By 4 p.m., Tuesday, March 29, please do the following:
1) Visit the media ethics video projects at the link below:
http://thelittlerebellion.com/index.php/category/opinion/ethics/
2) Decide which video you'd award a Socrates -- our version of the Oscar -- for "Best Video on an Ethics Case"
3) Explain why, being sure to consider (a) the organization of the presentation; (b) the appropriateness of the decision-making model applied to the case; (c) the clarity and completeness with which the model was applied to the case; and (d) the artistic merit of it.
Teaching Notes
You must become the flame on the candle. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Monday, March 14, 2011
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Is Media Ethics Education DOA?
It sounds like a joke Jay Leno would tell during his opening monologue on The Tonight Show. Hear about the graduate students at the prestigious journalism school? They got caught cheating on an ethics exam. Ha ha ha. Except that’s actually what happened at Columbia University
No one admitted cheating despite pressure from the school’s administrators and pleas from classmates, who feared the scandal would damage the market value of their degrees. Meanwhile, the teacher of the course, New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, refused to comment. But if the disgruntled posts on RateMyProfessors.com are any indication, his students hadn’t exactly been soaking up knowledge. “Maybe he could e-mail his ‘speeches’ to the students instead of making everyone suffer through the most wasted class in j-school. . . ,” one read.
There’s an old cowboy saying that goes, “When your horse dies, get off.” Journalism ethics education is a dead horse. Or else those aren’t vultures circling in the sky.
No one admitted cheating despite pressure from the school’s administrators and pleas from classmates, who feared the scandal would damage the market value of their degrees. Meanwhile, the teacher of the course, New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, refused to comment. But if the disgruntled posts on RateMyProfessors.com are any indication, his students hadn’t exactly been soaking up knowledge. “Maybe he could e-mail his ‘speeches’ to the students instead of making everyone suffer through the most wasted class in j-school. . . ,” one read.
There’s an old cowboy saying that goes, “When your horse dies, get off.” Journalism ethics education is a dead horse. Or else those aren’t vultures circling in the sky.
A Question for Socrates
The question of how ethics is learned, or even if it can be, is as old as Western philosophy. In Plato’s dialog Meno the title character asks, “Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue is acquired by teaching or by practice; or if neither by teaching nor practice, then whether it comes to man by nature, or in what other way?” Of course, Socrates, being Socrates, resists giving a definite answer. But we can’t. The sad fact is, students had better get an effective ethics education now or they may never.
Last summer I conducted an ethics workshop for some reporters and editors at the Poughkeepsie Journal, a small daily in upstate
But what I remember most is the air of defeat that clung to the staff as we sat on hard plastic chairs in the break room discussing the cases. I could hear in their voices the bitterness and cynicism of employees forced to follow corporate policies they despised. Recently, for example, the paper had started running display ads on the front page and section fronts, a much more grievous ethical lapse, their mumbled asides suggested, than anything the case studies might have to offer.
I don’t want my students to ever wear the gray, defeated expression I saw that day on the faces at the Journal. But given the downward direction in which the media are moving, and fast, how in the world can I prevent it from happening?
Teaching Media Ethics by Telling Stories
A friend of mine who teaches at a big Midwestern university recounts in class the events of her first week as a reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune. She was sent to Duluth to cover Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey on the campaign trail. When they were introduced, Humphrey vigorously shook her hand. “Oh yes, Susan,” he said, “I read your stuff all the time.” He couldn’t have read her stuff, though; she hadn’t written anything yet. “Just a few words,” she explains to her students, “but words that taught this fledging reporter a great lesson about pols and the little lies they tell.”
I usually find occasion during the semester to quote I. F. Stone’s dictum, “Every government is run by liars and thieves, and nothing they say should be believed,” to make the same point. But Susan’s story makes the point better. That’s because it has existential force. Her story vividly captures in a way a secondhand quote can’t the realities of a reporter’s life.
Some might think telling “war stories” is a waste of precious class time. I’ve a colleague who didn’t want to fall into the “trap” of regaling students with stories ad nauseam (“which, let’s face it, is easier than teaching or grading,” he said). So one semester he kept track. When he toted it all up at the end, he was surprised that he’d used less than an hour - out of 45 – talking about his newspaper experiences. And yet, he admitted, it was his stories that students seemed to remember most.
