With the advent of technology, accessibility of information and news has increased for us, which has been an enormous advantage in breaking barriers across the world, but at what cost? Media houses and social media do make it easier for us to access the content. Still, at the same time, the likelihood of misleading or actively harmful content reaching us has increased. These institutions have an ethical responsibility to ensure fairness is maintained at all costs, but what are these, and why aren't they met?
When or when is it not objectivity necessary, and who decides that?
Historically, the media's traditional role was to provide facts about things happening in the world in a very neutral and unbiased manner. Though this view has come under scrutiny lately with the advent of partisan news outlets and opinion-based op-eds, which has undoubtedly divided opinion, While some welcome this new view of media, others believe that compromising objectivity and neutrality might not be the best idea.
Those who believe in media objectivity argue that a media's role is to provide broad sections of the public the same information that they can use to form their interpretation of events. Supplying unbiased coverage may sometimes be the best way to encourage dialogue among diverse people. The discourse of non-objective journalism negatively affects civil discourse and citizen unity.
The crucial evidence of this is the proliferation of echo chambers on social media and media sites. People engage in confirmation bias(tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values), by only seeking out partisan news and groups, they only see one-sided stories and engage only with members of that community who already share the same opinions. People are more likely to become entrenched in their beliefs because they don't seek out neutral stories and engage with other views; they are likely to become estranged from others. This is where the role of media to be as objective as possible comes in, to prevent echo chambers within the partisan press.
This isn't a uniformly held belief, though; some argue that neutrality or objectivity in judgment doesn't actually exist and therefore is an impossible standard to meet. It's unfair to expect minority journalists reporting on issues that affect them directly to be completely objective while covering them. Information relating to politics or social justice movements is inherently suffused with opinion and political judgment even if you try to cover them objectively. Sometimes, opinions help people by providing them with additional knowledge they need to make an informed judgment.
More importantly, though, objectivity strives to give selective factual events devoid of context. It summarises complex events while not allocating blame or responsibility. This is not a desirable trait when it comes to covering specific issues.
Take, for example, the conflict between Israel and Palestine and the escalation of conflict there. Objectivity will strive to give facts to the public about any escalation happening, why it happened, and what were the casualties of escalation of violence. Which, in a way, dehumanizes the actual atrocities happening by making it about when, how, and where.
It's essential to focus on the brutal and inhumane consequences of the violence. It's essential to make the perpetrators of the violence visible, and it is essential to demonize them, to show the world the extent of what is happening. At this point, it is not only important to show that violence is happening, but also trying to criticize those behind the violence, wherein the allocation of blame and subjective opinion comes in, which emphasizes the need for non-objective media to exist too, primarily because they can serve as a callout mechanism and act as a tool for social change.
Although the risk of them turning into partisan outlets and thus increasing the risk of echo chambers existing within them does pose a considerable threat to the ethical standards of media, only a strong culture which calls out overtly partisan media can help prevent this, wherein the moral responsibility for the consumers to participate in this sort of culture comes in as well.
To what extent is it ethical to utilize data?
At an age when most of the information is consumed online, media publications and big tech have access to your cookies through which microtargeted advertisement happens. There is a big question about whether there is a line between being manipulative and finely tuned to what media consumers want. Another question that arises is the extent to which the user has given consent throughout this process. Using personal data can help design very effective advertisements. After collecting data and identifying what types of messages the consumer will best respond to, a political communicator can design content likely to confirm or challenge the consumer's viewpoint.
For the sake of it, let's assume users of these platforms are fully aware that their personal information might be sold as data for advertisements and legally consent to this information being used (most platforms require you to do so). Is there any ethical dilemma in using data obtained by such means? Let's say a grocer only lets you shop once you give simple demographic information and the shopping habits about yourself so that he can later make inferences or predictions about what specific consumers may be interested in buying. Is this necessarily unethical? Well, the answer is probably not. Then what's the exclusive problem of this happening on digital platforms? Well, it's the lack of a consented choice. People do consent to cookies; the problem isn't the consent being breached; the problem is the user could not consent rationally due to information asymmetry, they don't know the exact consequences of them consenting to it, they don't know that they might receive targeted ads which work towards manufacturing their consent.
On a broader scale, the lack of informed consent also has significantly changed the way campaigning works. Now microtargeting might be used to design highly personalized advertisements. When voters receive drastically different information about candidates and issues based on their data, the principle of equal information in political campaigns through media is harmed significantly.
Who do we trust to regulate free speech?
Even though free speech allows claims to be publicly evaluated and contested, we recognize that potentially harmful or downright misleading speech must be censored simply because of how much it can harm people and spew hatred.
The issue then becomes who are we allowing to be the arbiters of truthful and informative speech. A dangerous and possibly slippery slope to place private media corporations and social media companies into the position of deciding what counts as untruthful speech deserving of censorship. The distinction between truthful and misleading political speech is something that requires a lot of detail to enforce.
These corporations can make questionable inferences from cherry-picked evidence; they can purposefully extract specific phrases, images, or statements out of their context to weaponize this. Determining what is harmful tends to be a challenging task, there is a distinction between straight-up dangerous speech and speech which isn't particularly well reasoned. The nature and size of the risk posed by the speech must be accounted for.
Even if we recognize that reducing misinformation in political advertising is essential, do we entrust media corporations to be the ones to do it?
Weaponizing the rhetoric.
Media corporations have significant control over what we see and hear, increasing their power to manufacture public consent. This means that they can further advance rhetoric that is suitable for them through these platforms.
A simple example of that is the US media coverage of the Iraq war; there was a lot of rhetoric in media about Iraq's regime and all the atrocities they committed, which to an extent swayed public opinion a lot and convinced people that this was a legitimate war. What was harmful, though, was that media failed to report on the legality of the war, not because they weren't aware of it but because it did not suit the kind of narrative they wanted masses to buy into
At the height of the war in terror post 9-11, there was a disproportionate focus on pro-war sources compared to anti-war sources, which was dangerous because it was easy to sway public opinion and support and legitimacy towards intervention in other countries. In these ways, media can sometimes act as a tool for the state instead of critiquing the state, which media should do in an ideal democracy.
Furthermore, sometimes the coverage of it specific issues is weaponized. At the height of Europe's refugee crisis, BBC and Sky News did a very grotesque and voyeuristic coverage of the issue by filming boats arriving on coasts of the UK. This weaponized the "shocking invasion by refugees" narrative of anti-refugee groups; furthermore, it tried to increase the issue's intensity for average citizens by devoting so much airtime to it. Not to say the story should not be covered, but tone and feel are crucial. Because media can influence mass opinion, it's important not to adopt a hostile tone when it comes to it.
It's crucial for the sake of democracy for media and digital platforms to exist, but only when they utilize their power carefully and comply with the responsibility given to them.
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