Herbert Lewis, Contributor
GREAT GOOD and great evil come from the use people make of the media with respect to communication. Although it typically is said that 'media' do this or that, these are not blind forces of nature beyond human control.
For even though acts of communicating often do have unintended consequences, nevertheless, people choose whether to use the media for good or for evil ends, in a good or evil way.
These choices, central to the ethical question, are made not only by those who receive communication viewers, listeners, readers but especially by those who control the instruments of communication and determine their structures, policies and
content.
They include public officials and corporate executives, managers, editors, members of governing boards, owners, publishers, editors, news directors, correspondents and many others. For them, the ethical question is particularly acute: Are the media being used for good or for evil?
IMPACT
The impact of communication can hardly be exaggerated. Here people come into contact with other people and with events, form their opinions and values. Not only do they transmit and receive information and ideas through these instruments but often, they experience living itself as an experience of media.
Rapid technological change is making the media of communication even more pervasive and powerful. The range and diversity of media accessible to people are already astonishing: books and periodicals, television, and radio, films and videos, audio recordings, electronic communication
transmitted over the airwaves, over cable and satellite, via the Internet.
The contents of this vast outpouring range from hard news to pure entertainment, prayer to pornography, contemplation to violence.
Depending on how they use media, people can grow in sympathy and compassion or become isolated in a world of coarseness and hatred, envy and violence.
Not even those who shun the media can avoid contact with others who are deeply influenced by them. I think it is worth repeating: The media do nothing by themselves; they are instruments, tools used as people choose to use them.
In reflecting upon the means of communication, we must face honestly the 'most essential' question raised by technological progress: Whether, as a result of it, the human person is becoming truly better, that is to say more mature spiritually, more aware of the dignity of his humanity, more responsible, more open to others, especially the neediest and the weakest and more willing to be honest and fair in what we say of each other in our effort to promote and advance our own agenda.
Our society is torn apart and has been so for some time. Have the media been playing a responsible role by what is communicated and how it communicates?
PROMOTE HUMAN HAPPINESS
What appears clear to me is that the media are called to serve human dignity by helping people live well and function as persons in community.
I believe that media should do this by encouraging men and women to be
conscious of their dignity, enter into the thoughts and feelings of others, cultivate a sense of mutual responsibility, and grow in personal freedom, in respect for others'
freedom and in the capacity for dialogue.
Communication has immense power to promote human happiness and fulfilment without pretending to do more than give an overview of some economic, political,
cultural, educational and religious benefit.
We take it for granted that the vast majority of people involved in communication in any capacity are conscientious individuals who want to do the right thing. Some public
officials, policy makers and corporate
executives desire to respect and promote the public interest as they understand it.
Readers, listeners and viewers want to use their time well for personal growth and development so that they lead happier, more productive lives. Parents are anxious that what enters their homes through media be in their children's best interests.
I believe that most professional communicators desire to use their talents to serve the human family and are troubled by the
growing economic and ideological pressures present in many sectors of the media to lower ethical standards.
The contents of the countless choices made by all these people concerning the media are different from group to group and individual to individual, but the choices all have ethical weight and are subject to ethical evaluation. To choose rightly, those choosing need to know the principles of the moral order and apply them.
ETHICS QUESTION
When we examine some of the happenings in our country today can we truthfully and in all honesty deny that some media are not being used to block community and injure the integral good of persons: by alienating people or marginalizing and isolating; drawing them into perverse communities organised around false, destructive values; fostering hostility and conflict, demonising others and creating a mentality of 'us' against 'them'; presenting what is base and degrading in a glamorous light, while
ignoring or belittling what uplifts and ennobles; spreading misinformation and disinformation, fostering trivialization and banality?
As a people, do we care that many in our country believe that there are unscrupulous politicians and others who use media for demagoguery and deception in support of unjust policies and oppressive action?
These persons are also seen to
misrepresent opponents and systematically distort and suppress the truth by propaganda and 'spin'.
Rather than drawing people together, these media serve to drive them apart,
creating tensions and suspicions which set the stage for ongoing conflict.
No wonder the question keeps coming back again and again: What in the world happened to ethics in communication?
Herbert Lewis is an industrial relations specialist and former president of the Jamaica Employer's Federation.
