Media Ethics and Authenticity

This assignment discusses the importance of media ethics and authenticity in the digital age. It highlights the consequences of media manipulation and unethical practices, such as the HSBC fraud on Britain's newspaper. The assignment emphasizes the need for people to be aware of the sources they consume, for companies to provide authentic information, and for governments to monitor and regulate ethical practices in media industries.

Running Head: Ethics and Sustainability
Ethics and Sustainability

Ethics and Sustainability 1
Executive summary
The below mentioned task talks about the mass media industry and the use of unethical practices
present in the industry. The media is industry is highly prone to tampering of news and use of
unethical sources to attain information. The below mentioned task talks about the ethical issues
present in media industry and its impact on the stakeholders. Recommendations are given while
talks about ways in which these problems can be solved.

Ethics and Sustainability 2
Contents
Executive summary.....................................................................................................................................1
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Ethical issues in mass media industry..........................................................................................................3
Impact on different stakeholders in mass media industry...........................................................................4
Different alternatives for addressing the issue............................................................................................5
Conclusion and Recommendation...............................................................................................................5
References...................................................................................................................................................7

Ethics and Sustainability 3
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

Ethics and Sustainability 4
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.

Ethics and Sustainability 5
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 Britain’s newspaper, so people should trust with
blind eyes.

Ethics and Sustainability 6
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.

Ethics and Sustainability 7
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?. In Marketing in Transition: Scarcity,
Globalism, & Sustainability (pp. 431-436). Springer, Cham.
Frampton, B., 2015. ClickBait: the changing face of online journalism [online]. Available at
http://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. ‘PESO’media 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.

Ethics and Sustainability 8
Transparency International, 2016. Anti-Corruption Helpdesk [online]. Available at
https://www.transparency.org/files/content/corruptionqas/Good_practices_in_media_transparenc
y_2016.pdf Accessed on March 24, 2018.