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الجزء الخاص بالدكتور محمد حسام الدين لمادة Communication 4والذي تم تنزيله
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Cultural Relativism
Dr. Mohamed Hossam Ismail
Key ideas
- How does culture affect and inform media ethics?
- What is cultural relativism?
- What are its strengths and weaknesses?
- Are there culture-neutral or universal principles?
Questions
- How do you balance a cultural belief against a practical need?
- Can you think of any possible similarities between this incident and anything that has arisen or could arise in Egypt? (Bedouins of Sinai, Nubians of South Egypt).
Different cultures have different moral codes
- have different traditions
- have different cultural practices and often
- have different religions.
Implications
- What is thought to be right and completely acceptable in one culture may be considered wrong and completely unacceptable in another culture.
- Callatians (ancient European ethnic group) were paying respect to their dead fathers by eating their flesh.
-In Eskimo culture, men are polygamous, and they are paying respect to guests by introducing one of their wives.
These two examples demonstrate three important points:
- That ideas of what is right and what is wrong differ from culture to culture
- That it can be very hard to fully understand and appreciate the rationale or reasons behind actions or behaviour considered appropriate in cultures that are not our own.
- That we need to be cautious about how we interpret or evaluate other cultures.
cultural relativism
- There is no natural standard or law that we can apply to help us decide which is the moral or ethical or right or correct thing to do in any difficult situation.
- we would need to look at the internal standards of the particular society or culture and apply them to any moral difficulty rather than imposing any external or universal moral code.
- If we adopt a culturally relative stance, we are also required to accept that all cultures then have equal status.
- No culture can be seen as superior or inferior and similarly, our own culture is just one of many and no better or worse than the rest.
- Can you buy it??
1. Different societies have different moral codes
- for many Westerners, Europeans in particular, women have equal status with men and therefore to treat them as in any way inferior would be a violation of their moral code of equality.
-The old saying, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” applies to all cultures if we wish to be respectful and thoughtful observers of others’ customs, cultural practices and societal standards.
2-The moral code of a society determines what is right
- This argument is a problem as it implies that any individual country’s moral code is therefore infallible i.e. it cannot be wrong or be mistaken.
- What about?!: killing people for having illegal drugs in their possession,
- the practice of burning wives with their husbands’ bodies,
- exposing unwanted children or the elderly to the elements and certain death. (Nazis).
3-there is no “universal truth” in ethics
- many people do believe that there are moral principles or truths that are universal.
- Killing, stealing, adultery.
4-The moral code of our own society has no special status
- This is a very difficult statement for most people to accept.
- Careful consideration and objective analysis of any culture, even or perhaps especially our own, will normally raise some areas of concern and room for improvement and some areas where our culture is morally appropriate and valuable.
5-It is mere arrogance for us to judge the conduct of other peoples.
- Is invading other countries acceptable e.g. the Nazis invading and conquering Poland, and the US invading Iraq.
- Is killing people because of their nationality, orientation and abilities acceptable e.g. the Nazis killing the gypsies, homosexuals and disabled during World War II?
- A moral and ethical person may find the need to protest against their own society and way of life as have variously Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi in America, South Africa and India.
The strengths of cultural relativism
- It encourages respect and tolerance for all cultures and societies.
- By extension, it advocates for equality among and between cultures.
- It encourages a sense of unity within a culture by maintaining that all are bound by the same rules.
- It provides an appropriate set of “rules” for all within that culture to obey and for outsiders to conform to, once they step within the bounds of that culture.
- It warns us against assuming that all of our own cultural practices are based on some “absolute rational standard”.
- It stresses the benefits of keeping an open mind and not rushing to judgment.
The weaknesses of cultural relativism
By accepting that all cultures are equal and none are superior or inferior, we prevent people from protesting against harmful practices either inside or outside their own societies.
- The Chinese who argued against their own government in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
- The Americans who protested against their own country’s involvement in the Vietnam war.
- The Israelis who are killing the children of Gaza.
Negating the idea of moral progress
- Societies evolve, adapt and adjust, often in search of more fairness and justice for all.
- Because some analytical and critical thinkers saw that slavery, racism and colonization were not in the best interests of all and were actively doing harm to some members of society, these practices have been increasingly abolished or at least discouraged throughout the 20th century.
- Protesting and applying intergovernmental pressure e.g. through the United Nations.
- This was done by many countries who opposed the USA’s unilateral and non-UN sanctioned decision to invade Iraq.
- Not supporting multi-national companies whose practices we do not endorse e.g. not eating MacDonald's or buying Nike sports shoes in protest at the promotion of unhealthy food choices or the exploitation of child workers in Nike factories.
