Digital Media Ethics

Charles Ess

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780745641645, 9780745641638
• eBook ISBN: 9780745655000
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This is the first textbook on the central ethical issues of digital media, ranging from computers and the Internet to mobile phones. It is also the first book of its kind to consider these issues from a global perspective, introducing ethical theories from multiple cultures. It further utilizes examples from around the world, such as the publication of "the Mohammed Cartoons"; diverse understandings of what "privacy" means in Facebook or MySpace; why pirating CDs and DVDs may be justified in developing countries; and culturally-variable perspectives on sexuality and what counts as "pornography." Readers and students thus acquire a global perspective on the central ethical issues of digital media, including privacy, copyright, pornography and violence, and the ethics of cross-cultural communication online.

The book is designed for use across disciplines – media and communication studies, computer science and informatics, as well as philosophy. It is up-to-date, accessible and student- and classroom-friendly: each topic and theory is interwoven throughout the volume with detailed sets of questions that foster careful reflection, writing, and discussion into these issues and their possible resolutions. Each chapter further includes additional resources and suggestions for further research and writing.

CHAPTER 1

Central Issues in the Ethics of Digital Media

Chapter overview

We begin with a case- study intended to introduce us to privacy as one of the most significant ethical issues brought about by digital media. This case- study is accompanied by one of the primary pedagogical/teaching elements of the book – questions designed to foster initial reflection and discussion (either for individuals, small groups, or a class at large), followed by additional questions that can be used for further reflection and writing.

Following an introduction to the main body of the chapter, the section “(Ethical) Life in the digital age?” provides a first overview of digital media and their ethical dimensions. I also highlight how more popular treatments of these, however, can become counterproductive to clear and careful ethical reflection. We then turn to some of the specific characteristics of digital media – convergence, digital information as “greased,” and digital media as communication technologies – that highlight specific ethical issues treated in this volume. We then take up initial considerations on how to “do” ethics in the age of digital media. Finally, I describe the pedagogical features of the book and provide some suggestions for how it is designed to be used – including specific suggestions for the order in which the chapters may be taken up.

Case- study: Facebook and Beacon – an introduction to issues in digital media ethics

In October 2007, the increasingly popular (for many, essential) social networking site Facebook introduced a new service, called Beacon. Following earlier software enhancements that automatically provided updates on various elements of the Facebook profiles of one’s Facebook friends, Beacon streamed into one’s homepage the recent purchases such friends had made – thus serving as a form of advertising for the products involved.

Facebook sold potential advertisers on Beacon in part by assuring them that Facebook users would be able to “opt- in” to the service – i.e., that they would have to explicitly agree to join the service. (This is in contrast with “opt- out” approaches that presume participation by default, and require the individual to explicitly initiate his or her removal from a given service, etc.)

In fact, Facebook only provided its users with notifications that Facebook would broadcast their purchases to their friends (a) when they made such a purchase on an external website and (b) when they returned from the external site to their Facebook account. When users generally ignored these, Facebook presumed that users had thereby consented to Beacon distributing information about their purchases to their friends.

After massive protest, Facebook changed its policy: if users ignored the warnings, Facebook will assume they are now saying “no” to Beacon. At the same time, however, Facebook will not offer the possibility of an opt- out from Beacon. (See Story 2007.)

Questions for discussion

1. Why might users object to Facebook initiating the Beacon program? On what grounds – i.e., what values, principles, and/ or other reasons might support these objections?

2. Is Facebook’s new policy – i.e., interpreting users’ ignoring of their notifications (that their purchase information will be broadcast to their friends’ homepages) as a “no” to this use of Beacon – a sufficient response to the objections you developed in (1)? Why and/or why not – i.e., what are your reasons and/or other grounds (including feelings, intuition, etc.) for your position here?

Additional reflection, informal writing exercises

1. Review the “Terms of Use” agreement that every Facebook user must agree to before they are allowed to set up a homepage on Facebook. (You can get to this by clicking on the small link “terms.”)

Do you spot anything here that, upon reflection, you might not agree with? If so, identify this point, and explain as best you can your reasons (and/or other grounds, including feelings, intuition, etc.) for disagreeing with Facebook on this point.

2. Review Facebook’s “Content Code of Conduct” (linked to from the “Terms of Use” document).

Are there elements of this code that you might not agree with? Why not?

