Global Media Ethics: Problems and Perspectives by Elisa Domi

Media is acting as a bridge between the state and public. It plays a role of informer, motivator or leader for healthy democracy at all levels. Ethics are the inner superintendent decent moralities, ideals and opinions that people use to analyses or interpret a situation and then decide what is the right way to behave. It is free to discharge their duties in the society but media needs to follow ethics in collecting and disseminating the news by ensuring objectivity and fairness in reporting of information to society. Global media ethics aims at developing a comprehensive set of principles and standards for the practice of journalism in an age of global news media. New forms of communication are reshaping the practice of a once parochial craft serving a local, regional or national public. Today, news media use communication technology to gather text, video and images from around the world with unprecedented speed and varying degrees of editorial control. The same technology allows news media to disseminate this information to audiences scattered around the globe.

This book offers a diverse range of perspectives and approaches to the controversial issue of international media ethics, addressing the tension between local freedom of expression and respect for universal ethics in a global world. Despite these global trends, most codes of ethics contain standards for news organizations or associations in specific countries. International associations of journalists exist, and some have constructed declarations of principle. But no global code has been adopted by most major journalism associations and news organizations. Ethical journalism entails factual information, hard evidence, opinions from all parties involved, objective information steered away from subjectivity and outstanding grammar, spelling and punctuation. Ethical journalism, just like an exercised muscle, is strong in content, endures and does not go unnoticed. The consumer is so overwhelmed with unethical content provided for by the internet that they crave a good piece of factual work.

The book aims to explore various theoretical positions on global media ethics by providing an overview of the literature and seeking ways in which common ground may be found between these different positions. In addition to statements of principle, more work needs to be done on the equally important area of specific, practice guidelines for covering international events. An adequate global journalism ethics has yet to be constructed.