Media Ethics in the Digital Age Research Assignment

Research Paper Instructions:

Today, digital media is found throughout all business and personal activities making it necessary to have a high level of understanding of both the sources of content, as well as the methods in which the information is consumed. The responsible utilization of digital media requires individuals to have an awareness of the global, social, ethical, and legal contexts in which the digital media is consumed.
Deliverable for Project 3
Students are required to select a topic related to either global, social, ethical, or legal issues with digital media. You will perform in-depth research and provide an explanation of how issues associated with your selected topic relates to the consumption of digital media. An example of one such topic would be: Legal & Ethical Issues in News Media for the Digital Age.
Title Page:
Your Name
Paper Title
Instructor's name
Course name and number
Length Requirements: Minimum of 2500 words, maximum 3000 words, excluding Title and Reference pages.
Formatting Requirements
Paper must follow APA guidelines throughout. See Course Content>Course Resources>Sample Paper to Show Appropriate Document Formatting.
Double-spaced (including the entire reference page) with first line of each paragraph indented.
1-inch Margins
12 point professional font
Headers including paper title and page numbers
File name: last name, first initial and project (ex. JonesH_Research Project)
Use at least one table, or graph, or image, of appropriate size that is relevant to the information being conveyed
Contextual: Spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc. must be correct throughout.
Paper Requirements
Outline: contains very precise, detailed information that is essential to the topic and the different parts of the paper are broken down in a clear hierarchical manner.
Introduction - must contain detailed background information, develops a significant and compelling position, and gives a clear explanation or definition of the problem. Provide a thorough overview of topic including history and background of the subject and informing the reader how digital media is part of the topic. Sources cited throughout.
Body
Research
Findings
Paragraphs fully support thesis with well-developed/ relevant examples, details, and quotes (where appropriate). The writer's insight, analysis, and/or interpretations are relevant and enhance the explanation of the content. Thorough discovery of the influence that digital media had on the topic including reference to a minimum of five scholarly sources illustrating the influence.
Paper is clear and focused, demonstrates original thought/reflection/insight.
All information used must be in your own words unless using a direct quote. In other words, do not copy and paste information directly from your sources into the paper.
Conclusion - Thorough conclusions drawn from the research performed on the influence that digital media had on the topic including reference to scholarly sources illustrating the influence.
Reference Page – must be properly APA formatted
Include and cite at least 5 professional/scholarly sources. Clarification: Please do not use unprofessional sources such as Wikipedia, About.com, Answers.com, Dictionary.com, How.com, or anything remotely similar. Examples of scholarly sources include: our course content (e.g. Read & Watch resources), textbooks, journal articles, trade magazines, and conference proceedings. UMUC has a top-notch, extensive online library. You can find many scholarly sources there. Note: "Personal communications (e.g. Twitter Posts, Blogs, and YouTube Videos)" are not considered professional or scholarly sources.

Research Paper Sample Content Preview:

Media Ethics in the Digital Age
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Media Ethics in the Digital Age
Media ethics have increasingly become important in the digital age where information is shared quickly over the digital platforms. The paper outlines the ethical issues involved in digital content reporting, compilation and presentation. Media ethical errors fall into two major categories; the error of commission and error of omission. Errors of commission are those that are committed by the professional media handlers while they should have not and includes abuse of anonymous sources, false by-lines, manipulation of digital content and violation of privacy. On the other hand, errors of omission are the ethical errors that arise when media professionals omit what they ought to have included such as the omission of procedures in data gathering.
Media Ethics in the Digital Age
Over the past few decades, technology has been advancing and changing peoples' lives towards the digital world where everything focuses on efficiency. In the area of communications and media, technological advancements have transformed the way in which audio, video and written content is handled. Such contents are now stored in the form of digitized texts, graphics, video, and audio. As a result of digitization of these contents, they can now be found more easily via the internet and through social media. Digitized content has created opportunities for business to reach out to many customers, for instance, through e-commerce (Strauss, 2016). However, while it is celebrated that digital media can be safely stored, shared and easily retrieved, it has emerged that such content is prone to abuse. Digitized content is abused in manners that involve plagiarism, alteration and improper use of anonymous sources. As the media content became more prone to abuse, it has necessitated the establishment of digital media ethics. Digital media ethics addresses the ethical issues arising from the digital media and computing technologies that include cameras, smartphones, GPS navigation systems, print media, audio, video, and issues related to the internet of things (Ess, 2013). Digital media ethics covers all the users of the digital content and each one must observe such ethics to avoid abuse of the media content. Abuse of digital media lead to serious issues such as privacy violation and spread of unethical contents such as pornographic. The intent of this paper is to examine the ethical issues of digital media in the digital age such as plagiarism, alteration of images, improper use of anonymous sources, unidirectional imaging, errors of omission and use of false bylines.
Defining Media Ethics
Ethics refers to a set of principles that define what is right or of moral conduct. In communications and media, ethics is viewed as the terms of a set of practices and principles articulated in a code for journalists or media professionals so that it can guide them to act in a responsible manner. There are four leading principles in the codes of conduct that involve acting independently, seeking of truth, being held accountable and acting with minimum harm. While media codes offer guidance on the use of digital media, they may be inadequate in the face of r...

Updated on January 26, 2024

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Media Ethics in the Digital Age Research Assignment

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