Identify this element(s) carefully, and then:

A. Articulate as clearly as you can (i) what Facebook requires that you disagree with, and (ii) what your own ethical claim/ position/view might be as an alternative to Facebook’s.

B. Explain as fully as you can why you hold the ethical claim/ position/view that you articulate in (A) (ii), above – i.e., what grounds, reasons, values, norms, etc. would you appeal to in order to support your ethical position/claim?

C. Articulate as clearly as you can the grounds, reasons, values, norms, etc., that might lie behind Facebook’s claim/ position/view (perspective- taking).

D. Given what are now two different arguments – i.e., your argument for your particular ethical view, and the argument that you have reconstructed in (C) – respond to the conflict or disagreement between these two arguments and views.

3. If you already use Facebook or a similar social networking site, did you read the “Terms of Use” and related policies prior to clicking on the “I agree” box?

If so, why? If not, why not?

Do you think most people don’t read such “Terms of Use” – along with, say, the End User License Agreement (EULA) that users must agree to when installing new software? If not, why not?

4. Do you have any additional comments or observations on what you see as some of the ethical issues that emerge here?

Reflection/writing suggestions: media log

Develop a log – a description of what digital device you use, for how long, and for what purpose – for a given period (e.g., 24 hours/3 days/1 week).

Writing – class- discussion questions:

A. As you review this log, any surprises – e.g., are you using a device(s) significantly more or less than you might have originally thought?

B. Can you determine how you’re using these devices – specifically, what kinds of communication are you using them for?

C. Are there any obvious ethical aspects and/or problems that you notice and/or encounter in your use of these technologies? Identify these as carefully as you can.

Class discussion: Collect the ethical aspects/problems of your uses of digital media onto a commonly shared list. These will be useful to refer to as examples as you work through this text – both as some of these are likely to be discussed in the following chapters, and as some may not be explicitly covered here. The latter will be especially interesting for further individual and class analysis, discussion, and writing – particularly as you and your colleagues develop greater skill and ability in grappling with such ethical issues and challenges.

D. How does your use of digital media compare with:

(i) your older and/or younger siblings (if you have any)?

(ii) your parents and/or parents’ friends?

(iii) your grandparents and/or grandparents’ friends?

This question asks you to consider the demographics of digital media use – on the presumption that there will be striking differences, e.g., between the usage rates of adolescents and 20-somethings vis- à- vis¹ people in their 40s and 50s, and then people in their 60s and 70s (and older).

E. If there are such differences, what are your thoughts about the possible ethical implications of these differences?

(For example, we will explore in chapter 3 a suggestion that – at least some – younger people have ethical sensibilities very different from – at least some of – their elders regarding matters of copying digital media, including [illegal] downloading.)

Does it seem that our ethics indeed change from generation to generation? And if so, what does that imply regarding claims that ethics should be universal, i.e., applicable in all times and places to all people?

[Hint: we will take this up later on in terms of the meta- ethical positions of ethical absolutism, relativism, and pluralism – see chapter 6 for more discussion.]

Additional reflection suggestions: digital media and face- to- face communication

1. It is often claimed and observed that online communication, because it offers anonymity, encourages greater openness and honesty than most face- to- face (F2F) communication. On the one hand, it is hoped that such freedom of expression will encourage, for example, subordinates in an organization to more openly express their views (including criticisms): presuming that these views and criticisms are then heard by their superiors, the thought is that this leads to a “flattening” of the traditional hierarchies.

On the other hand, anonymity also encourages less attractive forms of communication, including flaming, trolling, cyber - stalking, and cyber- bullying.

In your view, do you think/feel that these new possibilities of online communication have led to greater good than harm – or vice versa? Please be ready to justify your response with one or more examples, arguments, etc.

2. It is commonly observed that the recent popularity of text-messaging (SMS) among young people in the United States is in part because we can use SMS to avoid face- to- face communication – e.g., some people have been known to break up with a girlfriend or boyfriend using a text- message.

Do you notice ways in which new digital communication technologies, while increasing our capabilities to communicate with one another in various ways, somewhat paradoxically thereby also make it possible to reduce our communication with one another, e.g., by not answering a phone call from a caller identified by name and number on our phone, by text - messaging instead of discussing important matters face to face, etc.?

Introduction

It is now commonplace to observe that in the industrialized world, we – especially young people – are thoroughly interconnected through, and thereby saturated with, what are sometimes called “New Media” or digital media. (We will explore the meaning of these terms more carefully in a bit.) Certainly, if we pay attention to contemporary media reports about digital media, these reports shout out important, often frightening, ethical issues.

