Ethics and Sustainability for Mass Media -myassignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about theEthics and Sustainability for Mass Media. Answer: Introduction Mass media is an industry which helps the organization to communicate to the audience on a whole. It is a diversified form of technologies which helps in interacting with large number of people at a time. Mass media includes radio, television, digital media, print media etc. Further it should be noted that mass media is an important way through which companies communicate with people (Macnamara, Lwin, Adi, and Zerfass, 2016). So, ethics is an important part of this industry as companies present in this industry needs to comply with rule in order to circulate information to public. The purpose of this task is to provide a brief overview about the ethical issues connect with the mass media industry and impact of activities of different stakeholders in the industry. Further it also talks about the alternative solutions which should be considered while solving an issue. More details about the task are discussed below: Ethical issues in mass media industry Paid news and Clickbaits: Now days, different organizations and people pay a handsome amount to media channels and newspapers to publish information about them in the market. This creates value identification of these people which make them famous and helps them in earning money as well. This is poor technique to present information in the environment; also it is an unethical measure to promote some immaterial information among people. The organizations circulate uncensored information which hampers the image of people and adversely affect the environment as well. The information shared in media should be pure and it should not harm the goodwill of any person (Kamenova, Ravitsky, McMullin, and Caulfield, 2016). Like, Columbia Journalism Review highlighted the online magine Slant that pays $100 per month, plus $5 for every 500 clicks on their stories (Frampton 2015). Plagiarism: No organization in the media industry should copy the information from other competitors. This act is being done in the industry with an aim to defame the name of other organization. Plagiarism is an unethical act which should be prevented by all organization present in the environment. One such example is of News Corp Australia when they accused Daily Mail for copying the news about the best dress a woman can own. Corrupted content: the only source to get information in the society is through mass media, so if the organizations present in this tamper the information and present it to people then it can harm the interest of many people. As discussed above, the information circulated should be pure, corrupted information can change the mindset of people which create a loss for the parties involved in the news as the US election fake news become a big issue for involved parties. Also nowadays organizations make poor coverage of important issues which diverts the focus of people from the core issue (Neill, and Weaver 2017). Profits are the main focus: Profits has become the main focus of organization in this industry. Companies spread information in the market with a motive to earn money not to tell people about the issue. Serving people and telling truth should be the foremost motive of companies in the industry. Every other organization can become an example under this case as all organization do so. Impact on different stakeholders in mass media industry Newsmaker: The newsmaker or journalists are the most important stakeholder present in the industry as they create information which is being shared with the people worldwide. If the journalists while making information include their point of view then it might change the whole information, so it important for newsmaker to be unbiased while creating information. Also the source through which the information is received to the journalists should be reliable (Eagle, Bird, Spotswood, and Tapp 2015). Like, newsmakers get influenced with the fake information received from social media which further distracts general public. Media scholars: These are those people who train employees to become a journalist and create news. These people should adequately teach the employees the correct ways and ethical code of conduct which should be followed while creating news stories. Social media has become a famous tool to spread news, so the bloggers and agencies should spread authentic information in the market. Media Owners: People read news by brands, the brand which is renowned in environment, people only look read news written by them and believe they are authentic. The not-so-famous newspapers and websites are not read by people and even after reading it they do not rely on them. So, it is important for the media owners to lay a strict control on their employees so that they do not share unauthentic information (Moor 2017). Tampered news under this case may make media owners to face legal penalties like Daily Mail was being warned. Media Users: These are those people who use media to attain resourceful information. The whole industry works according to the preference of these people. People search for information which they want to see, so the information shared in the market is based on the discretion of media users (Christians, et. al., 2015). Through corrupted content media users get negatively influenced which affects them mentally as well. Different alternatives for addressing the issue The censor board should prior focus on the content which is being displayed to the audience is true or not. They should take proactive measures to solve the ethics related to the case. Also they should secure the information and at the same time spread news which is important for the society. The transparency International 2016 also stated that there is lack of transparency in the professional standards and work. The government should take the charge to impose heavy penalty on media organizations which circulate wrong message in the environment. The organizations should be liable to civil code of conduct (Paxson 2018). Companies present in the industry should themselves take the charge to provide authentic and resourceful information which should not harm the interest of any person. Also they should not leak any price sensitive information without their permission. No company should own the whole media industry as well. Manipulation of media practices should be controlled and people should not trust the news with closed eyes. The media users should always look for the source from when news is received to them. The sources should be authentic (Poutanen, Luoma-Aho, and Suhanko 2016). Like the HSBC fraud on Britains newspaper, so people should trust with blind eyes. Conclusion and Recommendation Thus, in the limelight of above mentioned events it should be noted that mass media is important industry which can affect the working of many other industries. It is important that the people present in this industry should formulate the ethical code of conduct in order to provide authentic and resourceful information to the consumers. Awareness among public is the best way to stop the media manipulation and other unethical activities. As consumers are the king pin of this market so the companies show information which is viewed by them. So, if people do not use the information which has an unauthentic source then the organizations will automatically stop using unethical activities. Further, the censor board and government of every country should also look after the information which in being circulated is ethical or not (Hanson 2016). The censor board should monitor the information and the government should monitor the activities of company present in the environment, the government should also issue notice regarding the ethics in industry. (Bivins 2017). This is the best techniques to the unethical practices present in the market. If all the stakeholders present in the industry take it as their responsibility to circulate use ethical source to view authentic information, then these practices will end soon. References Bivins, T., 2017.Mixed media: Moral distinctions in advertising, public relations, and journalism. Routledge. Christians, C.G., Fackler, M., Richardson, K., Kreshel, P. and Woods, R.H., 2015.Media ethics: Cases and moral reasoning. Routledge. Eagle, L., Bird, S., Spotswood, F. and Tapp, A., 2015. Ethical Dimensions of Social Marketing Does Trying to do Good Equate to Doing No Harm?. InMarketing in Transition: Scarcity, Globalism, Sustainability(pp. 431-436). Springer, Cham. Frampton, B., 2015. ClickBait: the changing face of online journalism [online]. Available at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-34213693. Accessed on March 24, 2018. Hanson, R.E., 2016.Mass communication: Living in a media world. Sage Publications. Kamenova, K., Ravitsky, V., McMullin, S. and Caulfield, T., 2016. Media portrayal of non-invasive prenatal testing: a missing ethical dimension.JCOM,15(02), p.A03. Macnamara, J., Lwin, M., Adi, A. and Zerfass, A., 2016. PESOmedia strategy shifts to SOEP: Opportunities and ethical dilemmas. Public Relations Review, 42(3), pp.377-385. Moor, L., 2017. Spreadable media: creating value and meaning in a networked culture. Neill, M.S. and Weaver, N., 2017. Silent unprepared: Most millennial practitioners have not embraced role as ethical conscience.Public Relations Review,43(2), pp.337-344. Paxson, P., 2018.Mass communications and media studies: An introduction. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. Poutanen, P., Luoma-Aho, V. and Suhanko, E., 2016. Ethical challenges of hybrid editors.International Journal on Media Management,18(2), pp.99-116. Transparency International, 2016. Anti-Corruption Helpdesk [online]. Available at https://www.transparency.org/files/content/corruptionqas/Good_practices_in_media_transparency_2016.pdf Accessed on March 24, 2018.