- Avoiding contact with cultures whose actions are completely out of line with our own personal moral code e.g. few thinking people would support the current genocide in Darfur or Robert Mugabe’s actions in Zimbabwe.
- Making information available to the public through the media so that informed choice can be made by all e.g. most media organizations will engage in criticizing the government of their own country as part of the tradition of “free speech” and a “free press.”.
Universal cultural values
- Ethicists, moral philosophers, theologians and social scientists would agree that in fact, there are some universal moral principles.
- Children are protected and cared for
- The elderly likewise are respected and cared fo
- Murder is not accepted
- Telling the truth is valued and accepted as the norm.
- Prohibitions exist against harming others or their property .
- Marriage and family are considered sacrosanct (although what defines a marriage and family may well differ from society to society).
بكم نكتمل
Ethics and War
Dr. Mohamed Hossam Ismail
Key ideas
- How war is represented in the media?
- Can media coverage of war ever be objective?
- The ethics of video and photo journalism
- “Collateral damage” versus the killing of innocents or the language of war and political propaganda
Limitations of Media Coverage
The way in which war is represented in the media will clearly be partisan (biased) i.e. in support of the country whose media the journalists and radio and television reporters serve.
- how information gained in the heat of battle can be verified and how sources can be trusted?
- how much information can and should be shared e.g. can the information that the reporter has access to be published without endangering soldiers, if the enemy gains access to it?
- is how much information can the reporter query or question without being censored by the military authorities?
-Another issue related to patriotism arises when the reporter knows that to report unpalatable facts or to raise ethical concerns might be construed by those at home as undemocratic and could put the reporter in personal danger.
- For example, the atrocities committed by American troops on hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese villagers at My Lai on 16 March 1968 were covered up the American military until finally reported on 12 November 1969.
- Both sides in a conflict will often accuse the other of unfair or biased reporting which is often excused by the fact that reporters get their information from governmental sources and they naturally tend to favour the administration’s viewpoint.
- This attitude has been further extended in recent conflicts by the new phenomenon of embedded reporters.
Embedded Reporters
- More than 600 reporters from around the world joined the program – including those from al-Jazeera, Itar-Tasa, and China’s Xinhua news agency.
- About 20% worked for foreign services with diverse interests and audiences, allowing a valuable range of interpretations to emerge in the world press.
How can media coverage of war ever be objective?
- The well- known and widely used saying “Truth is the first casualty of war”.
- one of the embedded describes it, “I couldn’t shake the sense that we were cheerleaders on the team bus.”
- Opportunities to question either the progress of the conflict or the ethics of its nature are also limited in times of war.
- The embedded reporter also relies on one side for all his information: he simply is not able to physically access Iraqi sources.
Issues associated with embedded reporters
- Aiming to encourage openness and simultaneously counter enemy propaganda by letting reporters see for themselves what was actually occurring.
- A move to a Pentagon policy based on the notion of “Why not release information?” as opposed to what had previously been a climate of “Why release information?”
- Mixed views of the success of the move e.g. it was quickly judged a success as many reporters claimed that army personnel were open and honest. However at the same time, it made reporters more dependent on the army as well.
- For obvious reasons, reporters were also limited in the information they could report such as times, dates and places - all the practical details and information that give reality and a factual basis to reportage.
- The non-combatant status of reporters was also hard to maintain objectivity e.g. information reporters passed on was used to kill opponents.
- Read more about other wars.
Ethics of photo and video journalism
- “A picture is worth a thousand words” and in our increasingly visual and media-saturated societies.
- Digital photos can be posted on the Internet almost instantaneously and You-Tube offers opportunities for ordinary people to offer their own unique experiences and perspectives directly to the world without going through any kind of editorializing or selection process.
Ethical principles to be observed
-Balancing the right to privacy and newsworthiness
- Staging video and news photographs
- Changing images electronically
- Selective editing to support a point of view
- Using unrelated “eyewash”, photos in news stock images of people held in various photo libraries such as Google Images or Getty Pictures, for instance.
Checklist
- Should this moment be made public?
- Will being photographed send the subjects into further trauma?
- Am I at the least intrusive distance possible?
- Am I acting with compassion and sensitivity?
- Read more of that in textbook.
The language of war and political propaganda
- “Collateral damage” versus the killing of innocents.
- The language designed to minimize the importance of the individuals involved and to place a sterile and neutral distance between the effects of war and those responsible for those effects.
- e.g. “The United States army today successfully repelled an insurgent attack” versus “150 Afghanis were murdered today by a foreign power on their own soil.”
•
Collateral
Meaning: aside from the main subject, course, etc.;
Secondary: These accomplishments are merely collateral to his primary goal.
situated at the side: a collateral wing of a house.
Connotation: not important, aside, but inescapable.
