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Research participants are often deceived for methodological reasons. However, assessing the ethical acceptability of an individual study that uses deception is not straightforward. The academic literature is scattered on the subject and several aspects of the acceptability assessment are only scarcely addressed, which parallels reports of inconsistent ethics review. Therefore, we aimed to investigate where normative guidance documents agree and disagree about this assessment. A PRISMA-Ethics-guided systematic review of normative guidance documents that discuss deception of research participants was conducted. Our search strategy resulted in 55 documents that were subsequently analyzed through abductive thematic analysis. While guidance documents mention little about specific risks and opportunities of deception, our analysis describes a rich picture of the thresholds for acceptability of the risks and benefits of deception and their integration, the comparison with the risk-benefit analysis of alternative non-deceptive methods, and the bodies of people who are positioned to do the review. Our review reveals an agreement on the general process of assessing the acceptability of studies that use deception, although significant variability remains in the details and several topics are largely or completely unaddressed in guidance documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narrative inquiry has gained traction in applied linguistics as a complementary approach to positivistic research, focusing on the subjectivities of individuals’ lived experiences and using stories as data, analytical tools, and reporting practice. Although numerous methodologically oriented publications on narrative inquiry in the field reflect its vitality, scholars have raised questions about the complexity and ambiguity underlying what exactly constitutes narrative inquiry. While methodological diversity within narrative inquiry can signal innovation, it can also create uncertainty for novice and experienced scholars engaging with the methodology for the first time. To address these concerns, we conducted a systematic methodological synthesis of narrative inquiry studies in applied linguistics published from 2012 to 2022. Specifically, we searched 12 top‐tier applied linguistics journals and developed a corpus of 291 articles. We coded our corpus according to four areas: (a) theoretical framing, (b) demographic characteristics, (c) methodological design, and (d) reporting of ethics, researcher positionality, and funding status. We discuss our results in light of previous thematic reviews of narrative inquiry in applied linguistics, and we offer empirically grounded recommendations for scholars engaging with narrative inquiry. Our study responds to calls for greater methodological transparency in applied linguistics in general and methodological investment in narrative inquiry in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent do journalists differ in their vulnerability to pressure from actors outside media organizations? This study complements research on such external interference by introducing the interference-vulnerability model. It typologizes three types of interference—professional, economic, and violent—that damage three basic motivations of journalists: professional status, economic status, and physical security. Further, it explains journalists’ experience of the three types of interference by their differing vulnerabilities, which stem from their value to external actors and the costs of noncompliance with interference. This argument builds on the theorized dynamic interaction between media professionals and external actors and applies the theory of routine activities and of rational choice. Multivariate regression of 567 journalists’ responses to a survey in Switzerland confirms the proposed model. Professional interference is aimed at informationally vulnerable journalists who publish on sensitive and investigative topics and have a wide reach. Economic interference is aimed at financially vulnerable journalists who cover consumer-oriented topics, have financial decision-making power, and work in economically competitive structures. Violent interference is directed against journalists who are vulnerable because of their identities: women and marginalized minorities. The model helps to explain external interference more comprehensively and to counter threats to journalistic autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtue ethical inspired approaches to practical and professional ethics have long been endorsed across various disciplines. Journalistic ethics is no exception. Call such approaches Virtue Ethical Journalism (VEJ). Virtue ethics has also drawn considerable attention from the field of moral psychology, though not all of it is supportive. Among the critics, some take the view that character traits and virtues are not effective enough in guiding people's behavior. As a result, they conclude that traits should be minimized in ethical thought. Call this stronger view character skepticism. VEJ has taken character skepticism seriously. Many responses to character skepticism defending VEJ, however, raise similar points as those that defend a more general theory of virtue ethics from such skepticism. I argue, however, that such responses to character skepticism are not up to the task of defending VEJ. Accordingly, VEJ would benefit from novel responses to character skepticism or significant revision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Now over a decade since the influential paper Understanding Social Media Logic by van Dijck and Poell was published, the total number, sheer variety and penetration of social media apps in everyday media consumption and production behaviour has exploded. This poses risks and opportunities for legacy media corporations as well as scholars attempting to make sense of the various affordances each individual social media platform offers to facilitate the production, dissemination and consumption of novel types of news content. Drawing on insights from the articles published in this special issue on the characteristics, constraints and contingencies of social media journalism, we seek