Media Ethics: Key Principles for Responsible Practice

Media Ethics: Key Principles for Responsible Practice equips students with the knowledge and critical skill sets they need to develop a solid foundation in ethical thinking and responsible media behavior. The text balances ethics theory with case studies to explain key ethical principles and their application in real-world media practice.

The book introduces classical and contemporary ethics theory and helps students develop a greater understanding of and appreciation for the deliberative process required for responsible media practice. Dedicated chapters address key ethical principles including transparency, justice, harm, autonomy, privacy, and community. Case studies throughout the book provide examples of media behaviors that have posed real-life dilemmas. These contemporary examples underscore the need for ethical media practice and also set the stage for lively debate and reflection.

The third edition includes up-to-date case studies, media research, and ethics theory applications to media technologies. Three new chapters address moral decision-making in everyday life, the key factors involved in being a responsible media consumer, and ethical and policy questions surrounding Big Data and our data-driven media system.

Developed to foster ethical thought and decision-making, Media Ethics is the ideal textbook for courses dealing with ethics in journalism, public relations, advertising, strategic communication, and media marketing.

Patrick Lee Plaisance is the Don W. Davis Professor in Ethics at the Bellisario College of Communications at Pennsylvania State University. He is the editor of the Journal of Media Ethics and an affiliate faculty member of the Rock Ethics Institute. He is the author of Virtue in the Media: The Moral Psychology of Excellence in News & Public Relations and editor of Handbook of Communication & Media Ethics. His research focuses on media ethics theory, moral psychology theory and methods, and the philosophy of technology as applied to media systems and practices.