Revisiting media ethics in the age of global public conversations

Media ethics have been receiving a lot of attention in recent times.^1–5 As technological advances have been reshaping the practice of news media, which previously reached a more limited local, regional or national public, the topic of ethics has assumed a new global prominence. ‘Today, news media use communication technology to gather text, video and images from around the world with unprecedented speed and varying degrees of editorial control. The same technology allows news media to disseminate this information to audiences scattered around the globe’.¹ In addition to the increased speed and reach of news media, nowadays the public relies on social media not only for their news and information but also to debate the issues they read about. In an age of global public conversations, should media ethics evolve and what are some of the factors to consider? This question resonates not only in newsrooms across the globe but also among practitioners and academics from different fields.

Given our ever increasingly interconnected world, information accuracy and the ethics of the decision-making process on what and how to cover a health or social issue, organization, celebrity, or political campaign have never been more important. News media are now part of a global system ‘where the impact of their reports can have far-reaching effects - good or bad - ’¹ across interdependent social, political and health outcomes. Please allow me to make this clear. Being a journalist or a communication practitioner specializing on mass media communication and relations has never been more challenging. Most journalists need to take into account a delicate balance between protecting the public's interest; increasing viewership or circulation of the media outlets they represent; feeding the public's ever increasing fascination with the most miniscule details of an event or celebrity's life; learning about new topics and issues at an unprecedented pace; and of course considering the ethical implications of their reporting. Many of these same considerations also apply to the decision-making process of those communication practitioners who specialize in organizational communication, where the need for increasing visibility for one's organization or programs need to be counter-balanced by issues of ethics, social justice, and what's best in light of the public's interest and/or the groups they serve.³

Yet, never as in our times do so many reasons point to the need for revisiting media ethics in a way that would support the kind of reporting that is reflective of our global media environment as well as multiple views and cultures; and most important, also appeals to a responsible global ethic ‘to practice a journalism that helps different groups understand each other better’.¹ A local, insular, or media outlet-driven view of media ethics is not longer supported by the global environment in which we live.^1,4,5 Such view may create biased, inaccurate or partial coverage and result in public misunderstanding on the implications of local issues on global or national prosperity; incite groups within a country or a region to attack each other; promote parochial views and prejudices against specific groups or populations; advance causes or issues that may not longer be in the best interest of our global interconnected community; and/or incite social discrimination, wars, genocide, racism, terrorism, or other disruptive and unjust events.^1–5 This has great implications also for global health outcomes and health communication as all of these issues intersect with our quest for and commitment to improved population health outcomes, health equity, and health systems strengthening. The emotional and economic capital that is often spent on countering the kind of narrative that makes communities less safe or different groups less likely to work with each other to find common solutions has long-lasting implications for health systems and our ability to address health disparities in many communities. These are all interdependent issues as the drivers of poor health, poverty, low educational attainment, and social discrimination are strongly interconnected both globally and locally.⁶

It would be pretentious to have answers to such a complex issue. Many authoritative organizations, including the United Nations, have been attempting to keep alive the debate on redefining media ethics while of course preserving every country's right to a vibrant free press. In public health communication, other authors have suggested specific ethical criteria for health information that may also apply across many areas of mass media communication, ‘e.g. (1) accuracy, completeness and balance, (2) transparency, (3) participation of intended group, (4) respect for human dignity, (5) social justice and equity, (6) appropriateness’.⁷ With this in mind, some of the potential questions that we can ask ourselves in discussing this issue in our organizations, media outlets, research efforts, professional or lay communities, include:

• What is the impact on health, policy and social outcomes of inaccurate, biased, or partial information?

• To which extent and under which ethical criteria, should the media cover news, messages and/or people that are divisive, discriminatory, and therefore help perpetuate the kind of stigma, prejudice, or social discrimination that is also at the root of many health inequities?

• What is the right balance between documenting or providing information on different diseases, health conditions, world events, and/or social issues and showing images of people in situations that may undermine their human dignity?

• What is the role health communication and other communication professionals can play in strengthening relationships with the media and providing resources to increase information accuracy and completeness within different countries and cultures? What are some of the key lessons learned?

• How do we define the boundaries of our individual and/or collective responsibility in disseminating on our social media any information that has an entertainment value but may not be accurate, complete, and/or balanced and may have the potential to harm communities, patients, or specific groups? What are some of the models that we can extrapolate from organized online communities (e.g. people who are organized around a specific theme, social justice issue, or disease-related information) versus communities that are just connected by a specific kind of media (e.g. Twitter users)?

I am confident that our readers, authors, and reviewers have their own questions on media ethics and related criteria. I honestly hope they will explore them with a renewed sense of purpose as well as through the lenses and implications of our global and interconnected environment. I invite everyone in our community to submit to our Journal your research findings or lessons learned on this topic. We all know that greater accountability on all kinds of issues always starts with all of us.

In this issue…

This issue includes several articles on one of the key components of the health communication intervention cycle: message development, testing, and dissemination. Both within our Papers section and the themed section dedicated to presentations or events organized by the American Public Health Association (APHA) PHEHP Health Communication Working Group (HCWG), our authors explore the content, preferences, and/or impact of health messages on different topics such anti-vaccine sentiment, fruit and vegetable consumption, or maternal smoking and child exposure among low-income mothers. Other topics include the short-term effects of a violence-prevention curriculum on knowledge of dating violence among high school students in Haiti, and new frameworks and/or data that could be considered to inform health communication interventions and future topics on health emergencies, pediatric injury or acquired brain injury. A guest editorial, which features personal perspectives on select skills for health communication professionals, is also included in the HCWG themed section. The variety of topics we cover in this issue is also a powerful reminder of the many ethical issues that potentially apply to different populations and topics as well as the need for considering ethical implications within the realm of media ethics.