Deja Person
Comm409:New Media Ethics
I chose to pick both topics from two different lectures we attended this semester. While listening to Marty Baron speak, the editor of the Washington post speak he brought up how stories put out into the public should be verified before taking the word of the messenger. Providing evidence and accepting nothing less. In particular he was mentioning the president Donald Trump putting out lies to attack Hillary Clinton, without providing proof to those accusations. We stated how important it is for us to not just accept his words as the truth because of his authority. One the other hand I listened to Mara Einstein, the author of “Black Ops Advertising” speak about the different forms of advertising and how hidden their intentions truly are. I notice the way companies proposition reader’s to click on their ad’s and I find it incredibly deceiving These two subjects of their lectures fall under the categories of important ethics in journalism, being truthful and verification.
Mara Einstein informed me that there is a type of advertising called native advertising which we interact with more on our phones. For example Buzzfeed has advertising called listicles, which are all over social media especially on Facebook. The tricky thing about those advertisements is you are not aware that you are engaging in an advertisement at all. Usually the articles are interesting and make readers want to view them based on the content. Titles like “Your favorite childhood stars, where are they now?” but after you click on the ad, there’s a lot of popups which I usually ignored until I got sick of them and just left the site. They created a listicle called “21 ways to restore your faith in humanity” and that got 13 million views. It is mind blowing how much traffic these ads get online. Prior I had no idea this content was a hundred percent advertising and not editorial material, which most readers do not. Now realizing all the sponsored headings I am aware of the plan. Another form of advertising she informed us about was a Purina advertising video called “Dear Kitten” on youtube. Almost twenty-eight million people had viewed this three minute ad. Compared to a thirty second ad that might get a million views, the number of people this advertising is reaching is far more than they would get in television. While this is incredibly smart, it is deceiving and upsetting to me now that I am aware. She also mentioned the ways that sponsored ads hide behind a light grey “sponsored” title which is usually looked over because you can barely see it to begin with. Companies make logos small and slightly hidden, very easily looked over while visiting their site. Sponsorship content disappears once you start scrolling, then reappears later down the search. There is nothing wrong with this issues legally but morally I find it questioning. I feel it is an issue of ethics in the world of journalism.
Marty Baron spoke of his involvement in the 2000 presidential election as editor of the “Miami Herald”. When it was not clear who had won after the votes were counted. The Miami Herald demanded a recount after votes declared George Bush was the new president. The Miami Herald were entitled to the public records and hired a major accounting firm to do an independent recount. After being accused to de-legitimize the Bush presidency, they felt the american voters were entitled to the truth. So the spent thousands of dollars just to come to the same conclusion. His message was to always search for the truth and if you are told not to do so, keep trying. Journalist should be persistently active in getting hard facts, not just following a higher person of authority to tell you something and you believe it is true. We must search for the truth ourselves.
One of the scholar articles I picked is The Moral Meaning of Recent Revisions to the SPJ Code of Ethics by Karen L. Slattery. This article stuck out to me because it identifies the problems that journalist have been struggling with these past years. Access to the internet has given anyone the power to write down something and declare that it is true. Everyone can write on Wikipedia right? That is not an acceptable source of information but still a lot of people get information from i, without doing necessary research to prove it is fact. “Journalists have faced significant challenges to the stability of their field in recent years. Technological advances have decentralized news production; anyone with a computer and willingness to communicate news can lay claim to the title journalist. New technologies have fueled change in the field’s economic landscape. Advertising has migrated to the web, so news organizations depending on it as an economic base have had to look elsewhere for support, or have folded.” This goes back to what Marty Baron was speaking on about seeking the truth from messengers
I also included an article by Mark Pearson called “Press freedom, social media and the citizen.” This article talks about how advertisers target children websites because children click on the links not aware of what doing and create big bucks for that company. “Advertising on kid-based Web sites has become both a rapidly growing market for consumer companies and a concern for parents. With a click on an icon, children can link to advertisers and be granted tremendous spending power. Children are an important target group for consumer companies because of their tremendous spending power. In 1995, children under age 12 spent $14 billion, teenagers another $67 billion, and together they influenced $160 billion of their parents’ incomes. Many critics question the appropriateness of targeting children in Internet advertising. Because children lack the analytical abilities and judgment of adults , Internet advertising directed to children raises special concerns. Web sites use “one-to-one marketing” that permit companies to develop personal relationships with children and the sites are designed to hold children’s attention for long periods of time. Children are vulnerable to Internet advertising in a number of ways. They may be unable to evaluate the accuracy of information they view or judge the difference in entertainment and marketing because the content and advertising are seamlessly integrated. Understand that product spokespersons or characters are used to develop interactive relationships with them . Children may not realize that in many cases these characters provide hot links directly to advertising sites.” This article agrees with me that advertising is very tricky and they know it so they’re going after the children. This violates the ethics of journalism by not only being deceitful but having a hidden agenda at that.
I feel as it is very important to discuss these issue, not only among peers but your child also. Letting them know that everything is not a game, though it may seem like it. Inform them that the internet is entertaining but also very annoyingly tricky. People get fooled into watching hours of advertising without wanting or even knowing it. It is someone’s job to accomplish that goal to make money. That is just the way internet advertising is. Teach them also what is acceptable as news and what is not.
Sources:
Scholarly Articles
Lectures
Marty Baron
Mara Einstein
Other
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