“Stories teach us how to live,” Daniel Taylor said in his essay, “The Ethical Implications of Storytelling.” What he meant was that stories preserve our experience for contemplation and evaluation. Although not all stories carry a heavy message, there’s an entire category of stories, so-called “exemplary tales,” that are told to convey a moral.
Our war stories are potentially just such tales. They can provide evidence, in ethicist John Barton’s words, of “how real human beings live through various crises and trials and remain human.” My colleague who kept tabs on his storytelling has described his stories as cautionary. Most, he said, deal with “screwups I learned from.”
But sometimes the storyteller and the audience can’t agree on what exactly the moral of a story is.
When Susan was a cub reporter on the Tribune, she interviewed the Beatles, who were on their second tour of the States. She got into their hotel room by dressing up as a waitress in an ugly, mustard-colored uniform and accompanying an actual room service waiter upstairs. Ringo took one look at her little plastic name tag – it read “Donna Brown” – and snorted, “What kind of name is that?” The waiter nudged her in the side. “Tell them what you real name is,” he urged. She did, as well as her reason for being there. Rather than throw her out, the Beatles politely answered her questions. They even let her phone for a photographer. The next day her story ran on the front page, with a photo of John sitting at a table and looking up at her and laughing as she poured coffee in his cup. She still has a glossy print of that photo somewhere.
Many of Susan’s students think she’s nuts for not having the photo hanging up in her office. They also think she’s nuts for saying she’d never participate in the same kind of stunt today. To her celebrity-struck students, disguising herself as a hotel waitress to get an interview with the Beatles seems soooo cool. They lose all sight of the fact that it wasn’t a story of vital public interest that demanded undercover methods.
Susan intends one lesson when she talks about her hard day’s night, but her students, living in a paparazzi-saturated culture, draw another. “It may be a lost cause,” she remarked to me.
Or maybe not. Negotiations over what the point of a story is can be part of the point of the story. In the process of negotiating, we test different interpretations, try out different themes. This is helpful. This is educational. Lawrence Kohlberg, the Harvard psychologist famous for his research on the stages of moral development, contended that “the teaching of virtue is the asking of questions. . . not the giving of answers.” Stories don’t necessarily have to yield clear moral rules to be of value. It’s enough sometimes if they just give us something to think about.
22 comments:
I would have to award the Socrates to the Converse Case Study due to its organization, good explanation of its decision making model, and overall visual production value that keeps the viewer interested in the video.
First, in terms of organization the video project a very simple structure of introduction, body (decision making model), and conclusion. This is a very easy format for any viewer to follow and achieves the goal of informing the audience because it strings them along as they build their case from the ground up. The organization of this video is not particularly better than any of the other videos but it merely holds up to the same satisfactory standard. The order in which they introduce the problem, apply the decisions making model to converse, decide converse is guilty of being unethical, and then sum up the entire idea of the video in a clip from a movie was nothing too complex for a child to follow.
Second, the decision making model that they used was perfect for the case study that they were doing on converse. They applied the T.A.R.E.S. Model to the advertisement of converse shoes through music videos and overall publicity of musicians. The model was very appropriate for uncovering what converse was doing and spelling out for the audience everything wrong about what they were doing. They were able to show evidence and rationalize the ideas that converse failed every test that the letters of the T.A.R.E.S. model represented. This was the perfect ethical decision making model because it covered the bases on what converse was doing in how its techniques were extremely dishonest. The attributes of the advertisements of the shoe company were not being truthful to the audience. They were not authentic with their messages of wanting to help musicians, when really they wanted to market the converse name. They do not respect the audience because they imagine that they can be easily swayed to love converse in the same manner that they love music. They have no humanity to allow people to enjoy music without trying to capitalize on the passions of men and women and attempt to market their shoes. Converse does not keep their musicians on a level playing field by choosing not to disclose their advertising techniques and the information they know about how successful their campaigns are. Also the ads are ultimately replacing the idea of music to mix the ideas of converse and shoes together. If you like the music you should like the shoes as well. By using the T.A.R.E.S. model they were able to show that converse's techniques were unethical on every count, and did it in such a way that was easy to follow and understand.
Finally, the overall production value and artistic value was superior to the other videos due to their excellent usage of visual aids. In the other videos there was generally image after image flashing on the screen while someone narrated the entire thing. Although the singular narration style remained the same, the converse video made their video more entertain by applying videos and animations that highlighted their points that they were trying to make. There were a few case videos that bombarded the viewer with text information that was daunting and distracting trying to read while listening to the narration. Converse did not overuse their visual aids but gave just enough to look at to keep the attention of the viewer. The only poor part of the production was the audio quality of the narration itself. Sometimes the audio peaked and it was a little annoying to listen to, but overall I think the other production aspects of this video were definitely Socrates worthy.
