Media Ethics

Praise for Previous Editions:

"[Plaisance] is able and willing to bring theory and practice to bear upon each other. He has fresh approaches to old issues – like privacy. His text makes me think about issues in new ways....[The book] lets students know from the outset that understanding of practice can be enhanced by the application of theory....This discussion of privacy [Chapter 12] as a protection for the public sector is one of the best and most thoughtful I have seen in the field of media ethics."
Maggie Jones Patterson, Duquesne University McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

"I love that the author has gone beyond the ancient philosophers and included contemporary – and more diverse – philosophers."
Dom Caristi, Ball State University Department of Media

"Many ethical books focus just on the production side and not enough on the audience side of the media. Addressing media literacy and the role of the consumer is an important part of approaching ethical concerns."
Jared Bahir Browsh, University of Colorado Boulder Department of Ethnic Studies

"Plaisance’s textbook is a well-written and accessible approach to media ethics that eschews the traditional organization of a textbook into different professions in order to deal more fully with key values in contemporary media practice like transparency, autonomy, privacy, and community."
Andrew Ventimiglia, Illinois State University School of Communication

"Plaisance provides a strong mixture of classical philosophers with contemporary philosophers, breaking down the concepts in easily digestible sections."
Michael T. Martínez, University of Tennessee School of Journalism and Media

"This book succeeds in introducing students of media ethics to both practical dilemmas and to philosophical approaches that are inclusive of differing worldviews and epistemologies. I appreciate the book’s accessible writing style and its attention to both individual and societal ethics. When I have taught Media Ethics in the past, I’ve created my own components on big data and theories of technology, so it is great to see chapters devoted to these issues as well as to issues of privacy and community. Based on prior conversations with students, I know that these are important topics for discussion, and I know that this book will be a timely and influential resource that will inspire our students to pursue just ends in their work and in their lives."
Lynn Schofield Clark, Ph.D., Professor, Chair, and Director, Estlow Center for Journalism and New Media, University of Denver; President, International Association of Internet Researchers

"This is a good book, well written, highly literate but also highly accessible, explaining ideas very clearly. The authors claims to distinguish his text by centering it on the philosophy of ethics and the philosophical justification for asserting principles, which I find to be exactly what he does, and he does it very well. The resulting text is thereby more substantive and more deliberative, providing the young media professional with a robust framework from which to parse out the at times novel circumstances they will undoubtedly confront in today's dynamic media environment, additionally providing a set of key principles that aid in relating the philosophy of ethics to practice. I particularly like that Professor Plaisance charges the media consumer with 'a moral duty to minimize their own ignorance, to work at being a citizen capable of effectively engaging the wider world, to inform themselves of the realities beyond their own life bubble, and being savvy about what we are reading and watching, and gain a sold understanding of bias.' Would that all citizens read this and took its charge to heart. The world would be better."
Lawrence L. Garber, Jr., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Marketing, Elon University

“Media ethics may sound like an oxymoron - like government intelligence - but in his book, Plaisance makes it crystal clear that if society is to be virtuous, and indeed more civil, practitioners across all media disciplines, whether journalists, public relations-advertising-marketing professionals, or social media technologists, must seek authenticity, transparency, accountability, and, most of all, the common good, in all that they do. The future of what we consider ‘civil’ization hangs in the balance.”
Dr. Donn J. Tilson, APR, Fellow PSRA, Associate Professor Emeritus of Public Relations, School of Communication, University of Miami