to advance scholarship by challenging and expanding existing frameworks. We synthesise the current state of research and propose a research agenda for peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As technology chief executive officers have become public figures, their personae operate as loci for journalistic discourse about the intersection of moral responsibilities, regulation, and political-economic power of the tech industry. They possess a power often construed as beyond the reach of politics or civil society to address. This study considers how the ubiquity of tech power has become a kind of common sense in journalistic discourse, specifically looking at news, commentary, and analysis that has circulated around Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg since 2016, arguing that even as critiques of Zuckerberg's moral fitness and leadership capacity proliferate, they construct the epistemic bounds within which tech industry power over American public life is understood as legitimate, even as journalists and commentators question certain executives' ability to wield the tech industry's infrastructural and cultural power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article delves into populist communication based on the analysis that Vox's -- a radical right political party -- uses the press in its official X (Twitter) account. This is an exploratory work on how this political party uses the press to develop its postulates, based on quantitative content analysis. We analyzed messages that include material identified as proceeding from journalistic media and do not refer exclusively to the actions or members of the party itself. The corpus (n = 100) brought together all entries published between June 11th and July 22, 2022, with these characteristics. Based on Patrick Charaudeau (2021), we studied interpretive frameworks and intertextuality. Results: (a) a high presence of the press identified with a similar ideology; (b) extensive domain of interpretive frameworks that point out conflicts; and (c) tendency to grant the press to reinforce the desired interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The artificial intelligence (AI) tools in editorial departments have become common practice within news organisations, which poses challenges for digital journalism. It treads new terrain for both media professionals and their audiences, and it is safe to assume there is no going back to the way things were. These advances in the field require new frameworks and codes of ethics that include ethical principles to mitigate the use of AI in journalism. The fast incorporation of AI into media production processes is marked by a tendency towards the loss of citizens’ trust in the information that media offers, political polarization, and the increasing impact of misinformation. This article analyses the perception of communication professionals in this new scene through the analysis of 99 codes of ethics and 14 international press associations. In addition, audience perception is addressed through a survey taken by nearly 2,000 people. The results indicate that both the public and journalists are worried about misinformation that AI might cause and the potential erosion of trust between journalist and the public . Overwhelmingly, people are advocating for external regulation of its use to preserve the values, the ethical principles, and good practices of journalistic work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Doxa Comunicación is the property of Fundacion Universitaria San Pablo - CEU and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Doxa Comunicación is the property of Fundacion Universitaria San Pablo - CEU and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In recent years, many journalistic organisations have experimented with 360° video technology. One of the reasons for the interest is its potential ability to facilitate the public's emotional engagement. However, this seems to come into conflict with the prevailing idea that news should be presented in an emotionally detached manner. The New York Times is a media outlet that, more than most, conjures up notions of professional and high-quality journalism. The present article chooses the NYT Daily 360 project as a case study to examine the tension between traditional journalist ethics and the emotional bias that seems to characterise immersive technology. We conducted a content analysis to identify the elements that, by emphasizing the mediation between the user and the narrated facts, generate a "deimmersion" effect. As a result, we have observed that, in general, the immersive properties of the videos tend to be mitigated by resources with an opposite effect. Reasoning from this compromise solution between immediacy and hypermediacy, the discussion is based on the problem of the distance between the user and the narrator. To this end, reference is made to theoretical tools from journalism and media studies as well as from art history, literary studies, and semiotics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sheds light on the unprecedented complexities of the Israel–Gaza war, offering insights into the challenges that journalists face in this conflict zone. It employs the Hierarchy of Influences Model to analyze the factors influencing conflict reporting within the dynamic landscape of contemporary war journalism.

Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) is a technology based on algorithms, models, etc., that creates content such as text, audio, images, videos, and code. GAI is deeply integrated into journalism as tools, platforms and systems. However, GAI’s role in journalism dilutes the power of media professionals, changes traditional news production and poses ethical questions. This study attempts to systematically answer these ethical questions in specific journalistic practices from the perspectives of journalistic professionalism and epistemology. Building on the review of GAI’s development and application, this study identifies the responsibilities of news organizations, journalists and audiences, ensuring that they realize the potential of GAI while adhering to journalism professionalism and universal human values to avoid negative technological effects.

