Lesson 7. Question Analysis: What are the Ethical and Legal Considerations?

KEY CONCEPTS

  • Media message creators work within a set of social, legal and ethical expectations and responsibilities.
  • Anticipating potential ethical or legal issues will help ensure there are no issues when the message is created.
  • The interpretation or relevance of particular ethical standards will vary in different organizations.
  • Communicators must understand how to operate within an organization’s particular culture in order to be successful.
  • There are laws and regulations that affect both the gathering and the use of information in media messages.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

After completing this lesson you will be able to:

  • recognize the social constraints under which communicators work.
  • identify the characteristics of ethical thinking and the forms of ethical decision-making that guide mass communication professionals.
  • identify the positive and negative obligations that communicators weigh in their work.
  • consider the cultural climate within an organization.
  • articulate some of the legal and regulatory standards that must be considered by communicators as part of an information strategy process.

License

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Information Strategies for Communicators Copyright © 2015 by Kathleen A. Hansen and Nora Paul is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.