Tuesday, November 30, 2010

How does mass media shape the public's agenda of issues?

Mass media has the unique ability to shape the public’s agenda of issues. It is the media which is able to present the facts to the people in a way that affects what people think about. The media does not tell people how they should think about an issue but instead tells them which issues they should think about. This brings up the issue of ethics because there is not one universally applicable set of standards that should or could be applied to all situations involving media coverage. “The law and ethics don’t coincide lockstep, which is a major issue in media ethics” (Vivian 447). There are several conflicts of duty that come into play when dealing with what to report and how to report it. Some examples are duty to self, duty to audience, duty to employer, duty to the profession, and duty to society. It is not always easy to decipher which duty should take priority and that is why media is such a hard institution to make ethically sound. Besides conflict of duties, if one does not believe in prescriptive ethics, which is defined as “follow the rules and your decision will be the correct one” (Vivian 447), there are several different moral principals that a media company can abide by. These moral principles include The Golden Mean, “Do unto others”, categorical imperatives, utilitarian ethics, pragmatic ethics, egalitarian ethics, and social responsibility ethics. The media is responsible for shaping the public’s agenda of issues which makes it a difficult task since ethical principals, or at least a moral standard, should be applied when creating this agenda. “Merely to follow prescribed rules with unique, sometimes nuanced subtleties makes for a particular dilemma. No prescriptive code, cast in broad terms as they must be, can replace a good mind and the application of broad, universal principles” (Vivian 463).

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