This study examines how Black journalists in local legacy newspapers, digital startup media and historically Black newspapers have expressed journalistic objectivity and enacted journalistic roles. Findings showed more neutral coverage in historically white media, which was expected, while coverage in the historically Black newspaper and the digital startup reflected an advocacy role—one that did not fit within the four expected roles. Also, a "clarifier" role emerged in which journalists encouraged local protest groups to distinguish their identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) is a technology based on algorithms, models, etc., that creates content such as text, audio, images, videos, and code. GAI is deeply integrated into journalism as tools, platforms and systems. However, GAI's role in journalism dilutes the power of media professionals, changes traditional news production and poses ethical questions. This study attempts to systematically answer these ethical questions in specific journalistic practices from the perspectives of journalistic professionalism and epistemology. Building on the review of GAI's development and application, this study identifies the responsibilities of news organizations, journalists and audiences, ensuring that they realize the potential of GAI while adhering to journalism professionalism and universal human values to avoid negative technological effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A US experiment (n = 1506) demonstrated how a new approach to writing protest stories challenges press patterns in the United States of underrepresented groups. News stories that explain the goals and background of a protest—a concept called legitimizing—and that humanize—rather than criminalize—a person whose death sparked a protest led news audiences to better understand the protest and those involved in the social movement. We also found that those with conservative political beliefs perceived these stories as less credible than those written following journalistic norms typical in the United States that tend to cast protesters and their causes in a negative light, although the opposite was true for those with liberal views. Results are discussed in relation to the protest paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Index.Comunicación is the property of Index.comunicacion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In light of a history of an unethical news media system used by the state as an instrument of oppression, media ethics in South Africa is intended to uphold the foundational tenets of journalism and play a pivotal role in addressing issues of diversity, equity, and social justice. Most recently, the 2021 Inquiry into Media Ethics and Credibility report instructed media watchdogs, such as the South African Press Council, to track data concerning ethical breaches based on the potential that such data can contribute to transparency and accountability. This study examines the trends in ethical issues raised in rulings by the South African Press Council (PCSA) over the period 2018–2022. Our analysis found that most of the South African news media publications registered with PCSA have a good track record when it comes to upholding ethical standards. However, a few publications have a disproportionate share of the complaints against them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the communication ethics of Ptahhotep and other inclusivist communication value systems, including several additional non-Western (Confucian, Buddhist, Aborigine, Cree, San, Māori, Ubuntu, and Islamic) as well as Western ones (Stoic, Christian, Kantian, socialist, liberal, and journalistic), we propose seven principles as common ground for the future regulation of media communication on a global scale. All seven are formulated in a manner similar to Ptahhotep's, providing a flexible range of norms allowing, for example, hate speech to be dealt with by criminalization, or in civil law, or by means of ethics rules and self-regulation, depending on the severity of the involved threats to humanity, to human beings, or to other core values. We reject an often-paralyzing comparative intercultural juxtaposition of individualism versus collectivism, instead suggesting an inclusivist and interculturally principled common ground for the regulation of communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to assess the persistence of traditional journalistic quality features within the contemporary digital ecosystem. Digital advancements have fundamentally altered media creation, notably with the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) in newsrooms. AI holds potential for substantial shifts in journalism, impacting business models, dissemination methods, and professional practices. Present in 75% of newsrooms, AI streamlines tasks, allowing more creative time for journalists. Ethical and quality concerns persist, particularly regarding AI’s ability to meet journalism’s established quality standards. This article aims to investigate the incorporation of these quality criteria in news articles generated by artificial intelligence (AI). Focus group and in-depth interviews were used as methodological techniques, involving ten experts. It is concluded that journalistic ethics have remained intact despite the disruptive technological advances in recent decades. However, there is a need to integrate these ethics with new criteria associated with the tools being used. Therefore, it is necessary to consider criteria from a dual perspective: both social and technological. