doi.org/10.15198/seeci.2017.42.161-162
REPORT

ETHICS IN THE MEDIA:PRESS, RADIO, TV AND CINEMA

Graciela Padilla Castillo¹

¹Complutense University of Madrid. Spain.
gracielp@ucm.es

María del Mar López Talavera
Editorial UOC, Barcelona, 2016

We are faced with an essential and necessary manual. Ethics in the media: press, radio, TV and cinema is aimed at students and professionals in information and communication science and it arises with the intention to contribute content and ideas for successful solution of ethical dilemmas that arise in the professional practice of journalism and audiovisual communication.
Throughout its nine chapters, current topics of practical application are addressed such as, among others, ethical treatment of information on violence and terrorism; misleading advertising and subliminal information; ethics of television advertisements; influence of television on children; photographer’s ethics in press and paparazzi; professional ethics of radio circles; importance of the quality of television content; trash TV and social responsibility of the filmmaker.
The first chapters are introductory. First, the reader delves into the historical approaches of the concept of Ethos, understanding its importance. The second chapter takes him to ethics applied to the field of professions and the difference between Ethics and Professional Deontology. The third chapter lands on the ethics of the journalist and the audiovisual communicator.
From the fourth chapter on, we leave aside the conceptual definitions and we move into an eminently practical field intended for action, which is as Professional Deontology should be conceived and taught. Ethics, like any other science, not only requires technical and theoretical learning but also, and above all, practical learning so that it can contribute comprehensive training to the person.
In this respect, the fourth chapter, crumbles -one by one- the doctrinal content of each of the general principles of Journalistic Ethics and Audiovisual Communication and culminates with a wide range of case studies, all related to this cast of ethical principles, useful for discussion, reflection and solution in the classroom.
The fifth chapter deals with ethics in photography and ends with practical cases applied to this subject. The sixth, seventh and eighth chapters analyze specific deontology in radio, television and cinema, respectively, with specific case studies in these areas, while the last chapter is about the deontological codes applied to the press, radio, television and cinema.

Graciela Padilla Castillo
Professor of Ethics and Deontology in Journalism and Advertising at the Faculty of Information Sciences, Department of Journalism III, Complutense University of Madrid. Doctor of Communication and Journalism and Bachelor of Audiovisual Communication