Truthfully, there were six of these that stood out for me, so it's hardly the easiest task to narrow the field down to a single favorite. Artistically, I thought the pieces on the Chilean mine disaster and on re-targeting advertisements were very notable. I got a kick out of the celebrity-infused, fake opening credits to the former, and I thought it was a terrific idea for students to act-out scenarios in the latter. I thought the case study on Converse was fascinating and very well-assembled, and the Disaster Porn piece resonates, more than ever, in the wake of the Japan tsunami.
Alas, for me, I thought the real grand slam here, and my pick for the Socrates, was "Online Journalists Burn Out Younger." On a purely technical level, I thought it was masterfully assembled, with appropriate photos and fonts, and kudos to this team for conducting and filming live interviews, as well. My only qualm would be that some of the audio was out-of-sync with the video. I thought the Bok Model was certainly fitting to this topic. (On a related note, I admittedly find myself, perhaps without even knowing it, turning to the Bok Model for my current work on the Little Rebellion.) I thought the model was applied clearly and concisely to this project, and it made for engrossing viewing from start to finish.
I think we are in a news environment where the Bok Model is, due to extreme time constraints, often difficult to turn to. After all, does a deadline-pressed reporter always have the time to seek-out the necessary advice on a perplexing issue? Often times, I think reporters are relying too heavily on only the first step of the Bok Model - turning to, and mulling over, your gut reaction in a situation.
A lot of these videos were done well and included a lot of informative facts dealing with ethics, so for me it was hard to pick one that stood out the most. Many of the subjects in the videos were interesting, and the quality of the videos are actually really good.
The one I chose for the Socrates award was the project about Re-targeting Ads. The organization of this project to me, was done rather well. The parts they acted out frame the main parts of the project nice. In addition, it was nice having many facts relating to the subject explained, as well as having a poll.
The Potter Box was used to analyze whether or not re-targeting ads are ethical. In addition, the Categorical Imperative was also used. I think it was a good idea that they decided to use two methods of analyzing the ethics of re-targeting ads instead of just one. The Potter Box was used well in order to analyze re-targeting ads and by integrating it with the Categorical Imperative, re-targeting ads were deemed unethical. By utilizing two methods and reaching the same conclusion, the conclusion is re-inforced more.
This group may have not used news clips and the like for their project but at the same time they packed in a lot of information, which is just as important. The fact that they themselves acted out parts also made the issue more relatable.
I had a tough choice between picking the Retargeting Ads case and the Chilean Miners Film adaptation because I felt both were interesting topics and very well done presentations with clear and concise content. However, the video that appealed to me the most was the Chilean Miner Film Adaptation which is why I think it deserves a Socrates.
The presentation immediately grabbed my attention with its movie-like introduction. I felt that was a good approach considering the topic was docu-dramas. The images the group chose were very effective in conveying their points. They appropriately used clips from movies like World Trade Center, United 93, Titanic, etc. I also found the questions they asked to be very compelling and thoughtful. The group successfully drew connections between the Chilean Miners case and the controversy of making movies about national traumas and tragedies from the past. I especially liked how they argued the point that if a Chilean Miners movie was made it would follow the same Hollywood movie story line of love, conflict, happy ending, attractive celebrities. It shows how superficial the film would be. It wouldn’t spark a change or make people more aware of the situation that happened. Hollywood is exploiting the tragedy for money because of the sensational and real aspects of the story.
I also liked how the group used Kant's Categorical Imperative to show that it would be unethical to make a Chilean Miners film because using the real life people as characters treats humanity as a means to an end. The miners tragedy is a mean for entertainment, which is the end.
From each of the videos displayed by last semesters’ Media Ethics course I chose to award the Chilean Miner Film a Socrates. I like the way in which it was presented due to the fact that it had an introduction, a body and a conclusion. I also very much liked the way in was organized because they sprinkled quotes all throughout it and presented interesting ideas and valid questions as well as appropriate movie clips and newspaper clips/issues.