The language of war
- seeks to heighten bias and prejudice by using emotive or value-laden terms to describe individuals on a friend or foe basis e.g. what is the difference between a “terrorist” and a “freedom fighter”?
- What is the difference between “collateral damage” and “the killing of innocent women and children”?
- Answer: the attitude of the writer or speaker who made these particular vocabulary choices.
language can also be used to intensify negative associations and manipulate the intended audience’s reactions e.g. the repeated overuse of the phrase “weapons of mass destruction” prior to America’s invasion of Iraq or the even more loaded phrase “the axis of evil” were all designed to support a particular point of view and encourage others to embrace that same point of view.
- As journalists, paying close attention to words is therefore more than a requirement of your profession; it is also part of behaving in a morally and ethically appropriate way.
Media
and Politics
Media perform important functions in politics. First, by the
time we are teenagers, media are our most important source of political
information. Second, Media serve as potential sources of persuasion and
decision making, both directly, through endorsements and editorials, and
indirectly, as a vehicle for candidates’ and parties speeches, platforms, and
advertisements. Finally, information and persuasion may lead to behavior or
political activity.
:
Political Behavior
Media effects on politics have been studied extensively, not only
because they are socially important, but also because they are easy to study.
:
Information
Moreover, the media serve as the principle source of political
information, determining how well we are informed about politics. But as with
political behavior, there are profound individual differences in what, and how
much, we know about politics.
:
Persuasion and Decision Making
Much of the communication research literature suggests that the
effects are quite limited. For it is often difficult to separate the effects of
media-the messengers from the messages and their initial source candidates,
parties, and interest groups. At the same time, a half-century of research does
help us understand the process of political communication effects.
:
The opinion Leader
concept
Surprised by their failure to find large-scale media effects,
Lazersfeld and his fellow researchers followed up on those who had identified
other people were not a vote decision. They found that these other people were
not a random assortment, but the same names up as sources. In their voting
studies and subsequent research, They did find a media effect of a sort : these
other people, whom they dubbed opinion leaders or influential, were not
remarkably different demographically from the people they influenced, but they
were different in the amount of information they had.
The two step flow model proved a very important one for
understanding communication influence and was heavily studied for many years.
:
Endorsement and Advertising
Media messages make evaluative statements in efforts to persuade
and to influence behavior, most usually in two ways, through endorsements, in
which a medium urges voters to support a particular candidate or referendum
position, and political advertising, in which third parties the candidates,
political parties, or the others-urge a course of behavior.
Over the years, The U.S.
:
The Agenda Setting Model
The news media by and large do not set out to persuade, but to
inform. In telling us what to think about, we are first of all suggesting that
the media set the public agenda, that is, they tell us what issues are
important for public debate. The idea behind agenda setting is quite simple:
The media over time by featuring some issues prominently and some issues less
prominently and still other issues not at all, give us a sense of what issues
are important, or, in the research literature, senses of the issue’s salience.
:
Priming
The priming effect is a close cousin of agenda setting, and in
fact, it was described by researchers conducting agenda-setting studies. The
priming effect refers to the ability of news programs to affect the criteria by
which individuals judge their political leaders.
Specifically, researchers have found that the more prominent an
issue is in the national information stream, the greater will be the weight
accorded it in making political judgments.
:
Third Person effects
Public opinion researcher Philips Division coined the term Third
Person effect to try to describe how media messages may have an impact on
our behavior, but little or no impact on our attitudes.
All of us, Davison suggests, go through a little mental calculation
when we see or hear media messages. First, we calculate whether we personally
believe or are affected by them (first person). We then calculate whether our
friends are affected (second persons). Finally, we calculate whether other
people are affected.
:
The Spiral of Silence
The Spiral of silence model introduced by the German Social
Scientist Elisabeth Noelle Neumann is similar to Third person model. She argues
that a fear of isolation is very important in motivating people. That we dread
putting ourselves in a position where other people will or make fun of us, So
before we are willing to let other people know what we think on some issue, we
perform a mental calculation: that is we try to assess what other people think
on a topic before we let them know what we think.
Media Effects
·
Our understanding of the full range of media effects
is an essential ingredient in media literacy.
v Three-Dimensional
Perspective on Media Effects:
·
The media influences are difficult to predict, because
the factors that explain the effects are large in number and their interaction
is very complex.
·
As individuals, we do not have much power to control
the media, but we do have a great deal of power to control the media’s effects
on us.
1) Timing of Effects:
Ø Media effects can be either
immediate or long term. This distinction focuses on when the effect occurs, not
on how long it lasts.
Immediate Effects: An immediate effect is one that happens during exposure to the media
message. If it does not happen during the exposure, the opportunity is lost.
