Media Ethics and Global Justice in the Digital Age

A critical evaluation of Clifford Christians’s media ethics theory: a précis

“…In his most recent work, he still appears to only hint that he has authored a new media ethics theory-but now, more directly. Christians (2019) does this by referring to 'constituents of the new theory of communication ethics developed here (in this book)' (74). A Chinese professor with formidable credentials then reinforces this subtle claim in the Afterword of the same book by affirming that Christians 'expounds a theoretical paradigm … which endows the classical principles of ethics with new meanings … and … restructures theory toward an ontological theory of international communication ethics' (Chen 2019, 335).…”

“…In his latest opus, Christians (2019) often refers to his theory as a 'media ethics of global justice ' (29, 30, 80). For those interested in brevity-imaginably the journalists and media professionals with no patience for long academic texts-the theory could be summarized through six 'elements.'…”

“…This means, firstly, that he is positioning his own media ethics theory in the tradition of 'triadic' communication theories that have appeared throughout history (Christians 2014a) instead of dyadic transmission models of communication, which are possibly the most widely known in the discipline (Chang 2009). Whereas dyadic formulae require only the elements of sender-receiver and message, triadic theories require, in addition, the actual contexts in which human agents find themselvescontexts such as technologies, the physical environment, and their professional practice (Christians 2019). Christians, by design, has incorporated into his media ethics theory a 'human-centered' philosophy of technology that takes into account the nature of modern media technologies.…”

Climate Change Impacts on Free-Living Nonhuman Animals. Challenges for Media and Communication Ethics

“…Interestingly enough, media ethics is not in opposition to the latter conclusion. In communication, whether we take a humanitarian, ethics of justice stance (for instance Christians, 1997Christians, , 2019 or a democratic, cosmopolitan ethical stance (for instance Ward, 2013Ward, , 2015, logic demands that nonhuman animals should also be included in the category of morally considerable beings. It follows from Christians" claim regarding the humanist ethical project that the suffering of nonhumans must matter to us.…”

“…Critical media and communication scholars have been concerned about equality for a long time. Working from within the humanitarian and egalitarian frameworks, several lines of media research discuss the representation of human diversity and vulnerability (Chouliaraki, 2013;Christians, 2019;Lawrence & Tavernor, 2019;Paulmann, 2018;Shan & Christians, 2016;Ward, 2015). Humanitarian communication has successfully incorporated altruistic claims regarding equality, solidarity, care, rights protection or empathy for humans.…”