Announcements
Upcoming and past meetings, events and seminars related to media ethics are shared here. The announcements that follow are based on information supplied by the organizations involved or other sponsors. If you wish to have announcements of future meetings published in Media Ethics, please send program and contact information to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. as early as possible.
Experience Interactive Digital Modules on Public Relations Ethics
The Page Center's new online modules are an interactive and educational tool designed for public relations classrooms. The modules feature expertise from faculty members from many universities. They are presented in an accessible and easy-to-use format that will help students understand, appreciate and apply ethics. Modules include videos, images, content and quizzes that cover an array of topics, including crisis management, corporate social responsibility, media framing and more.
- Experience them here.
Relive the 2017 Arthur W. Page Center Awards Online
The 2017 Arthur W. Page Center Awards for integrity in public communication occurred on February 22, 2017 in New York City, honoring Ann Barkelew, Dick Martin and Alan Murray. Each discussed pursuing the truth with nearly 230 colleagues at the Center's awards dinner. Each of their speeches — and the opening remarks by Page Center advisory board chair Bill Nielsen — can be viewed online at the Center's website.
- View various addresses from the awards here.
Save the Date: Truth, Trust and the Future of Journalism Conference
Conference Date(s): March 31, 2017 – Registration Opens March 1, 2017
Join the Center for Journalism Ethics in exploring critical issues facing journalism such as Fake News, Conspiracy Theories, Disinformation, and Public Distrust. Strategize potential solutions for what some are calling an era of "post-truth." The Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan will offer a keynote address focusing on these very issues.
The conference will be held at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery on the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison, Wisconsin.
For more information, and to register, view the website.
Call for Papers: Media Watch Journal – Free Speech after a Free Press
Submission Deadline: February 15, 2017
Media Watch is planning an issue dealing with the future of the news business around the world.
Thus, the publication is calling for submissions from media scholars in as wide a range of locations as possible, dealing with the future of the free press, as seen from technological, labor, craft, and business perspectives. There is interest in topics ranging from the sociological, political, and cultural revolution in a post-free press environment along with all of the accompanying ethical implications. Rather than examining ways to preserve the press as it is commonly known, they are interested in having scholars imagine the world after the demise of the current news industry and what that landscape might look like.
For detail information, visit: www.mediawatchjournal.in
Email submissions to:
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Save the Date: Northwest Excellence in Journalism Competition
Dates: January 13, 2017 - February 6, 2017
Organized by the Society for Professional Journalists, this annual contest covers work published or broadcast in 2016. It includes Daily Print and Online (four staff size groups), Weeklies, Non-daily Newspapers, Magazines, Radio, Television and Visuals. Below are our contest FAQ as well as descriptions of each of our categories. If you still have questions after reading this information, feel free to contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Please allow one business day for a response.
More information can be found here.
Registration: 26th Annual Association for Practical and Professional Ethics Conference
Conference Dates: February 23, 2017 - February 26, 2017
The Registration site for the 2017 Annual Conference is now open! You can access the site through the Registration page of the APPE Annual Conference at the following link:
http://appe.indiana.edu/annual-conference/annual-conference-registration/
The Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) is a multidisciplinary, international organization advancing scholarship, education, and practice in practical and professional ethics. They facilitate and support collaboration among scholars and teachers, business and government leaders, and professionals from all areas concerned with the practical application of ethics and values.
The 2017 Annual Conference will convene at the Westin Dallas Park Central Hotel in Dallas, Texas from February 23-26, 2017. Additional information about the hotel and information about reservations can be found on the Hotel page of the Annual Conference website.
Deadline to book with the hotel for the conference is February 1, 2017 with an overall on-time conference registration deadline of January 23, 2017.
Nominations for Ancil Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism
Deadline for Nominations: February 13, 2017
The University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication is now accepting nominations for the 17th Annual Ancil Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism. The nomination deadline is Monday, Feb. 13, 2017. Up to three $5,000 awards are given annually. More information is available at the link below including information about nomination requirements, last year's winners, and a link to nomination forms.
- For more information: http://journalism.uoregon.edu/events/payne-awards/
Page Center Funds Online Modules Focused on Ethics and Integrity in Communications
The Arthur W. Page Center is organizing and funding an initiative that will strengthen the role of ethics education in communications classrooms. With Center support, 11 experts will build online modules on specific ethics topics that teachers and professors all over the world can use in their courses.
Based on research, the Center identified 14 areas that are most frequently included in public relations curricula. The teaching modules will provide an in-depth view of each area and give communications instructors relevant and research-based lesson plans.
Content will be standardized so students can seamlessly move from one module to another to gain insight into the different topics. The final lessons will be available on the Page Center website in 2017. They will also be shared broadly with communications classrooms across the globe.
Module topics include, but are not limited to: ethical decision-making, digital ethics, public relations writing, and corporate social responsibility.
More information can be found on the Page Center website: http://comm.psu.edu/page-center/article/research-grants-connect-public-relations-faculty.
APPE Needs a New Home
After celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the founding of APPE in 2016, the Association is now faced with both the challenge and the opportunity of finding a new Host Institution.
In March of 2016, Indiana University announced it would repurpose the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions and informed the Association that it would need to find a new host. The APPE Executive Board and Staff immediately sent an announcement requesting proposals to host the Association to all Association Members and Friends in July. During the Executive Board meeting in October all completed proposals were reviewed.
