Nightcrawler: Ethics In The Digital Age

Johnson asserts that surveillances that are further promoted by increased use of technology for gathering data undermine the citizen’s ability and potential for democratic citizenships. As such, living in a panopticon implies that persons have limited space of independently developing themselves.

People from all walks of life face many ethical dilemmas. These dilemmas have consequences. Our worldview determines how we deal with these dilemmas, and guides us to the right decisions. In this essay, I will examine an ethical issues through my Christian worldview. I will also present other viewpoints, and compare them to mine.

During the film Antwone Fisher (Black, Haines, & Washington, 2002) the therapist who worked with Antwone seemed to have Antwone’s best interest at heart, but still managed to violate some ethical codes. One of the first violations that I noticed was when he tried to terminate therapy with Antwone after only three sessions. Whereas he initially informed Antwone that he was only required to see him for three sessions, as the sessions progressed it seemed obvious to me that Antwone may need more, and even asked to come back for a fourth session. According to the 2014 American Counseling Association (ACA) Code of Ethics, A. 11.c. Appropriate Termination, “Counselors terminate a counseling relationship when it becomes reasonably apparent that the client no longer needs assistance, is not likely to benefit, or is being harmed by continued counseling.” I think that the therapist trying to terminate therapy with Antwone after three sessions was an obvious violation of this ethics code as it was not in Antwone’s best interest, especially given how much distress it caused him.

In journalism, an ethical dilemma is a complex issue or situation that often involves an emotional and psychological conflict between moral obligations and duties, in which to obey one would transgress the other. Within the media there are many stories that can be deemed an ethical dilemma; some more so than others. One of the most recent and prominent ethical dilemmas was the worldwide coverage surrounding the shooting of two American WBDJ journalists, Alison Parker and Adam Ward. Despite the fact that the shooter filmed the ordeal clearly showing the two slain journalists being shot, news outlets had picked it up and ran with the story, which ultimately went viral in minutes. This essay will analyse and thoroughly examine the reporting

An adult patient is a member of a religion that does not believe in receiving blood. The patient receives a colostomy and begins hemorrhaging. He is unable to voice his objections. You know of this patient’s strong beliefs and that he does not want to receive blood. On the admission sheet, the area for religion is blank. He has no family. The nurses and doctors want to give blood and you do not want him to die.

The job of a journalist has always been highly scrutinized. For years, the question of what and how a journalist should deliver information has been analyzed. However, despite the many theories, it has always been a clear consensus that journalists have an obligation to truth above all. However, there are many cases where a journalist may not know how far to go in order to deliver that truth. Of course, a journalist must always operate within legal limits, however, again some cases have blurred lines. A case that demonstrates these blurred lines between the legal and illegal, as well as the need to deliver truth, is a case between the Rolling Stone and their use of illegal music links.

The film Shattered Glass presents the ethical issues of fabrication and the deception of the writer, Stephen Glass, to his editor and co-workers. He deliberately sensationalized his stories in order to gain his reader’s attention. His facts were partially, if not completely, inaccurate and he presented notes that he fabricated as facts for each of his pieces at the New Republic. Journalists in the media have a duty to the people to report the truth and follow an ethical code whenever reporting stories.

A form of journalism called Muckraking was born during the Progressive Era at the turn of the twentieth century. Originally, Muckrakers, writers of muckraking pieces, told in their pieces the corrupt, unlawful, and dangerous goings-on of the middle class life via magazines, books, and other forms of writing. Muckraking since has evolved into a form of writing we today call investigative reporting, in which the author of the piece is forced to dig deep into a corrupt, unlawful or dangerous endeavor, and tell the world about it. An example of Muckraking is David Barstow’s piece in the New York Times in 2009 about a program at the Pentagon that took retired military officers and made them analysts for major TV and radio networks. These analysts,

