Ukleja Center for Ethical Leadership

Ukleja Center for Ethical Leadership

College of Business Administration, California State University, Long Beach

ETHICS ACROSS THE CURRICULUM

Creating a Code of Ethics for News Audiences in the Digital Age

Jennifer Fleming, PhD

Department of Journalism & Mass Communication

E: T: (562) 985-7986

Background

In the midst of the structural storm in news industries during the first decade of the 21st century, Stony Brook University School of Journalism founding dean Howard Schneider, who had just ended a 35-year career in newspapers, veered off of journalism education's skills­ development tradition and into unchartered curricular territory he called news literacy (Loth,

2012). News literacy is defined as an ability to use critical thinking skills to judge the reliability

and credibility of news reports, whether they come via print, TV, or the Internet. Schneider (2007) positioned the freshman news literacy course he designed for all students, not just journalism majors, as the instructional solution to the dilution of press influence and disappearance of clearly defined boundaries between journalism and other types of information. He reasoned that young audiences on the "demand side" of the information equation who learned how to identify well-sourced journalism would sharpen their critical thinking skills and come to support high quality, investigative news sources many argue are essential for democracy to function well. Schneider argued: "The ultimate check against an inaccurate or irresponsible

press never would be just better-trained journalists, or more press critics and ethical codes. It

would be a generation of news consumers who ... could differentiate between raw, unmediated information coursing through the Internet and independent, verified journalism" (p. 67).

JOUR 160-Understanding News Media

In 2009, I created a news literacy course at CSULB based in part on the Stony Brook curriculum as well as my own research (Fleming, 2010 and 2013). The purpose of "JOUR 160- Understanding News Media" is to broaden and deepen student understanding of news media production, distribution, and interpretation practices in the digital age. Students examine how journalistic processes work and learn how to recognize and critically question news media narrative patterns, hidden meanings, and stereotypes. Throughout the semester, students watch television news; listen to radio news reports, read printed news articles, and access online news sources to become more discerning news consumers at a time when the digital revolution is spawning an unprecedented flood of information and disinformation each day.

JOUR 160 was offered for the first time at CSULB as a general education "A3" critical

thinking in fall 2012. It has run at capacity (35 students) each semester that it has been offered. Typically, about 95% of the students enrolled are not journalisms majors; thus, the class is often comprised of students from every college on our campus. Additionally, a version of JOUR 160 was offered in fall2012 and fall2013 as part of the University Honors Program (25 students).

After a couple years of teaching the course, I determined that an ethics module was

needed to better reflect the changing nature of news production, interpretation, and dissemination practices. Namely, young citizens are increasingly news producers as much as they are news consumers thanks to smart phone technologies and social media platforms, yet instruction on socially responsible content selection and creation was not fully developed in the original Stony Brook curriculum. Thanks to an Ethics Across the Curriculum instructional stipend from the Ukleja Center for Ethical Leadership, I created an ethics teaching module to address this gap in the news literacy instruction.

Lesson Plan for Module

I designed and implemented the ethics module in March 2014. The lesson plan included the following steps:

1) I introduced and discussed social responsibility theory of the press. That is, the press has a "moral duty" to provide citizens: 1) A truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent account of the day's events in a context which gives them meaning. 2) A forum for the exchange of comment and criticism. 3) The projection of a representative picture of the constituent groups in the society. 4) The presentation and clarification of the goals and values of the society. 5) Full access to the day's intelligence (Commission on the Freedom of the Press,

1947, p. 18-29). Social responsibility theory serves as the intellectual root of modern

press codes such as the Society ofProfessional Journalists "SPJ" Code of Ethics.

2) I introduced and explained Mihailidis' concentric model for 21st century news. In the model, Mihailidis (2012) identifies four digital age innovations that are disrupting the traditional flow of information from journalist to audience. The first is the addition of new voices to civic discourse. This is possible because costs of producing and distributing content have plummeted. The second innovation identified by Mihailidis is mobile communication devices that allow citizens to receive and share reports, capture images and videos, and collaborate with others. Participatory tools are the third innovation. Mihailidis suggests participatory features of the Internet have had the greatest influence on journalism because social media have turned the top-down national media system upside down. The final significant change in the news media landscape, according to Mihailidis, is spreadability. Given that there are few boundaries between digital media, it has become extremely easy to spread information beyond borders and cultures. Mihailidis concludes that journalists and journalism educators are uniquely positioned through news literacy "to bridge the increasingly indistinguishable divide between the reporter and the audience, the journalist and the citizen" (p. 15).

3) I challenged students to create their own code of ethics to guide personal news content selection and creation choices on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other popular digital media outlets such as blogs. In other words, students were asked: What "moral duty" do you have to democracy now that you possess the ability to gather, edit, and disseminate information and images to a potential worldwide audience at lightning speed? The SPJ Code of Ethics served as the conceptual model for students to follow. Students were given a copy of the SPJ Code of Ethics as well as a handout that outlined the theoretical basis for the assignment and prompts to help guide analysis. Students completed the assignment as homework. The SPJ Code of Ethics is found in Appendix A of this packet; the handout for the homework assignment is Appendix B.

4) Students gathered on the day the homework was due in groups of four or five to discuss, compare and contrast their individual codes of ethics. Samples of student codes of ethics for news audiences can be found in Appendix C.

5) The whole class engaged in a discussion about the responsibilities of news audiences in the digital age.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the module, students had gained experience in:

1) Creating a personal code of ethics to guide news content selection and creation through social media and other digital channels.

2) Comparing individual codes of ethics in small group discussion.

3) Debating and thinking critically about the principles and practices of "responsible" news audience behavior.

Assessment Methods

Students were assessed using the following tactics:

1) Evaluation of individual codes of ethics assigned as homework.

2) Assessment of participation in small group discussions.

3) Monitor contributions during class discussions.