COMM 317: Final exam, media ethics

Below are one 50-point essay question and two 25-point short essay questions. Please write two to four pages (500 to 1,000 words) on the 50-point essay and one to two pages (250 to 500 words) on each of the 25-point essays. This is a take-home final. I will accept completed exams on the last day of class, Friday, Dec. ___.

1. Essay (50 points). In their conclusion to "Media Ethics: Issues and Cases," Phillip Patterson and Lee Wilkins cite research showing that journalists and public relations professionals both do well on the Defining Issues Test (DIT), a fill-in-the-bubble survey that measures peoples' ethical standards. The DIT is based on a theory by Lawrence Kohlberg, who says (according to Patterson's and Wilkins' summary) as we mature, we progress from "simple obedience" to outwardly imposed rules through ethical standards based on individual self-interest and conformity to standards based on awareness of a "social contract [that] demands that we uphold the laws even if they are contrary to our best interests" unless they conflict with "values such as life and liberty [that] stand above any majority opinion" (341). In other words, Kolhberg says we progress from fixed obedience to flexibility in our ethical standards. "The further up Kohlberg's stages students [who took the DIT] progressed, the more they asserted that moral principles are subject to interpretation by individuals and subject to contextual factors" (343). In your opinion, do the ethical codes of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Public Relations Society of America allow for such flexibility? Cite some specific examples of where they do and/or where they don't. How can you use some of the ethical principles we have studied in COMM 317 in your mass communications career? Cite some specific example of those, too.

2a. Self-reflective essay (25 points). What do you consider the most important thing you have you learned in COMM 317 that you didn’t know before? Why do you say it is the most important? Be specific in your discussion of how it might fit into your career plans, or your plans for further study. Consider it in the context of what you knew at the beginning of the course and what you know now. In grading this essay, I will evaluate the relevance of your discussion to the main goals and objectives of the course; the specific detail you cite to support or illustrate your points; and the specific connections you make.

2b. Short essay (25 points). As the newly appointed travel editor for The Prairie Clarion in Clarey’s Prairie, Ill., you receive the offer of an all-expenses-paid weekend visit to Anthracite Acres, a tourist resort built on top of a reclaimed strip mine in beautiful Hogscour, W.Va. Ever mindful of the SPJ Code of Ethics, you’re a little nervous about conflicts of interest, but the PR guy for the resort says you’re free to write anything you want about your visit, even if you discover the mountaintop was improperly reclaimed. And you halfway remember reading something about acid runoff into the South Fork of the Little Hogscour River in West Virginia. What does the SPJ Code of Ethics say about situations like this? After deadline, you are sharing a pitcher of a cold beverage with Aristotle, John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant (hey, this is a hypothetical case). What would Aristotle, Kant and Mill say? How would they explain their reasoning? What principles would they cite, and why?