The Era of Mass Citizen Journalism: Can Ethics Codes Be Applied?

Audrinna Wilde

aw455919@ohio.edu

audrianna.wilde@gmail.com

The digital age of news and information has changed the way in which journalism is produced, delivered, and consumed. The practice of journalism has rapidly and radically changed, so much so that the field now is hardly reminiscent of what it once was only a decade ago. Because there have been so many major changes to the foundational pieces of journalism, there must be changes made to the ethical codes by which journalists abide.

The ethical codes of old no longer fit the context of how journalism looks today. For example, independence, which used to be a core value of journalism, does not make sense in the world today that is now more aware than ever that journalists hold their own motives, regardless of how objective they attempt to be. Independence did, however, make sense when explaining motives took up too much space on a page, making neutrality the easier approach.

Instead of independence, transparency makes more sense as a core value for a journalist in the digital age. Transparency allows the journalist to make their motives known rather than concealing them, which then lets the audience make the judgment on the trustworthiness of the news that is presented to them. This is more feasible with the technology and digital news outlets accessible to us today.

Coming up with core values and codes that ensure these values are followed is a task in itself. The public's trust in journalism is already at an all-time low, so journalists must make certain that they have guidelines that help build up this waning trust.

So what happens when everyone has the ability to spread news and information in seconds?

The digital age has flooded users' dashboards with a constant stream of worldwide happenings, from not only qualified news outlets run by trained professionals in their field, but also from everyday people with access to the internet.

Non-journalists do not have the SPJ Code of Ethics in their back pockets, ready to reference before they share, retweet, like or post on the internet, and "good morals" are inherently vague because they are different for everyone.

Source: Pew Research Center

According to a study performed by Pew Research Center in 2019, about one in five U.S. adults get their news on social media. Could this be why journalism is so widely distrusted? The increased role that citizen journalism plays in staying informed might just be. As everyday people begin to act as "the media", actual news begins to blend in with user-generated content.

While this trend presents a problem, the issue of whether or not anything can be done still lingers. Social media platforms such as Instagram launched a series of initiatives in March 2020 to stop the spread of false information being posted by non-credible sources. In June 2020, Twitter announced it would be testing a new prompt that asks users if they would like to read news stories before retweeting them in order to staunch the spread of misinformation or anger invoking headlines.

Will these initiatives, and more like them, be able to make users think ethically before sharing? Might ethical codes be applied more in the free-for-all that is social media? And what might these ethical codes look like for digital citizens? Will these ethical codes resemble those of journalists? In time, just as the world of journalism has changed drastically, the way in which journalists and everyday internet users utilize social media may come to change.