So, for example, my local newspaper recently reported on a local pastor – and mayor of a small town – who was captured in an online sting operation. An “Internet detective” posing as a young girl in a chat room enticed the 62- year- old man, hoping to meet up with the “girl” for sex, into revealing his identity (O’Dell 2008).

Somewhat more subtly, the Danish tabloid newspaper Nyhedsavisen (which enjoys one of the largest circulations in Denmark) recently reported that two new words have been added to the dictionaries of mobile phones – fråderen (“foaming,” slang for “hungry”) and luder (slut). The sub- headline to the story read: ‘An expert wonders whether this means in the long run that young people’s language will develop in a negative direction’ (Mainz 2007: 14). (To be sure, an additional expert quoted in the story comments that this development is simply another reflection of how all languages change – and that such changes are not necessarily reasons for panic.)

What these examples illustrate is the tendency of popular media to call our attention to important ethical issues involved with digital media – but in ways that run the risk of fostering what are called “moral panics.” That is, in order to attract our attention, such media stories focus unduly on the sensational (if not the sexual). But thereby, they tend to appeal to a deep- seated fear that our new technologies are somehow getting out of control (a fear that has been expressed in the modern West since Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein ([1818] 1933) – in part, as these new technologies apparently threaten to corrupt our ethical and social sensibilities.

As we will see in subsequent chapters, this media approach is most pronounced (understandably enough) with regard to sex and violence – specifically, concerns about pornography online and violence in digital games (chapter 5). But here we can start to see how such a “moral panic” style of reporting both furthers and frustrates careful ethical reflection on digital media.

On the one hand, to be sure, such reporting succeeds in getting our attention – and thereby provides a useful service by catalyzing more careful reflection on important ethical issues evoked by digital media. On the other hand, by highlighting especially the potentially negative effects of digital media, such reporting fosters a polarized way of thinking – an approach that could be characterized as “technology good” (because it brings us important benefits) vs. “technology bad” (because it threatens the moral foundations of society, most especially the morality of young people). The problem is that such an approach to thinking about important ethical issues is simply misleading. As we will see – and as most of us probably already know full well – whatever truths may be discerned about the ethics of digital media often lie somewhere in the middle between these two extremes. But if we are only presented with the simple choice between “technology good” and “technology bad,” we may be tempted to think that these are indeed our only choices and get stuck in trying to choose between two compelling alternatives. Getting stuck in this way short- circuits what we need to do if we are to move beyond such either/or thinking–a movement that requires more careful and extensive reflection.

One way to see how to move beyond such polarities is first to examine more carefully some of the important characteristics of digital media, along with the specific sorts of ethical issues that these characteristics often raise for us.

(Ethical) life in the digital age?

“Digital media” are the subject of an extensive range of analyses in a number of disciplines (e.g., Lievrouw and Livingstone 2006). This book, however, takes the standpoint of an interest in digital media ethics; thereby, at least at the beginning, we are interested in seeing the distinctive features of digital media – what sets them apart from earlier media – that make them ethically challenging and interesting.

To be sure, digital media represent strong continuities with earlier forms of communication and information media such as printed books, journals, and newspapers, what we now call “hardcopy” letters, and, for example, traditional forms of mass media that include not only newspapers but also “one- to- many” broadcast media such as radio and TV. We will note and explore these continuities more fully in our efforts to evaluate one of the larger ethical questions we will confront – namely, do digital media present us with radically new kinds of ethical problems that thereby require absolutely new ethical approaches? (See Preliminary exercise, below, p. 11.) For now, we can note that these questions are driven in good measure by rather emphasizing the important differences between earlier media and digital media. (Such an emphasis, by the way, also drives the “either/or” approach underlying much popular media reporting.) In parti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• HalfTitle
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Synopses
• Chapter 1: Central Issues in the Ethics of Digital Media
• Chapter 2: Privacy in the Electronic Global Metropolis?
• Chapter 3: Copying and Distributing via Digital Media: Copyright, Copyleft, Global Perspectives
• Chapter 4: Citizenship in the Global Metropolis
• Chapter 5: Still More Ethical Issues: Digital Sex and Games
• Chapter 6: Digital Media Ethics: Overview, Frameworks,Resources
• Glossary
• References
• Index