How the field of moral psychology has grown since my and Lee Wilkins’ efforts 20 years ago to simply measure the moral judgment of various media workers and compare them to other professions (Coleman & Wilkins, Citation2004). Scholarship in moral psychology continues to become more sophisticated as it explores how we internalize value systems, form moral identities, and are motivated to act. This special issue of Journal of Media Ethics showcases the variety of applications of moral psychology in media ethics, starting with three empirical studies spanning the life cycle of media professionals. It includes accounts from student journalists, to emerging adults in the early years of their professional careers, to seasoned pros revered for their moral mastery looking back on their lives and careers for signs of ethical milestones. Finally, we wrap up this issue with food for thought in the form of a theoretical essay illuminating criticisms of one of the most popular approaches to ethics within our field, which also offers suggestions for improvement.
We begin with “Inside the Ivory Tower: How student journalists reason about ethics,” by Feng Yayu, who interviews student journalists’ about their perceptions of ethics and moral reasoning. These students saw ethics as a set of rules to be followed and showed moral reasoning consistent with Kohlberg’s lowest and middle levels of moral development – the preconventional and conventional – a less than encouraging picture. More promisingly, Yayu also found that editors at school news outlets reached the highest post-conventional level, even though reporters in the sample did not. The article suggests opportunities for ethics education in student media.
The picture grows more hopeful in “Moral identity development among emerging adults in media: A longitudinal analysis,” by David Craig, Patrick Plaisance, Erin Schauster, Chris Roberts, Katie R. Place, Casey Yetter, and Jin Chen. The seven-member team undertook to measure the changes in moral identity of 48 college graduates in media fields across the first three years of their professional lives, doing so with an impressive four moral psychology instruments, and a fifth assessing their workplace ethical climate. The study shows significant shifts in moral reasoning, relativistic thinking and idealism, coupled with stability in personality traits and character strengths, and mostly positive assessments of their workplace ethical climates.
In “The influence of crucibles of experience in moral development & psychology of public relations exemplars,” Marlene Neill brings us full circle, conducting life story interviews with 40 seasoned professionals in public relations. She takes us on an in-depth journey through the “crucibles” or trials, challenges and chances for growth in the moral development and psychology of a select group of public relations practitioners deemed by their peers to be the epitome of ethical actors. Using Rest’s four-component model of ethical decision making, and a moral psychology profile of the key characteristics of public relations exemplars, it is a story of moral courage, resilience, generosity, caring about others and willingness to listen and learn.
In “Character skepticism and the virtuous journalist,” Joseph Spino tackles the criticisms from moral psychologists of virtue ethics approaches to professional ethics, specifically in journalism. Acknowledging that virtuous character traits are not enough in such a “morally dangerous profession,” he addresses some of the character skeptics’ criticisms, such as how those with virtuous character can still lack the motivation to act accordingly. He offers some promising avenues to improve virtue ethics in journalism, including by incorporating some of character skepticism’s concerns into the virtue ethics framework, and also by leveraging organizational interventions that have been shown to cultivate virtue.
I hope readers find these insights helpful and inspiring. I wish to thank Patrick Plaisance for giving me the opportunity to edit this special section, and to also acknowledge his own tremendous contribution to the field of moral psychology in media, which I have followed throughout his career. Also, for affording me full editorial control in all stages of this issue as guest editor.