The Moral Foundations of Media Ethics in Africa

Abstract

A number of the analyses of media ethics in African contexts argue that journalists and other media workers vacillate and are inconsistent in following basic norms of ethical practice because this practice is not anchored in an under lying moral foundation rooted in African values. Various models of foundational African moral philosophy have been proposed, such as communalistic Afrocentered values, but there is little evidence that media practice is actually related to these abstract formulations of African values. The present study argues that foundational values must be inferred from accounts of ethical decision making in newsroom and other media production practices. This article reviews six areas of research reports describing journalistic practice that reveal deeper under lying professional values, and from these proposes a composite formulation of the moral foundations of ethical practice that can be tested in further research.

Keywords:

• Africa
• journalism
• media ethics
• media practice
• moral foundations
• professional ethics