In the last few years, the number of cyber-attacks happening in the world today has increased significantly and it is something that is not going to go away any time soon. In the most recent case that has happened, a group called the Impact Team has claimed to have complete access to Avid Life Media’s database for the website Ashley Madison. Throughout this entire case there are very few things that are ethical and legal. Besides, Avid Life Media pursuing the hackers for stealing private data, the only other action that I believe falls into this category are users pursuing legal action against Ashley Madison now for not fully deleting their data. If Ashley Madison had actually deleted most of their user’s data and only kept the metadata,

This documentary isn’t just about the Gawker case, rather it probes into a deeper theme, focusing on several tales of how forces of today’s age - billionaires owning private money and President Trump – are trying to crush the essential power of the Press and rights given by the 1st Amendment. In the first hour through the documentary, the lawsuit subsequently reveals to have been funded by Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley Billionaire. Theil secretly backed the lawsuit for a personal vendetta

Oliver Stone’s 1994 classic, Natural Born Killers, excited and traumatized its audiences while also causing controversy. The tale of white trash lovers caught up in a realm of chaos that includes a continuous murderous rampage from state to state, draws in audiences with its graphic violence and riveting pulse inducing music. Yet, the message of this film seems to be much deeper than just exposing audiences to yet another chaotic action movie filled with guns, blood and mayhem. Stone’s Natural Born Killers examines the subject of media’s investment in serial murder very thoroughly, and so it seems likely that it has the potential to offer a more rigorous interrogation of the nature of the American public’s fascination with the serial

From the reading of book More Than a Movie: Ethics in Entertainment, the nine hot buttons of violence are choice of perpetrator, choice of victim, presence of consequences, rewards and punishments, the reason for the violence, the presence of weapons, realism, use of humor, and prolonged exposure. And the movie I choice to analyze with these nine buttons is The Thing from 1982

As technology surrounding the internet has grown there has a been a new movement to connect the world. Specifically, teens have become more inclined to socialize and connect with friends, family, and strangers through the internet. Teenagers are known for being vulnerable, naïve, having a vast desire to find acceptance with their peers or society and are obsessed with love. With the connection of the internet, social media, and teen it has created completely new moral panic; catfishing. According to, to Merriam-Webster catfishing is defined as an individual who creates a fake profile on a social networking site to deceive or manipulate others ("Catfish"). Primarily, those who catfish use their fake profiles to gain romantic relationships with other social network users. Teens began creating fake profiles through their instinct of wanting to fit in but, this led to teens catfishing to fulfill their dreams of finding acceptance. Catfishing is an internet moral panic because it is considered a social terror. The act of catfishing became a way for some teens to find acceptance but, parents feel that teens are not safe on social networking sites such as; Facebook because these deceptions can cause teens emotional and mental harm. Those constructing the moral panic continually scapegoated social network sites for the creation of catfishing and its side effects but, the true root cause of catfishing is teen’s inherent behavior.

Lou Bloom becomes obsessed with the idea of recording the perfect crime footage and making money by selling it to the local news channels. Lou is committing crimes for the news stations, but the news is wanting the footage because the common people want it.

We all know that downloading pirated music and films is illegal, but what exactly is it? The term piracy refers to the copying and selling of music, films and other media illegally; in other words you are copying and selling copyrighted media without the permission of the original owner (NiDirect, n.d.). With the massive growth of the internet and its ability to store and capture vast amounts of data, we have become much more reliable on information systems in all aspects of life, but it does not come without the risk of information technology being used unethically. With the number of IT breakthroughs in recent years “the importance of ethics and human values has been underemphasised” often resulting in various consequences. Not surprisingly one of the many public concerns about the ethical use of IT is that “millions of people have downloaded music and movies at no charge and in apparent violation of copyright laws at tremendous expense to the owners of those copyrights” (Reynolds, Ethics in Information Technology, 2015). This essay covers the ethical issues of downloading pirated music and films and the impact it has on music corporations and recording and film companies.