Module 1: Ethics in Communication

Students will gain an integrative overview about the principal ethics that orientate journalistic and persuasive communication. Ethical dilemmas professionals face will be discussed by means of case studies.

General objective

Students will get to know the ethical principles that orientate communicators, as well as the companies and organisations they work for. Apart from this students will be enabled to discuss ethical dilemmas and vote for and justify adequate solutions for a socially responsible communication.

Specific objectives

• Students will study the aims of journalistic and persuasive (strategic communication and advertising) communication and the values on which they are based.
• Students will investigate the fields in which ethical dilemmas can be found frequently in the area of mediated communication and the ethical principals that they are entangled with.
• Students will be able to discuss ethical dilemmas by means of case studies and opt for solutions that are based in the ethics of the profession.
• Students will identify different ethical approaches and will know on which of them to base solutions when it comes to taking decisions.
• Students will learn about the social responsibility that corresponds to different communication outlets.

• Reading and critically discussing literature.
• Discussion of case studies.
• Research and presentation by the students.

Content

• Mediated communication; its specific aims (journalism, strategic communication, advertising, fiction)
• Freedom of expression: scope and limits
• Right to information: scope and limits
• Self-regulation
• Truth and Objectivity: Truth, verisimilitude, objectivity as pretending to be objective, deceitful methods, objectivity in the process: selection, report, presentation, rectification
• The right to live
• The right for honour
• Denunciation
• Treatment of children
• Intimacy and private life: scope and limits
• One’s own image: Boundaries to the right of one’s own picture
• Sensationalism: Violence (terrorism), sex, suffering
• Tendencies: information like a spectacle, docudrama, reality shows, talk shows
• Relation communicator – source
• Relation communicator – audience
• Professional secrets: off the record, anonymous sources, embargo
• Relation communicators, media outlet, advertising

Assessment

Mid-term exams (75% of the final grade).  A final oral exam (35% of the final grade).