I also believe that using Kant’s Categorical Imperative was the appropriate decision-making model to apply to this particular case. Kant’s Categorical Imperative states that a person should act so that they treat humanity as an end and never as a means to an end. This is the best model for the Chilean Miner film because its applies the ideas that Hollywood in particular treats real people and real situations (such as the miners) as characters that can be used to attract audiences and make money rather than as the real people that they are. Thus, Hollywood would be using the miners and their story as a means to an end, the end being a successful film by exploiting the miner’s tragic story.
Although Kant’s Categorical Imperative was, by all means thoroughly and clearly applied to the story I would sad that it also occasionally breaks away from the model and focuses on other issues; for example will the truth be told. When the film breaks away from the model it presents interesting and thought-evoking ideas however I would sometimes wonder if they are necessary since they do not apply to the model.
Artistically this film is well done due to the film clips in incorporates, as well as the voice-overs and pictures, etc. On all accounts I find this movie to be a very successful one.
And the Socrates goes to….The Chilean Mine Disaster. I thought this was a clever way to present their argument. They began with a celebrity intro which made the viewer think that it was the trailer for an upcoming film. Then it transitioned into the ethics of Hollywood and their adapted versions of real life traumatic occurrences onto film.
I felt that this was clear and well organized. They considered all aspects of the potter box, even though it does not say that that is the model they used. They presented facts, opinions, the sides of the filmmakers, and the sides of people who had to endure these horrific events. Also they used the categorical imperative. This was a really great model to use to evoke emotion. They use the concept of not using film to make a profit at other people’s expense. The use of quotes helped construct the story in a clear way. It gave advice and opinions to support their opinions.
I feel that they did a good job of persuading the viewer that there are limitations in which Hollywood filmmakers should follow to provide good work. They say that a docudrama should have certain guidelines so that the story can tell an actual depiction of the event and not completely glamorize and romanticize the film.
My Socrates vote goes to the Chilean Miner Film Adapt.
The video had a great introduction was persuasive and informative. The narrator could have been more animated and if anything his lack of enthusiasm in the video hurts the quality of the information he is providing. Although the quotes went out of the frame, that has to do with TheLittleRebellion's formatting on their website. The arguments were effective and valid points were made to emphasize the persuasive content's validity and credibility. I also liked how the editors tied in Kant's categorical imperative to emphasize their argument. Overall this video captured my interest the most.
The reason why I didn't choose the other videos were because they simply didn't keep my attention.
The Internet Info Tracking does not begin with any type of attention grabber. This causes the whole video to seem bland and boring. Although it is extremely informative and visually appealing, the lack of "bells and whistles" causes the video to be ineffective, regardless of the content being very informative. There was also unexplained jargin that not all individuals would be able to understand.
Journalism Burn Out grabbed my interested and was very outlined. I enjoyed the pictures, but they lacked a theme. After a while the visuals became bothersome and distracted me from paying attention to the actual information given. It was too much, almost like a collage, I couldn't focus on the issue. This video demanded too much from the viewer, and 11 minutes of this was too long.
Although the Retargeting Ads was humorously tied together with a mini skit, the survey done of students was of too few. I believe only 20 students were surveyed. The information was descriptive, but there was too much text. Plus the music at the end came out of nowhere and wasn't related to anything in the video.
The Coverage of Political Terrorism was very interesting to me. This ran at a close second. The beginning example was interesting and effective. Also, the images were very affective, because they were themed, and the media references (video) was also used nicely. However, I would have liked to see the information structured a bit differently. I feel as though the information lost in the salience of US Journalism was lost at the end. Although the video was nicely created, it still lacked some interesting points. Many viewers could have stopped watching this and lost the important news that they had already missed out on.
The converse case study was also a favorite. However, not because of the information, but because the editors chose to use advertisements that the whole case study was opposing. The video seemed contradictory to me, as if to say "Hey watch this video and be captured by it, but realize its actually awful and unethical, so don't really like it too much."
It was hard in many of the videos to stay focused. I don't like how many of them are narrated. Its easy to stop listening and just watch a video. Students do it all the time in class, which is why a lot of teachers instruct during visual examples are being played (video), so students don't get too distracted.
Correction-- Students do it all the time in class, which is why a lot of teachers *don't* instruct during visual examples are being played (video), so students don't get too distracted.
:)
I feel that the ad re-targeting presentation is most worthy of the Socrates award.
First, I enjoyed the introduction/conclusion of the video, in which the student looks at a scarf in one store and then is pestered with offers to purchase it in other locations. It neatly illustrates the issue that the presentation is addressing and ties the video together nicely by coming back at the end.
