Chs 10 & 9 - by Phillip Patterson and Lee Wilkins Next, i

Chs 10 & 9 - by Phillip Patterson and Lee Wilkins
Next, in our study of Communication Ethics, we are going to
read two chapters from a
widely used textbook on media ethics. Patterson and Wilkins,
the authors of this textbook,
adopt an institution-centered and technology-centered approach
to thinking about
communication ethics. Their ethical framework is a bit
different than one we have explored so
far – there is much less emphasis on Kantianism and
Utilitarianism and much more emphasis
on what we may call the ethic of inclusion in a democracy.
I. The Democratic Inclusion Ethics
The ethic of inclusion in a democracy takes it that a good and
moral person is
informed. The basic thought here is that a well-informed person
makes better moral
decisions than one who is poorly informed. In this thought, we
can see a blend of Kantianism
and Utilitarianism – well-informed persons are autonomous and
their decisions lead to greater
utility or happiness for everyone.
------ Interlude on Free Will
Of course, the issue that is not discussed here by Patterson and
Wilkins is whether
even a well-informed person can choose to do evil things – use
that information to harm

people or not act on the basis of that information at all.
There are two basic models of a human being on the basis of
which the above issue
makes sense: the free will model and the knowledge-determinist
model. According to the free
will model, a person can choose to act one way or its exact
opposite with regard to what the
person knows (use the information for good or evil). According
to the knowledge-determinist
model, the person is a product of what he knows and can only
act one way as a result of what
he knows – a person will act in one and only one way as a result
of what he knows and could
not have chosen to act any other way.
Patterson and Wilkins probably rely on the knowledge-
determinist model: the only way
to make better moral decisions (in a Kantian, Utilitarian or
other manner) is to be well-
informed. It is sufficient to be well-informed to make better
moral decisions. But even if we
adopt the free will model, we would still say that the only way
to make better moral decisions
is to be well-informed. However, on the free will model, being
well-informed is necessary but
not sufficient to make better moral decisions. Being well -
informed and choosing to act in a
moral manner would both, as two separate acts, be necessary
and co-sufficient for making
better moral decisions. Whether knowledge is both necessary
and sufficient, or only
necessary, for morally better decisions is beyond the scope of
communication ethics – it is
enough for us to know that knowledge is at the very least
necessary for making better moral
decisions.

-------- End of Interlude on Free Will
In light of all this, a communication is ethical if it leads to a
person being better
informed. In light of what we have discussed in this class, it
means that a person knows facts
as well as explanations and ramifications of those facts. Just
knowing facts, without
understanding explanation and ramification (or the meaning of
those facts) is not knowledge.
There is also a third important component in being
knowledgeable: exposure to information
that challenges what we already know (either by pointing out
that there is more to know or by
pointing out that we may be wrong by directly contradicting
what we know). The third
component takes seriously that human human beings are fallible
knowers: we do not know
everything and can turn out to be mistaken about what we think
we know at any moment.
The discussion in the present module develops and explores the
third component of
knowledge and of communication ethics.
We can also clearly see how all three components, and
especially the third component,
are important in a democracy, and especially in a pluralist
democracy. In a democracy, and
especially in a pluralist democracy, in order for all of us to act
collectively in public and
governance, we need to be aware of what benefits and harms
each of us, according to our
different values, in order for all of us to live in peace and

prosper together. A democracy in
which citizens are not informed about each other's lives and
values is not going to be very
successful at choosing policies and actions that benefit all of us
as much as possible and
harm all of us as little as possible.
II. The Two Principles of The Democratic Inclusion Ethics
With all of the preceding in mind, we should lay out from the
very beginning of our
discussion the two values that are central to our discussion and
that are also the values of
democracy. These two values are found in the middle of
Chapter Nine.
One. “People must be exposed to the materials that they woul d
not have chosen in
advance and come across views that they would not have
previously selected or even agree
with.”
Two. People “... should have a range of common experiences”.
The first of the above two principles is of greater interest to
our discussion (and we
may say that it is a necessary condition of the second in a
contemporary pluralist democracy).
With these two principles in mind, let us go to Chapter Ten.
III. The Undemocratic Component In The Structure of Popular
Entertainment And Arts –
Reinforcement of Stereotypes
Chapter Ten starts by informing us that whereas in the past the
media has largely been
used for distributing information it had at some point shifted its
focus onto entertainment.