The Executive Board is extremely grateful to all institutions that applied and hopes to be able to announce the new host institution at the APPE International Conference in Dallas, Texas in February 2017.
The strength, vitality and important contributions the Association is making to the profession are clear from the quality of the proposals received from all over the world. However, the costs for relocation were not part of the 2017 APPE budget and the APPE is in need of your financial help. Your gift at this time is tax deductible and is critically important to help the Association move through this transition year.
Please use one of the following options to show your support for the Association:
You can donate by using the Give Now link on the APPE homepage ( http://appe.indiana.edu); you can call Beth Works at the APPE Offices (812-855-6450); you can fax your credit card information to the APPE secure fax machine (812-856-4969); or you can mail a check to our offices at: 618 E. Third Street, Bloomington, Indiana 47405. If you need assistance, please contact Beth Works (812-855-6450).
Donors will be recognized in the Association’s International Conference Program and on the APPE website as champions in practical and professional ethics.
Reports
Reports on the various conferences, seminars, meetings, and similar gatherings that attract media ethics scholars and practitioners have always been a part of Media Ethics magazine. Over the years, reports of meetings of a number of organizations have been published on an irregular basis.
We would like to expand our coverage of such events, and the editor would welcome hearing from any readers whose regular attendance at meetings such as those of the APPE, AEJMC, BEA, SPJ, SCA, ICA, PTC, etc. would allow them to prepare and provide pertinent reports—including what the “buzz” in hallways might have been—of these meetings to Media Ethics for publication.
JMK
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Findings from Study About Teaching Ethics in the Pacific Region
by Tom Cooper
A new study about how ethics is taught in leading English-speaking universities (including Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, Australian National University, etc.) in the Pacific region has recently been completed by Dr. Tom Cooper (Emerson College) while he was guest scholar at the East-West Center, Stanford, University of Hawaii, and Berkeley.
The Pacific Region study is comparable to the 2008 Atlantic Region study. A total of 80 ethicists were subjects of the two studies. Findings from the recent (2015-16) Pacific Region Study include:
- Participant use of short papers, classroom discussion, the teaching of applied ethics, bringing new ideas from the field into the classroom, discussing “hot” issues (e.g. hate speech, racism, genetic manipulation, sexual morals, etc.) are all trending upward since the 2008 study.
- A strict adherence to canonical (e.g. Aristotle, Kant, Mill, Rawls, etc.) texts, case studies, assigning self-authored texts, and formal debates are all trending slightly downward since 2008.
- Participants think that both ethics students and teachers now face the same greatest obstacle within the educational process—a perceived lack of time.
- Far more women and a somewhat more racially diverse faculty are increasingly prominent contributors to teaching ethics than in 2008.
- Faculty remain divided about whether ethics teachers should be “neutral” referees in the classroom or should "take a stand" and reveal their "biases".
- Although faculty also remain divided about whether the ethics of “moral improvement” (i.e. “being a better person”) may be taught in schools, the majority now feel it should not or cannot be taught at the university level. One-third disagree.
- The most frequently mentioned reason ethics faculty now teach pertains to “service to society” rather than other reasons often reported such as enjoyment, passion for learning, fulfillment, love of students, etc.
- There is currently a push back against PowerPoint type technologies by many ethics professors for both philosophical and pedagogical reasons. The minority defending PowerPoint are fewer than in 2008.
- More faculty are minimizing or banning the use of cellphones and laptops by students in their classrooms than in 2008.
- More participants are taking teacher training workshops from CITL or CTL (Centers of Teaching and Learning) type university programs than in 2008 and most of those participating are finding these to be effective.
- Over time newer faculty tend to move from a single (course content) to a dual (student-driven and personal research influenced) instructional emphasis as with the previous study.
- As in 2008, most ethics faculty typically and Socratically consistently challenge students’ assumptions, opinions, beliefs, and the status quo.
- As in 2008 while students frequently find the mode of ethical and philosophical thinking challenging and unsettling to their desire for closure and moral simplicity, often they later find this approach to thinking rewarding and relevant.
- As in 2008 graduate ethics courses tend to be 1) smaller 2) less formal and 3) more student-driven. Graduate pedagogies more frequently include 4) student presentations, 5) textbooks/articles written by the professor 6) allusions to the professor’s research and 7) more expansive discussion supplanting the media projections, debates, cases, and lectures prominent within undergraduate classes.
- Just as the Oxford/Cambridge traditional tutorial system provided a minor influence upon the overall 2008 study outcomes, even so the Confucian/Taoist Eastern tradition has a minor influence overall in the teaching of ethics in English-speaking institutions in the Pacific. However, primary curricula in both studies are similar.
- While for some participants ethics is only subject matter or a mental process, for others it is also a potential means for both students and faculty to raise the bar in public discussion if not to bring pro-social change in civic moral decision-making.
Other findings for the Pacific region, together with details, data, and comparative and aggregated findings, are embedded in a full report. Although this report may be published in the near future, it is currently available in an online edition from Prof. Cooper at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Further information may be obtained by contacting The Squire Family Foundation at www.squirefoundation.org or telephone 631.662.7645.