Long – term Effects: long – term effects show up only after many exposures.
Neither a single exposure nor a single type of message is responsible for the
effect.
2) level
of Effects :
·
Most of the concern about the media focuses on
behavioral effects. For example, there is a belief that watching violence will
lead people to behave aggressively.
·
There are five levels in which media have
demonstrated effects. They are :
v Cognitive: media can immediately plant ideas and information into our minds.
Learning is the acquisition of facts so that they can be recalled later.
v Attitudinal: the media can create and shape our opinions, beliefs, and values.
Attitudes can also be learned immediately.
- We’ve known for a long
time that the media’s major effect on attitudes is the reinforcing of already
existing opinions and beliefs, but the media can also create and change
attitudes.
v Emotional: the media can make us feel things, they can trigger strong emotions such
as fear, rage, and lust, they can also evoke weaker emotions such as sadness,
and boredom. Emotional reactions are related to physiological changes.
v Physiological: there are many physiological effects that usually serve to arouse us. A
suspenseful mystery serves to elevate our blood pressure and heart rate.
v Behavioral: Media can trigger actions.
3) Direction of Effects:
·
The effect can be in either a constructive or
destructive direction. These terms are value laden.
·
From the individual perspective, a constructive
direction is one whose effects lead you toward some valued goal.
·
From societal point of view. If the media teach people
how to commit crimes and trigger criminal behavior, then the media are exerting
a destructive influence.
v A Broad Listing of media
Effects:
F
Immediate cognitive:
Ø Temporary learning: we use the media to learn about the particular events
of the day. Much of this information stays with us for several hours, then we
forget it.
Ø Extensive learning: our
learning can be extensive or intensive. Extensive learning refers to the
acquisition of something new.
Ø Intensive learning: In contrast, intensive learning is the acquisition of another example of the
same thing that you already have.
Ø
F
Long –term cognitive :
Ø Hypermnesia: this effect appears to be the opposite of forgetting.
Instead of being less able to recall information from a message as time goes
by, we become more able to recall that information.
Ø Generalization: A person who watches a
lot of bad news about crimes,
he might generalize from these facts and draw the conclusion that crime has
become a real problem in his town.
Ø Exposing secrets: For many people, the media, especially television, are devices that
expose secrets about how the world works. The media expose important social
secrets by taking viewers into the backstage.
Ø Framing life: this
effect can be seen in three ways: agenda setting, spiral of silence, and narrative closure. By
choosing certain images and themes, the media focus our attention on particular
things while telling us to ignore other things.
F
Immediate Attitudinal:
Ø Opinion creation: the media provide information or images that can
trigger the creation of a new opinion or attitude in you.
Ø Opinion change: media
can change a person’s attitudes and feelings about something.
F
Long – term Attitudal :
Ø Sleeper Effect: this is an effect that takes a relatively long time to
occur. During an exposure to a message, a person discounts the message because
of a dislike for the source. Then, over time, the person forgets the source and
the negative feeling about the information goes away and is replaced by a
positive feeling.
Ø Reinforcement: this effect is often over looked because we have been conditioned to
think of effects in terms of change. The very powerful effect of reinforcement
is evidenced by non-change.
Ø Internalization: In this long-term process, people acquire certain
attitudes and beliefs by internalizing the major themes in society as exhibited
through the mass media.
F
Immediate Emotional:
Ø Temporary Reaction: people, especially children, can become frightened by
certain media content. This fear, through intense at the time, is short lived.
F
Long–term Emotional:
Ø Desensitization: some things within the media are presented so often we can no longer
treat them with wonder or awe. Our tolerance has been increased so that things
that used to entertain us or impress us no longer do.
F
Immediate physiological:
Ø Temporary Arousal: certain content (especially violence and erotica) can
temporarily arouse people physiologically. This type usually within an hour
after exposure.
F
Long-term physiological:
Ø Increasing tolerance: Your body builds up a resistance to certain experiences.
F
Immediate Behavioral:
Ø Imitation: children as young as 2 have been found to imitate behaviors they see in
the media. Copying need not be identical to the action seen on the screen – it
can be generalized to similar actions.
Ø Activation: the media can exert a triggering effect on our behavior. Activation is different than imitation.
With imitation, viewers take it upon themselves to emulate or copy a
specific behavior seen in the media. In contrast, with activation viewers react
to a suggestion to do something.
F
Long- term Behavioral:
Ø Habit Formation: Exposure to the media- especially to escapist fare- will prevent people
from using their more productively.
Ø Disinhibition: this is the process of gradually wearing down the inhibition that
prevents us from behaving in certain ways. The mass media can influence
behaviors not just in a specific action, but in a general, long- term manner.
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