I felt that the content of the video, was focused and addressed the subject effectively. It was well organized and introduced new steps and ideas to the argument in an appropriate and logical order. The images included in the presentation illustrate the subject effectively, and the occasional inclusion of things like the Flash logo or a plate of cookies keep the informative nature of the video from getting stale. The video is very informative; in addition to effectively analyzing the subject, it provides a nice introduction into what ad re-targeting is.
The use of the Potter Box decision making model was well applied, especially using Kant's categorical imperative as it's principle. The group clearly establishes that companies that utilize ad re-targeting are neither treating their customers as anything more than a means to profit, nor acting in a way that would be acceptable in other situations. The willingness to invade privacy and, especially, to ignore customers' desire to not be targeted, by implementing zombie cookies which cannot easily be deleted, all in order to maximize the potential to profit is clearly unethical. The use of Kant's categorical imperative is what really makes the presentation effective.
I was honestly very impressed by all the videos, however one in particular stuck out to me: The Quran Burning Conundrum.
Being from a "fire-fighter" family located right outside Manhattan, the topic struck home. I have seen the mosque controversy develop first hand, and have felt the anger and sadness that it evokes.
This video address the post 9-11 media coverage issue as a whole, and is organized very well.
As shown in the video, The Society of Professional Journalists makes it perfectly clear that the actions of the media coverage concerning almost everything post 9-11, including the mosque controversy, has been utterly unethical. The "burn the Quran day" is a ridiculous idea that some moron thought up, however due to the massive amount of media coverage, became a national issue.
The students who put together this video used great supporting evidence. The news clips, charts, and quotes provided very specific supporting material and kept the video extremely interesting. I especially enjoyed the portion of the video where they showed major events that were being virtually ignored by the media, because they occurred the same time "Burn a Quran day" was getting national coverage.
Furthermore, I think the video's effectiveness is proved by a comment a YouTube user left on the page:
"11-9-11 will be the mother of all Koran burnings!!
Real Americans will NEVER surrender to the Islamic invasion of our FREE nation!!!"
Scary stuff.
My Socrates vote goes towards the video on Retargetting ads.
Right from the get go you are brought in to what retargeting ads are, through a real life example that is offline and up close and personal. The usage of the scarf throughout the shopping mall is a perfect example of how tedious these advertisements can be, and how hard it truly is to escape them.
It was also really interesting how they gave statistics of students in SUNY New Paltz, and how a majority of them could be unaware that they are being retargeted with advertisements. I thought this made the video and information even more relevant to all of us. The video is colorful and filled with vivid imagery that help us understand the case and make it relevant to all of us. It also helps explain terminology that would not be understood by a majority of people. Ex: Zombie Cookies
The Potter Box is used affectively to descrbe the facts, values, loyalties, and principles of the case. By using this they are able to come to a conclusion that companies are using their customers information to turn profits, even when their privacy is at stake. Another positive thing about this video is that it is not completely one sided; it explains the positive aspects of retargeting ads, and explains ways overseas that this is being dealt with.
The ending sums everything up pretty smoothly. The customer is being retargeted the scarf in the most unlikely place, a supermarket. Buying a scarf is the last thing he is thinking about when shopping for bananas. The frustration of the customer is shown at its peak, leaving us, the viewers, with the conclusion that retargeting advertisements are unethical. Overall a solid well done video that hits home and deserves this Socrates.
--Evan Brieff
Here’s why I think the presentation about retargeting ads deserves a Socrates. I’m no James Franco, but I’ll try. I’ll keep it short and simple, so the orchestra doesn’t play me off.
The Organization was excellent. Starting off with a humorous, anecdotal scene could be perceived as unprofessional, but I thought that it was funny, didn’t take itself too seriously, and persuaded me to want to find out more about what they had to say.
While you could tell the video wasn’t edited by Pixar, it was easy to follow along, and there weren’t glaring editing problems that disrupting your attention from the real content.
The way they laid out the information was also important – they laid out the problem in full detail, so the viewer could get a, understanding and scope of the damage caused by retargeting ads.
Then they explained in an understandable manner why it’s unethical, with a variety of principles. The decision making process used was appropriate to find a solution to the problem, which they explained as the “opt-out” box.
Though all these videos were informative of different ethical issues, I would have to give the Socrates award to the group that explored the ethical issue of Re-targeting Ads.
