The Impact of Ethics Instruction and Internship on Students’ Ethical Perceptions About Social Media, Artificial Intelligence, and ChatGPT

ABSTRACT

Communication programs seek to cultivate students who become professionals not only with expertise in their chosen field, but also ethical awareness. The current study investigates how exposure to ethics instruction and internship experiences may influence communication students’ ethical perceptions, including ideological orientations on idealism and relativism, as well as awareness of contemporary ethical issues related to social media and artificial intelligence (AI). The effects were also assessed on students’ support for general uses of AI for communication practices and adoption of generative AI, specifically ChatGPT. The survey results based on a student sample in Taiwan show that internship experience is more significant than ethics instruction on swaying ethical perceptions and behavioral inclinations of adopting AI applications. Adding to the limited body of knowledge on the effect of ethics education and internship programs, the findings also offer insights for how communication education can address emerging ethical challenges brought by new technology.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ Because the study was not funded as a part of any grant-supported projects in Taiwan, the approval of Institutional Review Board is waived. Information of the voluntary participation, potential incentives, and use of the anonymous data was included at the beginning of the survey, where the respondents provided consent and agreed to proceed by clicking “next page” on the introduction page.