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the NBA season2019-2020 was postponed due to the spread of COVID-19 in the United States, it was resumed on July 72020, in a tightly secured environment within Walt Disney World termed as NBAbubble. Only ten sports reporters were allowed within this bubble to provide news coverage for the fans, and they were soon called the Magic 10. The purpose of this exploratory study is to understand, through textual analysis of metajournalistic discourse published about the NBA bubble, how these sports journalists adjusted their practices during an unprecedented sports event. The first theme was the disruption of the journalistic norms and practices of the in-bubble reporters. The second theme manifest in the content was related to reporting on timely social justice issues from within the bubble. The third theme emerged as an element of introspection or reflection about the peculiar experience of reporting from a "bubble." We discuss the implications of these practices for sports journalism and suggest that the NBA bubble may catalyze the relationship between sports and journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do journalists conceive of covering climate change from a lifestyle perspective? Do they think reporting on climate and lifestyle should provide their audiences with advice and solutions for how to make climate friendly choices? We address these questions through a survey among Norwegian journalists and editors with questions about their experience with reporting on climate and lifestyles, their evaluation of the importance of journalism on climate and lifestyle, and what role they see for constructive journalism in the coverage of climate and lifestyle issues. We provide evidence that issues of climate change and lifestyles to some extent are covered by journalists within a range of journalistic beats reflecting that climate change affects lifestyle choices in complex ways. A central idea in our argument is that there is a close conceptual connection between lifestyle journalism and constructive journalism, and we show that there is a systematic relationship between evaluations of the importance of lifestyle journalism and of the role constructive journalism should have in the coverage of climate and lifestyles. We also chart the nature and extent of the disagreement around the role of constructive journalism in the coverage of this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study employs a corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis to demystify the dominant patterns of representations around 5G in the Chinese and British press. Keyword analyses identify four thematic categories around the representation of 5G: the nature of 5G, social actors in 5G discourse, actions around 5G and timing in 5G discourse. Findings suggest that the Chinese press tends to use positive evaluative expressions to depict 5G as a trustworthy and beneficial issue and stress China's strong support for 5G development. In contrast, the British press prefers to frame 5G as a product of geopolitical rivalry and an issue with scientific uncertainties and controversies by repeatedly employing negative language patterns related to 5G risks and conspiracy theories. Besides, a subtle but varying "self versus other" schema is constructed by the two presses. The Chinese press is inclined to use positive predication strategies to construct a positive self-representation, whereas the British press tends to adopt negative predication strategies to portray China as an outgroup and meanwhile use scapegoating strategies to profile Britain as a positive self by using recurrent patterns denoting the pressure exerted on Britain by the United States. Such differences could result from their journalistic ideologies and values and the contrasting socio-political contexts where the two presses are situated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues that the book of Ruth's reopening of Israel's history and national mythology functions in such a way as to redeem, as it were, the plight of the subaltern Moabite—a plight begun with the daughters of Lot in Genesis 19. A parallel is then drawn with the 1619 Project, the recent journalistic project which posits the entire historical sweep of African slavery in North America since 1619 as the defining arc of the United States' founding. As theoretical frames, the essay draws on the work of literary critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (including her concept of "moral love") and political philosopher Arash Abizadeh. In so doing, the essay illustrates how a "functionalist" approach to biblical ethics that balances the content of the biblical narrative with attention to how the text functions in its broader context can provide guidance for contemporary ethical application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Branded content in its informative modality is based on publications that imitate the style and character of editorial content, trying to make its sponsored status go unnoticed by the audience. This research aims to analyse the journalistic quality of these publications through two specific objectives. Firstly, a qualitative methodological proposal is developed to evaluate these sponsored contents. This index considers ten fundamental criteria of journalistic quality and assigns a rating (<10) on a four-level scale (poor, minimal, good and excellent). Secondly, the index is applied to a sample of items published during one month (N=372) in six of the main Spanish digital media. The results reveal minimal standards in informative branded content. Only one of the six analysed media meets the standards of good quality, with a rating of 6.8, while the rest show poor levels of journalistic rigour. Four of the media do not even achieve an overall rating of five out of ten. From a journalistic point of view, informative branded content is concerned with the selection of topics of interest to the public and with the journalistic roles of service and social journalism. However, the sources are few, linked to the sponsoring company, and often unsuitable for addressing the topic. The close link between the content and the brand highlights the risk that branded content poses in guaranteeing the distance between editorial and commercial content. The financial salvation attributed to this advertising becomes, paradoxically, a threat to the legitimacy and independence of journalistic enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The motivation of this research is the identification and exploratory analysis of journalistic projects implemented with artificial