Can ethics be applied internationally?

Welcome back to my blog, where I discuss topics related to international public relations. This week I will discuss ethics and whether ethical standards can be applied internationally. Let's begin:

I am sure we all understand what the term ethics means, but for the sake of this post, I will briefly summarize the definition. Ethics are moral principles that govern how a person should behave. In the business sense, codes of ethics are documents that formalize the expectations of how any employee should act in an organization, from management to the front line. Codes of ethics outline the ideal behaviors expected from all employees. Codes of ethics help mitigate crises in an organization and maintain its reputation.

Now that that's all cleared up, I will lead us right into the first article for this week, 'Business Ethics: International Analysis Of Codes Of Ethics And Conduct' written by Otávio Bandeira De Lamônica Freire. The author conducts a study to determine the differences in codes of ethics in the largest companies in Brazil and Portugal. The intention of this study was to see how similar the two countries are in the practice of codes of ethics considering their language and cultural similarities. The important aspect of this article for me was the discussion on how culture shapes ethics. Freire states, "The business ethics stem from the culture where the organization is located, which frames laws, regulations, rules, values, policies and codes of conduct", this takes us back to our initial discussion of culture and how it affects businesses domestically and internationally. Culture shapes a lot of different facets of life and it is different for everyone. Ethics require people to govern themselves based on a set of moral principles, but those principles are different for various cultures. In this article, it was mentioned that Spanish, Argentinean, and Brazilian companies consider human virtues to be the most important factor when creating codes of ethics for their companies followed by universal ethical principles and socially accepted values. These principles are certainly different than those found in other countries such as China, or Saudi Arabia. 

This theme was repeated in the article 'The Issue of Ethics in International Communication: A Critical Theoretical Examination of an Enduring Philosophical Debate'. The author stated that the notion of ethics is closely related to the concept of culture. The author states that communication ethics is not given, but is created in the process. Ethics can only be created under certain conditions. Being, that elements of ethical standards in cultures must be considered when creating ethical codes. This seems like a no-brainer to me and as I've stated previously culture plays a part in every facet of a person's life and culture itself is different for everybody. 

The article 'Ethics, Globalization and Intercultural Communication' written by Robert Vaagan details the ethical challenges that communication scholars face when creating codes of ethics internationally. The individualistic values that we hold as Westerns can challenge those of collectivistic countries. I personally don't believe that there can be a universalist approach when creating ethical standards.

This leads me to my discussion on the next article, 'Ethical Issues in Global Communication' by Robert Shuter. This article challenges the idea of universally applied ethics and discusses why culture should be the basis for creating ethical standards. Shuter also discusses the topic of information domination and how media conglomerates control the media and messaging which negatively affects the people. I thought this concept of information domination was particularly interesting because it is highly relevant in today's time. Information domination is explained as the control of technology, media, and their messages from individual countries to transnational corporate entities which determine access to and the content of information. According to Sussman and Lent (1991), "transnational mergers are identified by selected corporations that produce further Western corporate domination of communication industries". These would be media giants such as Comcast, AT&T, and the new big player in media — Disney. This article is a little outdated as it identifies older, less relevant companies like GTE and Alcatel. I want to include this graphic below from Vox to show what the current face of media conglomerates looks like today. This topic is important to discuss and I think that the more power that these companies have, the less likely it is for people to be receiving fair reporting and unbiased content.

Clifford G. Christians elaborate more on the power of the media concept in the article 'New Digital Technology and Global Communication Ethics'. Christians state, "The unlimited amount of electronic data is a golden resource for public information, but management techniques by governments and business redirect big data toward surveillance and consumerism" where other entities have control over what messages are being put out and through what mediums. The article also identifies 8 ethical issues distinct from print and broadcast media associated with the Internet and, ideally, social media as well. One of the issues I'd like to point out is the problem of social justice. The context would be social justice in the distribution of products and services. This problem was brought up in another article as well so I thought it was definitely worth mentioning. Christians states "media access ought to be available to every one according to essential needs, regardless of income or geographical location", however, this is not the case in many countries. Places like Africa and certain parts of Asia are lacking access to the media and information. Christians also relate back to the concept of the global village but support Debatin's (2008) perspective stating that it is most similar to a gated community. There is a digital divide between the rich and poor and their access to information technology. 

The global village concept created by Marshall McLuhan is repeated in the article by C.G. Jacobsen, "World With/Out Wars: Moral Spaces and The Ethics of Transnational Communication". He states that the global village has changed. He speaks to globalist and localist concepts and how people and groups find their place in the global hierarchy according to their degree of access to economic, political, and communication resources. One of the more important aspects I drew from this article was the sensationalization of the media to provoke the interest of the public. Jacobsen states, "Although all reality is socially constructed, when the commercial media manufacture it to achieve high entertainment value and ratings, the sensational and abnormal fake precedence over the routinized forms of human suffering such as malnutrition, child mortality, forced migration, and short life-expectancy". I thought this point was very interesting because we spoke previously about this in class and I can agree with his viewpoint. Everything in the media nowadays is sensationalized causing people to become desensitized to certain social issues and news stories.

All in all, culture (once again) plays a huge part in the daily lives of everybody. No one is not affected by their particular culture. And when we discuss applying ethical standards internationally, we have to reference and consider the culture of the country when creating codes of conduct for business or in general. I don't believe that there can be universal standards when it comes to ethics and I also think ethics can be fluid. Your religion, upbringing, region, family, and life experiences can change how you decide to act morally and conduct yourself. I do believe there are general things that you shouldn't do as a human being (killing, maiming, and the like) but I think to each their own.

I know this was a lot and I kinda jumped around everywhere, but I hope this makes sense! Thank you for reading, and I'll see you next week 🙂