What is ethics?
Ethics are the moral principles that define how a group or person acts. However there are some issues in the ethical side of the media industry such as:
- Privacy
- Truth
- Mostly Trust
Ethical issues in the media industry
Ethical issues
Morality issues such as right and wrong have to be taken into account. Exploitation and sensationalism also have to be considered and taken into account.
Offensive material such as privacy and copyright. These are not usually enforced by law. Regulatory bodies and codes of practise exist often within the industry.
Representational issues are to do with the re-presentation of people,facts,opinions and events. The process of mediation.
Representation and ethics
Representation refers to the construction in any medium of aspects of reality such as people, places,objects,events,cultural identities and other abstract concepts. Such representations may be in speech or writing as well as still or moving pictures.
Ethics
A reporter when working on a certain story will have to make sure that he/she isn't bias or one sided towards that story. They must also gather both sides or the argument, for and against that story in order to gain a fair sided report.
For example religion. A reporter can't be one sided they must approach it with an open mind and not take sides.
Accuracy
The film industry make sure that they don't mislead their audience's. They must also make sure that they don't alter or change any facts as this will undermine the audience's trust in their content.
Harm and offence
TV producers have a responsibility to protect children and young people from unsuitable content as well as their rights of freedom of expression and freedom to receive information.
Fairness, contributor's and consent
Groups and individuals should usually be appropriately informed about the planned nature of context of their contributors when they are asked to take part in certain content and give their consent, unless there is an editorial justification for proceeding without their consent.
Privacy
Privacy is an important part in the media industry. Producers must make sure that they do not interfere with peoples personal lives and not to broadcast any material that the persons do not approve of.
Example for reality TV show
Geordie Shore
What they need to consider:
Cast background checks in case of criminal records etc
This needs to be done because if they had a criminal record it would affect the program and the image from the public eye.
(mental health check) in case any of the cast need to take any medication this should be done in privacy because the camera's can not show this, and in case of any fits they cannot show this on the TV.
Fairness, not showing one character as an angel and the other as a party animal. The TV producers cannot film Geordie Shore based on one person to make it fair they show the cast's real personality equally.
This programme is not aired on television until 10PM because it has explicit content with Sex scences, and smoking, swearing ect.
Example for soaps
Coronation street
What they need to consider:
Graphic content in case this has affected someone in the audience in their past it could cause issues for example a car crash and a child dying this could of happened in real life so it could affect someone in the audience at the end of the show they need to put "if this has affected someone in the audience call this number ........." where a complaint can be made or they can tell the programme producers how they were affected by that week's episode.
No offensive speech or racism on the programme.
Example for comedy
Frankie Boyle
Making sure that they don't just take the mic out of one person or just picking on one certain topic, as it can upset people for example just targeting a certain gender, disability or skin colour.
For example Frankie Boyle was talking about James Arthur...
Writing a twitter post saying "James Mcarthur is like a cross between a tramp and a duckling" which caused an argument between the two of them. When commenting on celebrities you have to be careful when you are a comedian because you can be sued for saying things like this or if you make anything up about a celebrity and tweet it legal action will be taken.
Also he had problems with Chris Brown, Rebecca Adlington, Richard Dawkins, Barack Obama, Piers Morgan and also many other celebrity's.
BBC PRODUCER GUIDELINES
The BBC have guidelines for producers to follow so they do not get sued because if they break these guidelines they could face having to go to court. It it to protect the public from things that should not be published, put live on air or filmed.
Basically say if a radio producer was at a crime scene asking questions and wanting to know answers they have to protect the people that it may involve because there could be suspects and they are not allowed to mention there names on the radio unless they are given permission because they could have been wrongly accused.
Also say if someone was wanting to publish a film and it had allot of violence in it they have to check the guidelines to see how much and what type of violence they can put into a film, because the guidelines are there to protect the public from seeing things such as animal abuse and child abuse it could affect the audience when watching this certain film if it is not following the producer guidelines. And the film could be banned from the country for example like the human centipede 2 was.
In TV programmes they also have to be careful when putting scenes in that involve alcohol, smoking, solvent abuse and illegal drugs, for example in an episode of coronation street Peter is an alcoholic and because this certain soap is not on at a late time they have to make sure at the end of the programme they say if you have been affected by this programme and they will give a contact number to call. Also they have to make sure that contributors to programmes such as studio debates or chat shows do not smoke. Also they need to avoid revealing explicit detail of how to use illegal drugs or abuse solvents, unless clearly editorially justified because when showing drugs on a TV programme or in a film it offend people watching the show and may be took of.
