Enactive Principles for the Ethics of User Interactions on Social Media: How to Overcome Systematic Misunderstandings Through Shared Meaning-Making

This paper proposes three principles for the ethical design of online social environments aiming to minimise the unintended harms caused by users while interacting online, specifically by enhancing the users’ awareness of the moral load of their interactions. Such principles would need to account for the strong mediation of the digital environment and the particular nature of user interactions: disembodied, asynchronous, and ambiguous intent about the target audience. I argue that, by contrast to face to face interactions, additional factors make it more difficult for users to exercise moral sensitivity in an online environment. An ethics for social media user interactions is ultimately an ethics of human relations mediated by a particular environment; hence I look towards an enactive inspired ethics in formulating principles for human interactions online to enhance or at least do not hinder a user’s moral sensitivity. This enactive take on social media ethics supplements classical moral frameworks by asking us to focus on the relations established through the interactions and the environment created by those interactions.

Efektivitas Etika Digital Netizen Indonesia Terhadap Ujaran Kebencian di Instagram

This research is motivated by mass communication and retrieval of information on Instagram, creating hate speech on digital platforms. With the availability of social media as a means of disseminating the required information, the pattern of society has shifted, either implicitly or unseen, so that culture, ethics, and norms become biased and cause conflict. This study aims to identify hate speech on Instagram and test the effectiveness of digital ethics within the axiological analysis. The object of this research is hate speech used to comment with inappropriate words. This research method uses a literature review method. This research collects data from various journals and finds proof of hate speech on Instagram. The freedom of expression results in this literature study state that many social media users do not apply excellent and polite social media ethics. Besides that, axiological studies supported these results that do not help ethical skills related to moral and aesthetic values. In addition, many Indonesian netizens still spread hatred intentionally or unintentionally on social media. Therefore, there is a need for education and proactive action for Indonesian netizens to use social media.

“George Orwell Invented Journalism Studies”

To inaugurate our series of conversations with scholars in journalism studies with a view to securing some useful insights into the history and practice of journalism education, Prof. Richard Lance Keeble appeared an obvious choice. Now an Honorary Professor at Liverpool Hope University, Prof. Keeble was first director of the International Journalism MA, then director of the Journalism and Social Science BA, at City University, London (1984-2003). He was then appointed Professor of Journalism (2003-present) at Lincoln University where he also became acting head of the Lincoln School of Journalism (2010-2013) and later a Visiting Professor at Liverpool Hope University (2015-2019). Prof. Keeble has been the recipient of prestigious and distinguished prizes, namely the National Teaching Fellowship Award (2011) and the Lifetime Achievement Award for services to journalism education (2014), the latter bestowed by the Association for Journalism Education in the UK. Parallel to his academic career, Prof. Keeble has always been a practising journalist. On completion of his studies in Modern History at Keble College, Oxford University (1967-70), he started a career in journalism, first as sub editor at the Nottingham Guardian Journal/Evening Post (1970-73) and then at the Cambridge Evening News (1973-77). He was deputy editor, then editor, of The Teacher, the weekly newspaper of the National Union of Teachers (1977-84). His dual pedigree in journalism, as a practitioner and a professor, led him to take on many editorial responsibilities. He is emeritus editor of Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication and Ethics and joint editor of George Orwell Studies and is also on the board of an impressive number of journals, among which are Journalism Studies, Digital Journalism, Journalism Education, International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, Media Ethics, Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism, to name just a few. Prof. Keeble was also Chair of the Orwell Society1 (2013-2020) and has authored or edited no less than 44 books. They include Ethics for Journalists and The Newspapers Handbook,2 respectively on their second and fifth editions, as well as several volumes on George Orwell, investigative journalism, and the British media. It was an honour and privilege to talk to Prof. Keeble in a phone interview on March 25, 2021. The conversation was transcribed while some passages were edited for clarity. I hereby express my immense gratitude for his time, generosity, expertise, and humour. It is such a thrill to start our series of interviews in a way that only makes us want more such conversations.

A qualitative thematic analysis of ‘INFODEMIC: A Stanford Conference on Social Media, Ethics, and COVID-19 Misinformation’ (Preprint)

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic continues to challenge the world’s population, with approximately 266 million cases and 5 million deaths to date. COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation led to vaccine hesitancy among the public, particularly in vulnerable communities, which persists today. Social media companies are attempting to curb the ongoing spread of an overwhelming amount of COVID-19 misinformation on their platforms. In response to this problem, the authors hosted INFODEMIC: A Stanford Conference on Social Media and COVID-19 Misinformation (INFODEMIC) to develop best practices for social media companies to mitigate online misinformation and disinformation. OBJECTIVE The primary aim of this study was to develop recommendations for social media companies to address The COVID-19 Infodemic. The authors report the methods used to execute the INFODEMIC conference, conference attendee engagement and analytics, and a qualitative thematic analysis of the conference presentations. The primary study outcomes were the identified themes and corresponding recommendations. METHODS Using a constructivist paradigm, the authors conducted a thematic analysis of the 6-hour conference transcript to develop best practice recommendations. The INFODEMIC conference was the study intervention, the conference speakers were the study participants, and transcripts of their presentations were the data for this study. The authors followed the 6-step framework for thematic analysis described by Clark and Braun. They also used descriptive statistics to report measures of conference engagement including registrations, viewership, post-conference asynchronous participation, and conference evaluations. RESULTS A total of 26 participants spoke at the virtual conference and represented a wide array of occupations, expertise, and countries of origin. From their remarks, the authors identified 18 response categories and four themes: trust, equity, social media practices, and interorganizational partnerships. From these, a total of 16 best practice recommendations were formulated for social media companies, healthcare organizations, and the general public. These recommendations focused on rebuilding trust in science and medicine among certain communities, redesigning social media platforms and algorithms to reduce the spread of misinformation, improving partnerships between key stakeholders, and educating the public to critically analyze online information. Of the 1,090 conference registrants, 587 (54%) attended the live conference and another 9,996 individuals viewed or listened to the conference recordings asynchronously. Conference evaluations averaged 8.9 (best = 10). CONCLUSIONS Social media companies play a significant role in the The COVID-19 Infodemic and should adopt evidence-based measures to mitigate misinformation on their platforms.