We need to introduce a third category in order to better
understand what is at stake in
entertainment. The third category is that of art.
Since the context in which we are discussing the shift from art
into entertainment is not
aesthetics, we will not discuss this shift in terms of beauty. Our
context is that of
communication ethics, and so our interest in the shift from art
to entertainment is in the quality
of information that is communicated by art and entertainment.
Art, which for our purposes is critical art, presents us with a
challenge to the status quo
thinking. Specifically, it challenges the stereotypes of which
status quo thinking consists. It
expands our moral imagination by presenting us with characters
and situations that are more
complex than our own lives – and exposes us to what we would
otherwise not see. In this
sense, art is democratic.
Of course, not all artworks are like this – but more on this at
the end of this section.
Just bear with the analysis for now.
Art works by presenting us with fictions that evoke strong
emotional responses. This is
the fundamental difference between news and art – news (when
it is critical and challenges
status quo thinking) does not present us with fictions but with
facts and news does it in order
to inform us and not in order to invoke emotional responses in
us.
Critical art is not rare and not easy – and it calls for profound
and taxing responses
from us.

Entertainment, on the other hand, is there to be available for
mass consumption with
ease. The institutional structure of developed mass media –
production in large quantities for
mass consumption – calls for mass entertainment rather than for
the rare and difficult critical
art.
Entertainment, that is easy and available in mass, due to its
nature, does not challenge
status quo and reinforces stereotypes. The reliance on and
reinforcement of stereotypes are
called forth from popular entertainment due to that it must
produce for quick and voluminous
consumption in the quickest way possible – and the most
efficient way to do that is to appeal
to the already available in culture stereotypes that require as
little critical thought as possible.
This quickening and simplification that the institutional
structure of media calls for is termed
“compression.” The context of stories must be established as
quickly as possible so that as
little work as possible can be done in order to get to the pay off
– the pleasure of
entertainment. Popular art, or entertainment, loses the critical
edge of critical art. Popular art,
or entertainment, in reinforcing stereotypes, deprives us of and
does not present us with an
opportunity to engage information and views that we would not
seek out on our own. In this,
popular art, or entertainment, is not in harmony with, or even
opposes, the first democratic
principle outlined above.
… entertainment content can reinforce the status quo by
constantly depicting certain
social groups in an unflattering and unrepresentative way,

presenting a distorted picture of
reality. Groups as disparate as Muslims and evangelicals have
chafed under depictions (or
omissions) that reinforce cultural stereotypes despite evidence
to the contrary. … Given only
15 seconds to register a message in a commercial, an
advertising copywriter will resort to
showing us the presumed stereotype of a librarian, a mechanic
or a pharmacist. Using
stereotypes as a form of mental shorthand is a natural way
media work … The communicator
actually starts with what the receiver knows – or believes he
knows – and then constructs a
message that fits within that reality. … Time is saved in
plucking the chords already deeply
held by the public rather than challenging stereotypes. So
pimps are African-American,
terrorists are Middle Eastern and no one challenges the unstated
assumptions. The audience
gets the idea of a pimp or a terrorist, but notions of racism and
worse have been planted as
well. (Patterson and Wilkins, 258)
What is especially alarming about the reinforcement of
stereotypes in the popular
media is that it is unconscious - “... where the entertainment
media get their power – not in the
overt messages but in the underlying assumptions that (if
unchallenged) will become widely
held societal beliefs.” It is not that entertainment inculcates
these stereotypes in us by
claiming that they are true. Entertainment ingrains the
stereotypes in us by exposing us to
them and not challenging them.
We can gather from the discussion of entertainment's loss of
art's critical edge that one

