COM450 Ethics and Communication
Course Description
While ethical decision-making permeates every facet of personal and professional life, this course focuses specifically upon ethical issues that are inherent in personal and public forms of communication. Special emphases are placed on ethical issues in commercial communication. Ethical decision-making models will be discussed and applied to cases involving various contemporary and controversial communication topics.
Topics and Objectives
Ethical Foundations
- Identify the role of ethics in communications.
- Summerize models of ethical decision making.
- Explain philosophical principles to be applied in ethical decision making.
Ethics and Journalism
- Identify the relationship between making money and truth telling.
- Summarize the public's right to know vs. personal privacy.
- Explain the relationship between social justice and who determines what it constitutes.
Ethics and Advertisement
- Assess decision-making involved in determining what to advertise.
- Analyze ethical issues related to how to advertise products.
- Explain how to address special audiences and special needs.
Ethics and Public Relations and Public Affairs
- Critique the relationship between public communication and organizational truth.
- Evaluate conflicting loyalties in business and political communication.
- Analyze the impact of ethics upon social responsibililty and the inherent duties and obligations.
Ethics and Entertainment
- Evaluate ethical issues in the depiction of cultural "hot button" issues.
- Critique the relationship between profits vs. the Public Good in the intertainment industry.
- Analyze the conflict between censorship and consumers' freedom to choose.
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