Quantity
Pre-order. Available 21 Aug 2025
$117.00 RRP $130.00 Website price saving $13.00 (10%)

Payment for this pre-order will be taken when the item becomes available

This title is available for inspection copy requests

Description

The eleventh edition of this authoritative book focuses on the most pressing media ethics issues, including coverage of the 2024 elections and the emergence of AI. Enabling students to make ethical decisions in an increasingly complex environment, the book focuses on practical ethical theory for use across the media curriculum.

Twenty-three new cases address events from the Israel-Hamas war, AI-generated authors, privacy for underage influencers, Fox News election fraud claims, social media whistleblowers, threats to student-run media outlets, police posing as journalists, the Bud Light transgender ad uproar, the use of generative AI in advertising, the publication of graphic war images (focusing on the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas wars), deep fakes in sexually explicit media, the impact of Taylor Swift on the NFL, video games requiring in-game purchases to win, and more.

Additional Features:
· Each case has pedagogical questions that expand outward from the specifics of the case itself to ever-larger issues suggested by the case.
· Chapters in such areas as social justice, media and democracy, and loyalty, discuss all types of media rather than segmenting the text by medium.
· An introductory chapter in moral philosophy begins the text and a final chapter in moral development concludes it.
· Text addresses the implications of digital content throughout multiple media industries and platforms.
Online material for students and instructors includes all cases from previous editions, lecture slides, essay questions, and suggested classroom activities.

Table of Contents

(*new to this edition)

Foreword
Preface

1. An Introduction to Ethical Decision-Making
Essay: Cases and moral systems (Deni Elliott)
Case 1-A: How to read a case study (Philip Patterson)

Introduction to Part I

2. Information Ethics: A Profession Seeks the?Truth
*Case 2-A: “Really crazy”: Fox News hosts didn't believe their own coverage of election fraud claims (Chad Painter)
*Case 2-B: Sports Illustrated avatars: Generative AI and journalistic integrity (Mark Heisten)
*Case 2-C: Ethical dilemmas in news coverage: The case of Breonna Taylor (Shreyoshi Ghosh)
Case 2-D: Don't tweet ill of the dead (Chad Painter)
Case 2-E: Anonymous or confidential: Unnamed news sources in the news (Lee Wilkins)
Case 2-F: When is objective reporting irresponsible reporting? (Theodore L. Glasser)

3. Privacy: Looking for Solitude in the Global Village
*Case 3-A: Sharenting: Privacy concerns of sharing photos and videos of children on social media (Brooke Baker)
Case 3-B: Guilty by Google: Unpublishing and crime reporting in the digital age (Deborah L. Dwyer)
Case 3-C: Drones and the?news (Kathleen Bartzen Culver)
Case 3-D: Doxxer, doxxer, give me the news? (Mark Anthony Poepsel)
*Case 3-E: Remember my fame: Digital necromancy and the immortal celebrity (Samantha Most)
*Case 3-F: Watchdog or horndog: Daily Mail, revenge porn, and Katie Hill (Chad Painter)

4. Loyalty: Choosing between Competing Allegiances
*Case 4-A: College media: When students are the watchdog (Chad Painter)
*Case 4-B: Natural hair on air (Chad Painter)
Case 4-C: To watch or to report: What journalists were thinking in the midst of disaster (Lee Wilkins)
Case 4-D: When you are the story: Sexual harassment in the newsroom (Lee Wilkins)
Case 4-E: Where everybody knows your name: Reporting and relationships in a small market (Ginny Whitehouse)
Case 4-F: Quit, blow the whistle, or go with the?flow? (Robert D. Wakefield)

5. Mass Media in a Democratic Society: Keeping a Promise
Case 5-A: Murder the media: Ethics on January 6, 2021 (Lee Wilkins)
Case 5-B: When journalists question algorithms and automated systems (Xerxes Minocher and Kathleen Bartzen Culver)
Case 5-C: Mayor Jim West's computer (Ginny Whitehouse)
Case 5-D: For God and country: The media and national security (Jeremy Littau and Mark Slagle)
*Case 5-E: Rules of engagement: Mary Louise Kelly and the Mike Pompeo interview (Lee Wilkins)
*Case 5-F: Harry and Meghan: Context and control (Lee Wilkins)