of the functions of critical art is to challenge stereotypes – and
art does this as unconsciously
as entertainment does.
---------- Interlude on Art, as the Idea of Art, and Ideas As
Such
What we have discussed is the idea of art. Actual art works
contain more than the idea
of art – they may also entertain, for example. In this sense,
actual art works are part art and
part something else (part entertainment, for example). An art
work may challenge
stereotypes as well as reinforce stereotypes
In the same way, what we have discussed is the idea of
entertainment. Actual works of
entertainment do more than just entertain – they may also be art
in part. A work of
entertainment may reinforce stereotypes as well as challenge
stereotypes.
However, the claim above that media for the most part contains
works that are mostly
entertainment (reinforce stereotypes), with little if any, art
(challenging of stereotypes).
What are we talking about when we talk about ideas? We are
talking about functions.
Above, we discussed the function of critical art (challenging
stereotypes) and the function of
entertainment (reinforcing of stereotypes). The insight here is
that any existing thing performs
more than one function at a time.
Perhaps the somewhat odd thing here is that we usually identify
elevation of mood as
the main fiction of entertainment, and not reinforcing of

stereotypes. That's true. But the
point of the article is that the way in which mass media elevates
mood through entertainment
necessarily involves a significant reinforcement of stereotypes.
We are not new to a discussion of ideas. What we have
discussed as journalism, with
Eliot and Ozar, was a discussion of the idea or function of
journalism. Actual acts and
products of journalism are more than just just journalism – they
may also have art and
entertainment components and functions.
--------- End of Interlude On Ideas
IV. Fake News Is Entertainment And Is Significantly
Undemocratic
The second part of the entertainment's dominance over the
news is the rise of fake
news. We are not going to employ the term “fake news” in a
way that has become
established since Donald Trump's presidency. We will use this
term in a more restricted
sense that the authors of the Media Ethics textbook (Patterson
and Wilkins) use.
Fake news discusses real news events and displays real news
audio and video
footage – for the purpose of entertainment. Let us contrast fake
news with real news, or news
proper. News proper also discusses real news and displays real
news audio and footage –
for the purpose of informing the public.
The purposes that we are discussing above are not referring to
the purposes that are
intended by persons in their minds. The purposes refer to the
functions of fake news and

news proper in the world. The function of fake news is
entertainment; let us not forget that
this in all probability means of reinforcements of stereotypes
rather than challenging
stereotypes and opening up minds). The function of news proper
is informing the public. Two
different functions, even though these two types of news may be
discussing the same events
and using the same audio and video footage.
The real distinction of interest to us is that news proper is
obligated to tell the truth,
whereas fake news is not. News proper does not have the
license to reshape what it
presents for the comic effect and entertainment, whereas news
proper does. If we take
Ward's criteria of objectivity in news reporting, news proper has
an obligation to live up to the
standard of objectivity, as much as it can, whereas fake news
has no such obligation at all.
It is easy to see that Patterson and Wilkins have something like
Jon Stewart, Steve
Colbert, Trevor Noah and those types of shows in mind.
Bottom line – fake news is a poor and often misleading source
for getting the news
about the world (though a great source of entertainment it may
be). And the problem is that
too many people too much of the time rely (whether
intentionally or not) on the fake news to
inform themselves about the news of the world. Fake news, as
entertainment, also violates
the first principle of democratic communication – it does not
expose us to information and
views that we would not encounter on our own.

One more interesting point is made about fake news – how fake
news can have a
critical function. In light of our previous discussion of art, as
the domain proper of the critical
edge, we may even call this the critical artistic function of the
fake news.
This critical function of the fake news is suggested in the
Carlson/Stewart interview.
Stewart suggested that the inadequacy of real news and real
news shows becomes clear
when they do not seem to be any different than fake news
shows. This makes sense, as by
the very nature of what fake news shows are, they cannot do an
objective critique of news
shows – since fake news does not do anything objective to begin
with. However, fake news
can make it obvious to the viewer (without making a claim
about it) that real news shows are
no different than fake news shows and that real news shows
therefore should undergo
reform.
V. Internet And Social Media Do Not Promote Public Life In A
Democracy – They Tend To
Isolate in Groups Like-Minded Persons
The next topic for our discussion is from Chapter Nine.
Chapter Nine seeks to come to
terms with the new electronic technologies – the internet, in
general, and the social media, in
particular, with reference to how this novelty effects the news
(professional journalists vs.
bloggers/citizen jurnalists), but not only that.
We start with the thought that the internet and the social media
are immensely powerful

