This ethics class it the third ethics
class that I have taken at UNT. While this
one focuses mainly on the journalism and advertising side of things, my others
focused on media ethics and the other with race and gender. I now feel as if I know all sides of the
ethical stratosphere for the media world, and it is very helpful to know what
to do and what not to do when I go on to be a professional in this field.
The
part I enjoy most about these classes are the case studies that we use to gain
some knowledge about. My personal
favorite is the last case study we did over the Blackfish documentary and SeaWorld
controversy. I had seen Blackfish when
it originally first came out, and I knew that the film would not be very good
for SeaWorld. However, what was most
interesting was to see the way in which SeaWorld handled all of the controversy. Let’s just say, they didn’t handle it very
well. It surprised me how much SeaWorld
has gotten away with over the past 30 years, especially when it came to
protecting it’s trainers and the killer whales.
The biggest issue I saw with SeaWorld and Blackfish was the fact that
SeaWorld said that Dawn Brancheau was responsible for her own death because she
had her hair in a ponytail. It’s kind of
amazing how far a place like SeaWorld will go just to cover up their own
mistakes. It is comforting to know that
SeaWorld has taken a major blow and isn’t doing as well as they used to.
Another
part of this class that I really enjoyed was the second blog post we did, which
was over ethics in advertising. I find
it interesting because I do more of the PR side of journalism, and so when I
can research case studies on advertising, I feel like I learn a lot. It is a little insane to me to know how much
some companies get away with their advertising.
The one I mainly talked about was American Apparel, and their
objectification towards women and promiscuous advertising. I remember reading
articles about the owner of American Apparel and he has always caused trouble because
of his perversion.
One of
my favorite lectures was over subliminal advertising. I had always believed that subliminal
advertising was very real, but after the lecture I was a little unsure. However, there were some advertisements that
I felt like were looked into too much by people, such as Coca-Cola where people
swear they see a person snorting cocaine in the logo. I think people try a little too hard
sometimes when trying to find subliminal signs in advertising. While I still believe that subliminal
advertising is somewhat prominent, I also don’t think that advertisers try that
hard to get someone to buy their product.
While it is fun to research different theories that people have about
certain logos or advertisements they sometimes are a bit too much.
One of
the “oh-wow,” moments that I had came from when we talked more about the law in
media. I think that one thing we forget
as journalists or PR people is the fact that you have to deal with a lot of
legal issues as well, and you have to be very careful about what you put out
there. We focused mostly on libel and
slander, and while researching for blog, I realized just with one simply
statement, you can start an entire legal battle that can cost you. It is a little intimidating thinking about
all that can go wrong, but it is also good to learn about it, so that we know
not what to do when we work in this field.
It seems that you also learn a lot about just how protective people are
of their trademarks and copyright material.
The most shocking one was when Starbucks tried to sue that other coffee
logo even though it really did not look that similar. However, when a company like Starbucks, with
its’ wide reach, doesn’t like something, it is a lot easier for them to sue
another company and win. I have always
found the legal side of media ethics to be the most interesting, and it was
nice to hear about cases on the journalism and advertising side of things.
The
most important thing I learned that can help me in my profession was mainly the
law part, but really all of what we learned is most likely going to be used at
least once when I go on to be a professional.
Ethics is an important class for college students to take mostly, because
we haven’t fully worked in the professional environment yet, and if we can go
into a job with a code of ethics already learned, we can be more
successful.
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