The organization of the presentation was engaging. They start with a skit that we can all relate to and the humor that is attached with our personal and emotional connection gives it a more powerful impression. They used interesting images to keep the monotone voiceover from being dull. They appropriately provided information and in an organized and clear cut manner. This presentation also was effective in that they went out and got statistics for this issue from students like me. This really was interesting to know what others around me knew about re-targeting ads and made me give more thought about this issue even more.
They used the Potter Box in order to support their decision making for the case. They define each step of the Potter Box Model and make sure that the audience knows what the model applies to. They reinforce the ethical issue by identifying the facts, values, principles and loyalties. They also take Kant’s Categorical Imperative and apply it as well, making an even stronger emphasis to the unethical issue of re-targeting ads.
This presentation was appropriately organized to make it lucid enough for a person who has no idea about re-targeting ads to understand what they are arguing about and what the issue is. They used appropriate images and even though there were other groups which had better graphics, this group effectively got their message across with their own style. The closing with the continuation of the skit was also a nice humorous end after a dense and informative case study.
I would award the Socrates to the Retargeting Ad case study. This project did an excellent job organizing their video. They start by portraying a comedic scene of someone shopping and someone following him around asking him to purchase a scarf. They give an introduction of what retargeting ads are, The group uses the Potter Box to identify whether or not retargeted ads are ethical. They are not. They are merely companies' ways of trying to gain more profits by accessing people's personal information. The video also showed that most people don't know what retargeted ads are and how they are used. The group does a good job of explaining to the viewers how they can block retargeted ads from getting to their computers. Overall, this project was very well done and deserves the Socrates award.
After watching all of the previous semesters media ethics projects, I have decided that the one examining the Chilean Mining Disaster would be worthy of a Socrates.
While other videos, such as the re-targeting ads one, had very good qualities and brought up good points through well organized ideas, I believe the Chilean Mining one was the best example of what a video for this class should be like.
What immediately sold the video for me was it's introduction. Besides being creative, not to mention hilarious, the video's fake trailer-intro was perfectly conveyed the overall message of the video.
By having an over-the-top trailer featuring bombastic music and A-list stars, the group poked fun at Hollywood cashing in on disasters and dramatizing them to make a profit.
Besides the video's great intro, I thought the group did a good job piecing together their argument and it kept my attention. The group gave a brief, but informative background on the incident and moved into the ethical implications of Hollywood turning real-world tragedies into money-making summer blockbusters.
The group used examples of former disaster-dramas such as World Trade Center to show how Hollywood's depictions of events are not factually sound, but rather a scripted and formulaic approach that executives know will make money.
I thought the group's use of Kant's Categorical Imperative was a perfect approach to take when examining this kind of situation. It is plainly obvious that Hollywood uses events such as the Chilean mining incident or 9/11 to capitalize on our emotions and when they forget about the actual human lives that were affected by these disasters, it shows that they are using humans as a mean to an end.
I would award the Socrates to the Chilean Miner Film Adaptation for "Best Video on an Ethics Case."
The organization of the presentation to me was perfect. The visuals used for the project were definitely appropriate, and they addressed the issue of Hollywood creating docu-dramas in a well thought out manner, backing it up with other movies that were created off of world tragedies. The story line behind the project was also easy to follow, without jumping around or any sense of unclarity.
Using the Categorical Imperative was more than appropriate for this project. According to the Categorical Imperative, “You should act so that you treat humanity always as an ‘end only’ and never as a ‘means’," and with this topic in particular it raises the question of what is the reasoning behind Hollywood retelling such stories as 9/11 and the Chilean Miner Crisis. Is Hollywood doing it to simply chronicle and honor those who were a part of the tragedies? Or are they simply creating these movies for profit, treating these occurrences as a means rather than an 'end only'? The creators of this video did an excellent job connecting this project to the decision-making model.
As far as the artistic merit of the video project, the cinematography and video editing was very clean cut and precise. The beginning of the video was creatively done, portraying a faux movie trailer that has some hilarity to it with the actors that they chose if there were to be a Chilean Miner movie (e.g. Jack Black, Daniel Radcliffe, etc.). The voiceover went well with the text, and was easy to hear and understand as the video progressed. I also liked the fact that some parts were dramatized, which made the video less monotone (see 3:39 of the video)
The Socrates would have to go to the Journalist Burn Out video for effectively laying forth the SPJ Code of Ethics, deciphering their case point by point with the model and for gathering and consulting with outside parties.
