Chapter 6

Mass Communications and Ethics - Television¹

By Lizabeth England

This chapter will introduce the topic of ethics in mass communications, particularly television. In today’s world there is little doubt that television is the most widely accessible and powerful educational and informational force. Television ethics, therefore, is of particular interest to many English teachers and their students. For more and more people, television is the way in which they get news and information about the world. Because it is one form of media used to transmit information and entertainment, it is particularly prone to ethics concerns.

Background Information

Advantages and Disadvantages of Television

Television communication offers a variety of advantages and disadvantages to the programmer, advertiser, and viewer. For programmers and advertisers, the advantages of television include mass coverage throughout the world, re-play of programming and advertising, viewing flexibility (time and place), and prestige. ("I saw it on television" gives any statement interest and oftentimes validity).

The disadvantages of television are that the message is costly, and the message is temporary. Furthermore, television cannot be selective so that advertising and programs are sent to all audiences and cannot target specified groups.

Television offers viewers up-to-date information and entertainment; a choice of stations; and a connection with the world.

Three Types of Television Service

In most parts of the world, viewers can choose among three types of television service: commercial, cable, and public.

Commercial networks, like CNN and NBC, claim to have the ability to meet the information and entertainment needs of their viewing audience. These stations carry programs that are paid for by advertisers who, in exchange for their financial sponsorship, receive time on the air to advertise their products.

Cable stations, like ESPN (sports) and HBO (movies), generally target viewers interested in special topics. In the United States as well as other countries, people can purchase cable service for a variety of programs: history, wildlife, music, and movie stations, and other special interests.

Public television stations, like PBS in the United States, have little or no commercial sponsorship, and receive support from viewers, corporations, or governments. These public stations do not contain commercial advertising.

What are the issues for television ethics? What happens when a television station carries information that offends a viewer or group of viewers? What can parents do to ensure their children are not exposed to offensive or inappropriate television programming? What kind and how much advertising should television carry? When does news reporting on television become sensationalism? When do we censor violence and sex on television? Who decides and how? These are questions that media ethics experts encounter and that will be addressed in this chapter.

How Television Ethics Works

Television networks usually try to exercise professional judgment and to avoid offending viewers. Some television networks have published codes of conduct to guide their efforts (see Internet Resources ). In cases where a television station does offend a viewer or group of viewers, laws are in place to guide both the offended party and the television industry. Laws take over when ethics questions are not resolved between people representing two sides of an issue.

When a program or an advertisement offends a television viewer, several outcomes might occur. The following is a list of some of the ways in which viewers have, in the past, used their right to object to television programming or advertising, and registered their concerns about the ethics of television.

1. A viewer might write a letter of complaint.
   
   
2. A viewer might bring a legal suit against the television network or a specific department or individual employed by the network.
   
   
3. A viewer contacts a consumer group and registers a concern. The group, then, may present the concern of several viewers on the same topic in more public ways:

• Letters to a local newspaper complaining about the programming or advertising;
• Informal complaints (usually verbal in a meeting with representatives of the television network);
• A public demonstration;
• Formal complaints through a judicial body such as a court.

When the viewer or group of viewers and the television network in question do not resolve an offense, laws are in place to help resolve the dispute. Whatever means a viewer chooses to present a complaint, members of the television industry do not take it lightly. Because many television stations have received viewer complaints, professional television journalism groups have been established to guide ethical television programming and advertising. Sometimes, members of these groups are called upon to assist in legal cases. (For lists of organizations, see the Internet Resources.)

The following activities will have students examine some cases that illustrate this process. They will evaluate their own television ethics and become better acquainted with the importance and value of ethics for all involved with television – viewers, television networks and advertisers.

 

¹ Thanks to Kathleen Lopez, Student Assistant at Marymount University, for her assistance with proofreading and locating Internet resources. .....back

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