intelligence. Furthermore, the main objective is to determine how the media is implementing artificial intelligence in newsrooms. The methodology employed is scoping review, which involves systematic exploration of grey literature (reports), complemented by a descriptive analysis of the identified journalistic products. Thanks to this work, not only have different journalistic projects supported by AI been analyzed, but their limitations have also been identified. This research concludes with evidence-based contributions to the debate on the current and future effects of AI in the journalism sector, with a focus on ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the challenge of audiences as active drivers of journalistic change. It highlights the importance of placing audiences at the center of journalistic strategy, understanding their needs, offering quality content, promoting transparency and credibility, and fostering critical media literacy. The challenges faced by journalism in the digital era are also mentioned, such as the search for virality and the privacy of audience data. The importance of different actors in the transformation of digital journalism is emphasized, from government bodies to audiences and commercial techniques. Additionally, the importance of diversity and inclusion in the media is highlighted, as well as the primacy of journalistic quality. [Extracted from the article]

Trust in the news media is an important prerequisite for democracies. Building on media trust and accuracy research, we investigate reciprocal effects between perceived accuracy and trust in news. We implemented a two-wave online panel survey (N = 952) in the context of the 2021 German federal election. For media individuals' use, we find that trust and accuracy are reciprocally related and are influenced by media use. For the media in general, only trust has an effect on accuracy, whereas media skepticism and cynicism are only associated with trust, not with accuracy. Further results and their implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the application of framing in press publications concerning the protests against the ruling of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal respecting the legality of abortion. Using the modified method of Semetko and Valkenburg the analysis shows that both liberal- and conservative-leaning journalists employ the same types of frames but do it for different purposes and suggest different interpretations of events to the readers. At the same time, the article looks into the possibility of studying evaluative vocabulary and collective symbols as indicators, which help measure the frames used by authors of journalistic pieces. The analysis of these two elements allows for determining which particular frames serve to substantiate the opinions of the authors and to direct the recipients toward the senders' desired interpretations. The analysis also makes it possible to reconstruct the images of the protests presented by conservative and liberal press, respectively, thanks to which their attitude toward the situation in Poland between October and December 2020 becomes apparent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research background: After major scandals in apparently reputable and solvent companies, added to the great economic crises of recent decades, accounting and finance have become a fundamental discipline for the correct study of these events from an ethical point of view. Philosophers, economists and even religious people have wanted to contribute their grain of sand to the study of the ethical behaviour of companies and make it go beyond mere administration. In recent years, non-financial reporting has been gaining ground, to the point that the legal system now makes it compulsory in most Western countries. Purpose of the article: This study aims to review and summarize the role of ethics in the sustainability reporting so as to develop a holistic framework of ethics in the sustainability reporting; review the evolution of the research field; and identify the most significant research tendencies enabling the proposal of several future research directions. Methods: Using the Scopus and Web of Science databases, a bibliometric analysis has been carried out in the field of accounting on this topic from its formal origins in the 1980s to the present day, in addition to highlighting the importance of sustainability. 271 articles have been used as a basis for developing the main trends at bibliographic, geographical and institutional levels. Findings & value added: This study highlights the importance of incorporating ethics in nonfinancial information as a field of research, through two very different lines of research that have gained importance in recent years: ethics in business and the growing relevance of nonfinancial information. It also incorporates a bibliometric analysis with information obtained from two major databases: Scopus and Web of Science. The use of both databases makes it possible to broaden the body of articles covered, compared to other bibliometric analyses previously carried out on similar topics, and allows for the inclusion of more relevant articles on this subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When journalists accuse politicians of deception and politicians return fire, how do voters decide what to believe? Grounded on truth-default theory and visual primacy theory, this paper reports experiments with stimuli of interviews in which a journalist accuses a politician of deceptive evasion. In Study 1, we manipulate whether the journalist's allegation is accurate. Voters seem unable to tell, basing their perceptions on the politician's demeanor. In Study 2 we test the effect of a politician honestly refuting a dishonest journalist. Voters still attend to demeanor, not verbal message content. In Study 3 partisanship, verbal refutation, and nonverbal demeanor interact. Democratic voters respond more favorably to their politician refuting a journalist and are not misled by demeanor like Republicans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]