Malcolm X once said: “The media is the most powerful entity on earth, they have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent and that’s power because they control the minds of the masses.”For centuries, the media has been portrayed as a thriving force which continues to extend its tentacles day after day. There are those who love and respect the media and others who resent it with all their heart.
The controversial question of whether the media is ethical or not has influenced and affected public opinion globally for decades. Raising issues such as the role education, technology, businesses and people play in deciding how ethical and honorable the media is today.
James Piecowye, an associate professor in the College of Communication and Media Sciences at Zayed University said that the education a communication student receives today, such as taking an ethics course, has a key role in shaping how they view and perceive the media. Students become much more critical and analytical when viewing content in the media. They slowly start to realize how the media is simply a construction and that decisions are being made by several different people not just a single person. This feeds into the whole area of digital and media literacy as students think more about the content they observe and the information they read.
When a media student receives the right education and sufficient training and when he or she has certain ethics, morals and principles embedded deep down within them. Then there is no reason for them to become unethical journalists, TV broadcasters or reporters in the future and therefore no reason for the media to be unethical.
It is crucial to understand that the media is far larger than TV broadcasters or journalists. The business side of it has an immense impact on what content will be displayed, what the most eye-catching headlines will be the next morning and what the agenda will be for months.
“It is expensive to create media now, and it’s expensive to have people creating media,” Piecowye says.
Piecowye added that just like every other type of business, the media is looking to create its products with some sort of budget. This can have the potential effect of influencing the content displayed in the media, which leads to the development of an ethical dilemma.
The way our societies have developed in the last 10 years has also had a considerable impact on the ethical creation of content today. At times the content created might be inaccurate as people don’t have enough time to fact check. This is due to the demand for immediacy and the requirement that content must be released instantly. This results in an environment where some shortcuts can be taken, as at times people are under pressure to produce content in a very limited amount of time.
Social media, which has toppled the prospects of our world today, has an active and dominant role in the way ethics is practiced in the media today. Nowadays, individuals have the capacity to create media through numerous social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter. This leads to much more ethical issues to develop which the individual must address personally. Yet 10-15 years ago that was not the case, as those who were creating media content were professionals as it was their job to do so. They had the assistance of editors and others who would guide them through the process and therefore thought much more about ethics.
“There was more of a tendency to think ethically about the content we create as it was a profession,” Piecowye says.
However, Piecowye adds that now there is more of an opportunity to create media outside of a profession and with that happening there is sometimes less ethics applied.
Whether you love it or hate it, the media does have numerous benefits. It provides us with a substantial amount of information about events occurring both regionally and globally on a day-to-day basis. It also gives us the opportunity to make informed and rational decisions based on the information we receive.
“We are more informed now than we have ever been,” Piecowye said.
It is imperative to understand that the ethical side of the media is a combination of numerous factors. Education, businesses, technology and people are all equally contributing elements in this complex ecosystem. If individuals entering this field are both well-educated and well-intentioned, then we will have good media and if those controlling and funding the media are ethical, then we will have ethical media. The media does not set out to be unethical, it is who manages, controls and works in the media that influences whether it will be ethical or unethical.
It is therefore the duty of students, scholars and consumers to critically assess the way the media is being put together and the environment which it is coming out of. To make the right decisions and choices, as the media has and will forever shape, influence and control the minds of the masses.
About the author
Mahinaz Hamza is a Zayed University alumna. She wrote this piece in April 2018.
