would benefit more people that it would harm.
6.
John Dewey’s Pragmatic ethics argued that actions had to be judged
by their results not whether they adhered to a particular philosophy or
guideline. For example, before covering news on terrorism or
international criminal actions, a news reporter might think of the
negative impacts or unnecessary fear the news would cause in their
audience.
7
Ethics and Truth in Journalism (6/8)
Media as Socially Responsible Institutions
All media institutions, including television organization, must be socially
responsible in their day-to-day activities.
All actions of media are supervised by the community. In order to be
socially responsible, the media should go through a two-step process:
1.To promote a positive corporate image and to improve the chances of
gaining public respect.
The promotion of positive corporate image can be conducted by
holding campaign of external communications. Such actions can be
executed by the media institution.
2.To participate in the community
Media institutions can ask their employees to participate in
community affairs and contributing financially to support the community
8
projects.
Ethics and Truth in Journalism (7/8)
Another way for the media institutions and media practitioners to be
socially responsible is to always conduct truth and honesty when
performing their duties. Why truth is such an important component for
media institutions and media practitioners?
Generally, truth is important for everybody. In relation to the discussion on
journalism, truth and honesty are considered important because:
1.dishonest or lack of integrity weakens the autonomy of the individuals,
2.commitment to truth and honesty demonstrates respect for people,
3.truth is important in supporting democratic process.
Journalists, being considered the information gatekeeper for the
community, must therefore perform truth when covering news. The news
they produce will highly give both bad and good influence to the
9
community.
Ethics and Truth in Journalism (8/8)
The media practitioners must perform three standard of journalistic truth
when reporting news:
Accurate
There should be solid and verified evidence otherwise the wrong
information will diminish the credibility of journalistic enterprise.
Understanding
A journalist must constantly be able to provide relevant
information to the reader and viewer so that they could receive
proportional understanding of the facts and the context of the facts.
Fair and balanced
When covering news, journalists must avoid bias by providing a
fair and balanced information.
10
Theories of Media Impacts (1/2)
The impacts of media can either simply be absorbed or difficult to adopt
by the communities. It all depends on how the media would effect human
life. There are 5 (five) theories of the consequences of media usage for
the individual that the community should better understand:
1.Cultivation Theory
The theory of heavy exposure to television will impart a
worldview that is consistent with the world of television. It means that the
viewers might tolerate violence in their communities as what they see on
television.
2.Priming
The priming theory states that media images stimulate related
thoughts in the minds of audience members. This causes the ‘copycat’ or
imitations of certain actions shown on television. For example when
seeing the action of criminals robbing a bank will make people know how
to conduct similar criminal actions and, if any chance exists, they will
11
likely imitate the action later on.
Theories of Media Impacts (2/2)
3.
4.
5.
Agenda Setting
This theory describes public figures or important events that would
help shaping the content of the media. The component that would
help shaping the content of the media can be celebrities, political
event, business competition, and so on.
Catharsis
This hypothesis argues that media sex and violence have positive
effects by allowing people to live out their antisocial desires in a
mediated fantasy world. It means that the media can be an effective
tool for the antisocial people to express and, at the same time, get rid
off their negative desires.
Critical Theories
This theory focuses on Freudian-style psychological interpretations of
motives and implications. It means that a certain action conducted by
someone could be a reflection or an interpretation on what is stated in
12
someone’s mind.
The Media and Its Impacts (1/4)
The media have long time been understood to have the capacity of
delivering impacts and most like to change values to the community. The
impacts could be negative like violence or criminals conducted by certain
people who imitate the actions shown on television; or positive like the
value of the importance of the smallest part of the community, called
family, that need to care for.
Our discussion of media impacts will cover 5 (five) components: (1)
antisocial behavior, (2) the impacts of computer media, (3) the media
impacts on education, (4) information campaigns, and (5) prosocial
behavior.
13
Media and Its Impacts (2/4)
Antisocial Behavior
Antisocial behavior means performing actions that are contrary to the
social norms. Such actions include murder, rape, drug abuse, human
trafficking, or other behaviors that society will against even if such
behaviors are considered legal like drunkenness and sexual abuse.
Below are also the antisocial behavior that have been part the media
impacts:
1.Violence
2.Prejudice
3.Sexual behavior
4.Drug abuse
The Impacts of Computer Media
It is very easy for children to obtain films or games that show violence. The
show is just not suitable for children because the computer video games
have forced children to conduct aggressive and violent behavior.
14
Media and Its Impacts (3/4)
The Media Impacts on Education
1. Informal Education
According to Fisch & Truglio, the cartoon movies like Sesame Street
(released in 1969) has proved to be a popular and effective means of
readying children for school.
2. Distance Education
The mass media can also function as tool to deliver courses and such
course is formally known as distance education.
Information Campaigns
Media is considered an effective tool to perform a campaign in
communication, public relations and advertising activities. Usually the
media uses informal, entertaining, and brief campaign method to attract
audiences.
As with television, from to time it has been successfully proofed to
participate a lot in political campaign, marketing and advertising
15
campaign, and so on.
Media and Its Impacts (4/4)
Prosocial Behavior
Prosocial behavior is the opposite of antisocial behavior that are
also part of media impacts. The behavior can be the cause of television
programs that bring out positive life values for example like religious
television program, self development television program and other similar
television program that expresses good and positive show.
The prosocial behavior includes the positive qualities that our
communities will be encouraged to do so. The behavior includes
cooperation, altruism, sharing, love, tolerance, respect, improved reading
skills, discipline, honesty, and so on.
The 5 (five) components of media impacts are the valid
confirmation for all of us -- the community, media institutions and media
practitioners -- that media and all its features have big potential to change
16
the face of an era.