Practicing Communication Ethics: Development, Discernment, and Decision Making

This textbook presents a theoretical framework for developing a personal standard of ethics that can be applied in everyday communication situations. This third edition focuses on how the reader’s communication matters ethically in co-creating their relationships, family, workgroups, and communities.

Through an examination of ethical values including truth, justice, freedom, care, integrity, and honor, the reader can determine which values they are ethically committed to upholding. Blending communication theory, ethics as practical philosophy, and moral psychology, the text presents the practice of communication ethics as part of the lifelong process of personal development and fosters the ability in its readers to approach communication decision making through an ethical lens.

This edition features new and expanded treatment of moral injury and trauma, digital communication, partisan political division, and issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Practicing Communication Ethics is a core textbook for communication ethics and media ethics courses.

Online resources for instructors include an instructor’s manual, sample assignments, and PowerPoint slides. They are available at www.routledge.com/9781032288987.

Paula S. Tompkins is Emeritus Professor of Communication Studies at St. Cloud State University, USA.