Lecture 8

Lecture 8 was on ethics, and in my opinion it was one of the most interesting lectures of the semester so far. Exploring the polarity of ethics, the notion that everything is black and white, was thought provoking. It seems that we need to have the ability to distinguish between what is just tacky, and what is actually unethical. Our guest lecturer, John Harrison, gave us some examples of such media. He asked us to do an exercise, where we marked on a scale whether we thought the ad was in good taste or bad taste, ethical or unethical. It seems that everyone’s opinion on what is good taste and bad taste differs, as that is something which develops individually, however it is important that publishers of media have the ability to determine what is genuinely unethical. He then went on to explain some of the theories involved in ethics, as well as some of the ethics codes which apply to the journalism field. Here are some of the ads used in the lecture, but rather than tell you what I thought of them, I will let you make up your own mind.