Media Ethics

    I think Spiderman says it best when he says, “With Great power comes great responsibility.”   We all are given so much more power in communication than ever before as the Internet takes our words across the planet and thousands of people can be impacted by a story.  That line between our freedom of speech and accuracy of news stories has become blurred. In all 3 podcast we learn a little about not only our place as bloggers, facebook posters, and twitter fanatics but also the new form of journalism and what roles these news anchors, journalist, TV hosts play in this modern world of communication.
    The first story ‘We Decide you Report” asks the question, is it ok for the journalist to pander their works towards the audience?  The interviewer wants to know when is reporting no longer about news but more about what the audience wants.  The Second story “Sue you!” is a story about the legal battle between a blogger and the person they were slandering in their blog.  It focuses on the first amendment and makes us ask the question, when is the first amendment no longer protected for an individual.  The last story “People in holes” goes back to the first story about selling news for the audience.  It focuses on mankind’s morbid fascination with people being trapped underground.  It goes back to the original podcasts question, does a journalist cater to an audience and when is news for the ratings and not the story.
    In all of these stories there were a few places where I was a bit shocked by what I heard.  The first story, the interviewer seemed to be a bit jaded about news stories catering to an audience instead of just telling news.  This is a tough call when the new medium is online and news stories will not be read unless key words are triggered in a Google search.  The next story was interesting to me to find out that the word Skank was found in court to be a word causes defamation. The person who blogged this word was denied her first amendment rights when the court ordered Google to give the bloggers name up to the court.  The last story was the one that had the biggest lesson to learn.  I was shocked to find out what happened to many of the people involved in the news sensational story about the 18 month old girl who fell down a well after the news stories faded.   It was the first time local news gave 24 hour coverage on the story and the fame that the rescuer experienced, tainted him as he tried to chase that high again. It was too difficult for him to go back to the daily grind and he ended up taking his own life.  This gave me a moment of pause, we, the audience only remember a breaking story for a few days and then we move on, the people in those stories have to live with that experience the rest of their lives.
    Again, “With Great power comes Great Responsibility” We all can become media specialists, getting our words out there for the world to view but with this power comes the responsibility of ethics.  We hear each day more and more people being sentenced for Internet media crimes than ever before.  I think about the Facebook bullies that caused a girl to take her own life.  They were just using their freedom of speech, but it caused pain to someone else.  Then you have to ask, are they responsible for this girl’s death?  Or Snowden who is able to leak government information for the entire world to see.  His words hold so much power that he is wanted as criminal of the USA.  These Podcasts make me reflect on not only my responsibilities as a blogger but also the media’s responsibilities.  I believe that we need to treat online words as we would words the come out of our mouth.  If we can’t say what we say online to that person or about that topic face to face then we shouldn’t write about it, and unfortunately many people use the opportunity to be anonymous as an outlet to say mean and harsh things. 
    The famous cliché “The words are mightier than the sword” is true in any form of media.  We all need to be sure that we accurately reflect news, speak without defamation, and not try to hunt down a news story just for the ratings.

A Home becomes the medium for many messages.

 Photo by Tony Bartholemew

 Photo by Tony Bartholemew

 The Podcast Earthbeat: Goodbye is symbolic of the “medium is the message” from our reading by Luneffeld’s.  In the story of the house on the cliff, the house is a medium for a much deeper message.  As the podcast mentioned, Kane Cunningham bought a house knowing that someday it would fall off the edge of the cliff on which it resides.  Cain bought this house as a project that inspires art and creativity but it becomes so much more.  It becomes a symbol for people across the globe.  He says that he receives letters from all over world and many of them write about “life and death, loss, bereavement, dreams, getting old, mortality and the transient of life.”  Cain also used the home as a studio and it gave him an chance to protest on a range of issues.
In this instance, the house being on the edge of a precipice is such an important medium for the message.  The fact that the house is teetering on the edge of destruction is what makes it such a strong message and can be interpreted in many ways.  A house for the most part is a Medium that give security and support, a place to go when you need to feel safe.  Home is where the heart is and yet this house turns the entire symbol of “home” on its head and that is why it is such a strong medium for this message.

Thoughts on Peter Lunenfelds' The Digital Dialectic - The Medium and the Message

    Although this was a cumbersome read, with a few too many overly complex words, I had to laugh aloud when I came to the story at the end about coffee.  It took me a minute to understand why the author wrote an essay “Sip Here With Cover On” but I can relate to his bewilderment when it comes to coffee in Seattle.  My wife has us go through the Starbucks drive-through, I lean out the driver’s side window, as she rattles off her order in my ear.  She does not order a coffee black, but instead orders a very complex drink of numerous layers.  The drive-through attendant offers us additional options and the whole process starts to become overwhelming.  When the coffee does arrive it comes in a to go cup, with lid, and she sips it next to me as we drive to our destination. 
    This is much like the World Wide Web.  We are so engrossed with the incredible amount of options that we loose the importance of just putting things into our memory.    We become overwhelmed and distracted by the numerous links, images, and medias, and unlike a book where we can stay on the same page, we can surf the web for hours getting completely off track and only obtaining small sounds bites of information.   Although, the computer may be a place for us to store memories it is a distraction that does not allow our memories to first be processed in our minds before they are quickly transposed to the web to be saved.  We are losing the authenticity and enjoyment of savoring a cup of coffee at the cafe’ as we zip through websites and links of the internet drive-through.  We are spending so much time trying to post the next bit of information about ourselves that we don’t take the time to instill into our memories the moment we are living currently.

Communication model based on the Osgood - Schramm model of communication.

Linear model of Mass Communication - Designed by Shane Kantzer