6. Informing a Just Society
*Case 6-A: “Bring back manly men”: Right- and left-wing backlash to Harry Styles's Vogue cover (Alayna Yates)
*Case 6-B: Sex sells (but should it?): Female athletes in sports media (Mary Ellen Duvall)
*Case 6-C: Should a newspaper be private in public? (Lee Wilkins)
Case 6-D: Journalism and activism? When identity becomes political (Rebecca Smith)
Case 6-E: Where's the line? Covering racial protest on a college campus (Nicole Kraft)
Case 6-F: A second draft of history: The New York Times's 1619 Project (Lee Wilkins)

Introduction to Part II

7. Strategic Communication: The Ethics of Persuasion
*Case 7-A: “There's a code you don't breach”: The outing of “astroturfing” in Hollywood PR (Philip Patterson)
*Case 7-B: Mattel's pink revolution: How Barbie turned the tables on performative DEI (Kyle Harris)
*Case 7-C: Bud Light and Dylan Mulvaney: Unthoughtful inclusivity, backlash, and online abuse (Evgeniia Belobrovkina)
Case 7-D: Through the glass darkly: Peloton, body shaming, and America's odd relationship with exercise (Lee Wilkins)
Case 7-E: Weedvertising (Lee Wilkins)
Case 7-F: Keeping up with the Kardashians' prescription drug choices (Tara Walker)

8. Picture This: Technology, Visual Information, and Evolving Standards
*Case 8-A: Misinformation (and) war: Responsible journalism in the digital age (Rania Al Namara)
Case 8-B: Taylor Swift and deepfake pornography: Is it ever appropriate to restrict violent speech? (Lee Wilkins)
*Case 8-C: New York Times ends political cartoons (Chad Painter)
Case 8-F: Did you meme that? The unhoppy life of Pepe the Frog (Lee Wilkins)
Case 8-E: Problem photos and public outcry (Jon Roosenraad)
*Case 8-F: Above the fold: Balancing newsworthy photos with community standards (Jim Godbold and Janelle Hartman)

9. Media Economics: The Deadline Meets the Bottom Line
*Case 9-A: Reinventing the local newspaper: Can all-digital compete in a changing media environment (Lee Wilkins)
*Case 9-B: When Taylor met Travis: The NFL's Swiftie era (Chad Painter)
*Case 9-C: When investigative reporting is bad for business (Chad Painter)
Case 9-D: Who controls the local news? Sinclair Broadcast Group and “must-runs” (Keena Neal)
Case 9-E: Contested interests, contested terrain: The New York Times code of ethics (Lee Wilkins and Bonnie Brennen)
Case 9-F: Automated journalism: The rise of robot reporters (Chad Painter)

10. The Ethical Dimensions of Art and Entertainment
*Case 10-A: Pay to play (or at least to win): Loot boxes in video games (Chad Painter)
Case 10-B: #OscarsSoWhite: Representation in the creative process (Lee Wilkins)
Case 10-C: Get Out: When the horror is race (Michael Fuhlhage and Lee Wilkins)
Case 10-D: The Onion: Finding humor in mass shootings (Chad Painter)
Case 10-E: Spotlight: It takes a village to abuse a child (Lee Wilkins)
Case 10-F: Fyre Festival becomes Fyre fraud (Emily Horvath and Chad Painter)

11. Becoming a Moral Adult

References
Index

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published 21 Aug 2025
Format Paperback
Edition 11th
Extent 488
ISBN 9781538167144
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations 26 bw illus
Dimensions 229 x 152 mm
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Chad Painter

Chad Painter is Associate Professor and Department…

Author

Lee Wilkins

Lee Wilkins is Distinguished Curator's Teaching Pr…

Author

Erin E. Schauster

Erin E. Schauster is Associate Professor of Advert…

Author

Philip Patterson

Philip Patterson is Distinguished Professor of Mas…

Related Titles

Get 30% off in the May sale - for one week only

Environment: Staging