Blog Ethics - Ethical Principles And Codes

Abstract

Technology development facilitates numerous changes in different areas - social, economic, scientific, etc. New kinds of journalism have appeared, along with numerous questions and ethical problems. Citizens become prosumers, and the need for media literacy is growing. The author explores ethical aspects of media literacy. This research primarily focuses on the ethical regulation of blogs as one of the most widespread forms of expressing opinions among people. Blogging is a tool of citizen journalism which impacts the public sphere; it requires a critical reflection and ethical regulation. The pioneer of blogging, Tim Dunlop (2003), points out that blogs revive the art of argumentation and the idea of public debates. By using descriptive methods, the author analyzes ethical values - credibility, authenticity, justice and objectivity. At the end of the paper, the author compares the ethical Codes for Bloggers with the ethical Codes for Journalism in Norway with the aim of finding commonalities and differences among principles. The conclusion is that it is useful to the welfare of societies to ethically regulate blogs, which has already been done in certain countries. It is important to disseminate knowledge about the importance of ethics for bloggers to young people and journalists because they belong to public spheres. The Blogging Codes are akin to Codes for Journalists, since in both Codes basic ethical values prevail.