– it can bring down governments by bringing people together
for organized action. The
example given is that of Arab Spring revolutions in the Middle
East in the beginning of the
second decade of this century. Calls on social media brought
together large numbers of
people in a protest to the current governments and demanding
the stepping down of the
heads of those governments. The heads of the governments
stepped down in response.
The internet and the social media are excellent for immediately
rallying people together
for common popular causes in the short term. That, however,
seems to be the limit of the
political importance of the social media. The internet and the
social media do a lot less well
where a real debate, dialogue and compromises are required –
all of which, in turn, seems to
require long-term, face-to-face relations. The internet and the
social media proved to be
effective at bringing governments down but not at raising them
up and promoting their
function. The Arab Spring failed to bring about superior
governments than the ones that were
put down.
The key here is that public life requires real interaction,
exchange, debate,
compromises, and consensus and resolutions reached by people
whose values may be very
different from each other. Social media, however, polarizes
people into in-groups and out-
groups, the members of which, most of the time, listen to each
other preaching to the choir
that is each other and ending up in screaming matches with
people who think differently and

have different values – instead of having productive debates and
reaching consensus by
compromise with others.
In other words, the internet and social media score poorly
according to the two
principles of democracy. As a result of the internet and social
media, persons isolated into
groups of like-minded thinkers do not seriously encounter and
engage views that they do not
seek and do not build a common basis with other citizens on the
basis of which a successful
democratic life of autonomous individuals can take place.
In my own experience, people on social media platforms simply
state their opinions,
praise ones who think like they do, and ignore or get into
screaming matches with those who
disagree with them.
The preceding thought is encapsulated in the concept of
“personalized news”.
Personalized news refers to that there are algorithms on the
internet, and on the social media
platforms, in particular, by which our preferences (consumer
preferences, political
preferences, etc.) are are surveyed and are catered to by sending
more of the same kind of
materials back to us (ads for similar types of products, political
campaigns, as well as news
reporting). Such algorithms keep happy their consumers,
advertisers, and even journalistic
outlets that purchase such services.
In my own experience, news and other media articles that are
recommended to me on
social media platforms, tend to be from the same kind of
publications from which I read in the

past.
VI. Professional Vs. Citizen Journalism
The last item for us to discuss is how the internet impacts
journalism by making
possible citizen journalism via blogs and other such platforms.
We can identify two different moments in journalism. Moment
one – gathering
information. Moment two – verifying information. Ward has
given us a long account of the
second moment.
Professional journalists (those who work for news outlets, have
professional degrees,
certificates, and association memberships related to journalism)
are much better at the
verification moment than are non-professional citizen
journalists. They have been trained for
it, they have the resources at the publications where they work,
there is editorial staff that
assists them, etc.
Non-professional, citizen journalists, on the other hand, are
much better at the
gathering of information – at least as far as speed and
immediacy of this process are
concerned. These persons can simply copy and paste on their
blogs whatever they see on
someone else's site on the web, or take a photograph and
immediately publish it, etc. They
do not have to go through editorial controls and decision-
making in order to publish anything.
So, the advantage of professional journalism is that it is better
verified, but the
disadvantage of if is that it's slow. And, the advantage of citizen
journalism is that it is fast.
But the disadvantage of it is that it is much more poorly (if at

all) verified than is professional
journalism.
The point here is that we should receive each type of
journalism while keeping its
advantages and disavanatges in mind. Ideally, it seems, we
should not so much reject one in
favor of the other, but use both wisely.
Finally, why do we call citizen journalism, described above,
journalism? Eliot and Ward
provided us with an answer to this question from the very
beginning of the class. As long as
one puts out something useful for matters of public interest –
safety, autonomy, community
building, etc. - one is doing journalism. Chapter Nine points
out that the internet widely
expands the possibilities of doing journalism.

Chs 10 & 9 - by Phillip Patterson and Lee Wilkins Next, i

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Chs 10 & 9 - by Phillip Patterson and Lee Wilkins Next, i

Similar to Chs 10 & 9 - by Phillip Patterson and Lee Wilkins Next, i (7)

More from MargenePurnell14

More from MargenePurnell14 (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Chs 10 & 9 - by Phillip Patterson and Lee Wilkins Next, i