Digital media ethics in the Digital Age

I remember watching The Oprah Winfrey Show with my mother (…and sometimes without her) after school as a teenager. For any of you that don’t know the show well, Oprah frequently brought on thought leaders and authors as guests. 

Just as cellphones had started to become ubiquitous, Oprah had on a guest that proclaimed that the idea of civility must now be redefined given the introduction of these devices into our society. Should we turn off our phones in class? At dinner? Are our landlines strictly for professional acquaintances or close family? Is it “unprofessional” to have a DMX song set as your ringtone?

When it comes to technology, the only constant is change. Just as the advent of cellphones required that we reexamine what it means to be civil, new technology keeps us on our toes, too, I think when it comes to ethics. 

When I was an undergraduate student in the early 2000s, I remember one professor had to consider whether we could use Wikipedia as a source (she allowed it!). Things have changed since then. Wikipedia is mostly not considered an acceptable source, and now we have ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence to contend with. With that, the topic that interests me is digital media ethics. How has the idea of plagiarism changed given a digital landscape? Must we teach digital media ethics? And if so, how do we teach it? I hope that through my research, I will continue to refine my questions and I certainly trust that I will find answers.

I think there are several practical applications of delving in depth in this topic as it relates to my work as an early childhood educator. When we integrate new literacies practices, we must consider how to allow our students to contribute to a global discourse. Inevitably, social media is often the best (and most relevant) means of doing so. As an early childhood educator, I hope that my research will provide me with the best strategies for supporting my students as they navigate their relationship with social media both from a safety and privacy standpoint, and from a mental health perspective.

When I think about digital ethics in an elementary school setting, plagiarism immediately comes to mind. I think about the biographies my second graders wrote last year based on research they conducted using children’s online libraries. I conferenced with many students that wrote papers with no quotation marks or citations. They just copied everything! In our grade team meetings, this was a big challenge across the grade, so I hope to find developmentally appropriate means of teaching students how to properly cite their evidence through my research on digital media ethics.

Annotated Bibliography

Choi, M. (2016). A Concept Analysis of Digital Citizenship for Democratic Citizenship Education in the Internet Age. Theory and Research in Social Education, 44(4), 565–607. 
Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2016.1210549

An education grounded in new literacies practices aims to offer students the means to produce and contribute to a global discourse. With that, this peer-reviewed paper maintains that global citizenship today requires good digital citizenship. It also explores how the concept of digital citizenship has evolved in recent decades. When we consider that one of the broader goals of education is to produce well-informed citizens, it is crucial that we examine the convergence of citizenship and new media.

Flores, A., & James, C. (2013). Morality and ethics behind the screen: Young people’s perspectives on digital life. New Media & Society, 15(6), 834–852. 
Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444812462842

Instead of pondering how to teach digital ethics, this peer-reviewed paper instead presents the findings of interviews with adolescents. The study explores teenagers’ attitudes towards moral and ethical dilemmas that arise online and measures their response up against prominent developmental theories. It is important that any educator hoping to teach digital media ethics carefully considers the voices of young people in framing their instructional approach.

O’Reilly, M., Levine, D., & Law, E. (2021). Applying a “digital ethics of care” philosophy to understand adolescents’ sense of responsibility on social media. Pastoral Care in Education, 39(2), 91–107. 
Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/02643944.2020.1774635

In this peer-reviewed paper, the authors concede that social media poses risks for adolescents, but those risks can be mitigated when providing teenagers with the tools to have a healthy relationship with it. The authors argue that digital ethics should be taught across disciplines and propose a framework that young people can use to understand their relationship with social media. This paper is relevant for educators that intend to integrate the use of social media when applying new media practices.

Ott, T., & Tiozzo, M. (2022). Digital Media Ethics: Benefits and Challenges in School Education. International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning, 14(2), 1–8. 
Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.4018/IJMBL.304459

This article takes the perspective that digital media ethics are a digital competency, and that schools have a responsibility to teach students how to contend with the ethical and moral challenges brought on by the digital world, like cyberbullying and fake news, alongside other more ostensible competencies, like how to upload a document or conduct research online. This source addresses both the benefits and challenges of integrating digital media ethics within new literacies practices. The authors count government (or perhaps school district) policies banning the use of cellphones as amongst the biggest challenges to teaching digital media ethics.

Yanikkaya, B. (2015). A Discussion on Teaching--Ethics And Teaching Communication Ethics in the Digital Age. Global Media Journal (İstanbul), 6(11), 532–553. 
Retrieved from https://web-p-ebscohost-com.sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=89ab8ae2-b119-4269-a128-d45456a4cc6d%40redis

This paper examines the convergence of ethics and teaching and considers how to teach ethics in a digital age. New ethical dilemmas and considerations have emerged in a world where now anyone can get their hands on the technological tools needed to produce content. This peer-reviewed paper presents case studies that explore how some professors tackle plagiarism and later considers ways to teach ethics at the university-level, emphasizing how to navigate fake news and altered content. Though it primarily explores media ethics as it relates to university lecturers and students, K-12 educators should find the suggestions in this paper interesting and adaptable.