It was a compelling video because it was highly organized. From what we've covered in class so far, and taking into consideration that this is their final project, I adequately understood their rationale and the terms behind it. They even broke it down into laymen terms describing one editor's experiences as feeling like a "page view whore." Easy enough, he was sacrificing quality for online page views.
The thing that could be improved were the transitions. Some of the "live" video inserted was choppy and out of sync with the noise. Some clips were also visibly fuzzy. But appropriate title pages and pictures were used which added to the overall quality and puts it in line for a Socrates.
The SPJ Code of Ethics was a good model to use her because it examined the factors that interferes with a person's ability to get the job done, or their epistemic responsibility. The pressures of deadline, the allure of money and sacrificing quality for page views. The group related this idea of the burnout by trying to meet all these demands and remained relevant from start to end.
…And the Socrates for Best Video on an Ethics Case goes to…Re-targeting Ads. This video and topic was relevant, entertaining and over all very well executed. What I liked most about this particular group’s presentation is that they were able to incorporate a bit of humor yet still keeping it informative. I liked most of the presentations; however this one kept my attention the whole time.
1. The video started with a bit of humor which served as demonstration how re-targeting can be harmful and invasive to the potential consumer. Starting this way resulted in my wanting to see what the presentation was really about. Most people today, I being one of them, like to be entertained. This introduction served as a means of entertainment, but did not in my opinion take away from the seriousness of the information they portrayed later on. This is a topic that almost everyone has come in contact with. The rest of the video was a voice over illustrations demonstrating why they think re-targeting ads is unethical. This group managed to many a deep ethical decision understandable to the general public. It was not a long lecture which resulted in the conclusion that they did not think it is ethical. They broke it down.
2. To back up their decision that re-targeting ads is unethical they used the Potter Box Model. They broke down each individual section of the model and relayed the information necessary. I enjoyed that they didn’t lump it all together, and that they kept the information necessary short and to the point. Also to supplement their belief they used the philosophy of categorical imperative by Immanuel Kant. I also found it useful that they explained every tool being used for showing how it related to their position.
3. The presentation was well organized and appeared to be well thought out. They used very help diagrams and pictures to prove their point, and to also shed light on the topic being discussed. I feel their approach was more creative than most of the other groups and was very appealing to their audience. Overall, I think that this presentation was great and deserved my Socrates.
I would have to give the Socrates to the video on the ethics of the Chilean miners film adaptation.
To start off, the beginning of the video is incredibly engaging with a fake trailer for the potential Chilean miners movie. The trailer is really well made with great artistic merit. It grabs the viewers attention right away, something that none of the other videos really achieved.
A point that really stuck out to me was their use of Emmanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative. Hollywood is most definitely using the people involved in these tragedies as a means to make profit and entertain and interest the public. They may claim it's being made to remember the events or inform the public, but really it's to entertain and make money. Using the awful things people endured to entertain, no matter how serious the tone of film, seems wrong.
I also thought the arguments made by the group about how making such a film would be unethical were very sound and successful. They used perfect examples of existing docu-drama's such as Titanic and World Trade Center to show how most films like this are sensationalized and thus become fairly untruthful.
They also discuss how conflict, love, happy ending and attractive celebrities is Hollywood's recipe for a successful docu-drama, and to have these things in a film is simply insensitive. These were normal people affected by these terrible events and and in most cases, the Chilean miners being an exception, the ending was far from happy. Hollywood glamourizes and romanticizes things that had such profoundly awful affects on people, which is obviously not a good thing. The group did a good job addressing the appropriate questions in order to come to this conclusion.
The SOCRATES award for the "best video on Ethiics case" - from my judgement - goes to:The Photojournalism project!
The flow of this video was done well and was pretty easy to follow and comprehend. All the points of interest were coherent and build on each other in good progression hence showing that it was well planned and organized.
The use of the 'potter box' model to analyse the substance of the subject matter was a good choice in my opinion. With this model the group was able to accurately select and dicuss the tenets of the whole story and the circumstances of the case in a sound and ethical manner as was needed. The facts were identified and stated-The photo was taken under fire on the battle-feild, it was shown to the soldier's family,etc.
Values were explained.That of both family and the photojournalist also that of the general public.
The golden mean of Aristotle, the code of ethics for journalists and the theory of utilitarianism were properly applied in assesing the princeples aspect of the 'potterbox'.
The actual photo was used too extensively though and a few showings of it would of done the job anyhow.
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