Emphasizing the intertwined concepts of freedom of the press and social responsibility, World Media Ethics is the first book to cover media ethics from a truly global perspective. Written by two experts in global media ethics with extensive teaching experience, this work is a comprehensive introduction to ethical theory and practice, and covers the whole spectrum of media from news, film, and television to advertising, public relations, and digital media.

Case studies on hot topics and issues of enduring importance in media studies are introduced and thoroughly analyzed. The case studies are drawn from recent events worldwide, including the abduction of three Israeli settlers from the West Bank in 2014 (the idea of 󒀜humanizing terrorists󒀝); the kidnapping of several hundred Nigerian girls by Boko Haram in 2014 (the influence of Western perspective on reporting international events); and licensing, secrecy agreements, and independence of the press in Asia (the relationship between journalists and governments).

End-of-chapter exercises, discussion questions, and commentary supplement the many specific questions put to students in the text itself, all designed as prompts to facilitate student application of ethical theories in real-life situations.

This work is a foundational resource for journalism students and professional journalists alike.

Robert S. Fortner is Professor of Communication and Media at Palm Beach Atlantic University, USA. He has published widely on international communication, global public diplomacy, the history of international media, media ethics, and media theory. Most recently, he has been the co-editor of The Handbook of Media and Mass Communication Theory (two-volume set, Wiley-Blackwell, 2014) and The Handbook of Global Communication and Media Ethics (two-volume set, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011). He has extensive experience teaching, lecturing, and interacting with media practitioners in various countries around the world, from Moscow to Nairobi, and Abidjan to Ulan Bator.

P. Mark Fackler is Emeritus Professor of Communication at Calvin College, USA, and has written extensively on communication and journalism ethics. He is the co-author of Media Ethics: Cases and Moral Reasoning (10th edition, 2016), Ethics for Public Communication (2011), and Ethics and Evil in the Public Sphere (2010). He is the co-editor of The Handbook of Media and Mass Communication Theory (two-volume set, Wiley-Blackwell, 2014) and The Handbook of Global Communication and Media Ethics (two-volume set, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011). He has taught communication ethics in Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia, and publishes with African scholars on media ethics in that region.

The genesis of this book was a course taught at the American University in Bulgaria in the fall of 2011. When Robert arrived on campus, the text for this course had already been ordered. It was one of the standard media ethics texts used in U.S. journalism and media programs. It included some case studies from outside the United States, but most were domestic. As the course progressed it became clear that the situation of most students enrolled was significantly different than in the United States, and the case studies were of limited value in those contexts.

Many of the students had already worked in media organizations as interns, some as part-time employees, some as volunteers. They began to bring their experiences to Robert for advice. One student had been an intern in a Moscow television station. She was expected to have sex with any foreign visitors to the station and her female supervisor, when she objected to that expectation, told her, “It's just sex. What's the big deal?” She left her internship. Another student thought there was a story in an encounter in a Sofia hospital where she had been told by a horrified visitor that there was a corpse in the women's toilet. Her idea was turned down by the editor who told her, “There's no story there. That happens everywhere.” When she followed up anyway, she discovered that this was a common practice because the hospital didn't want anyone pronounced dead to “wake up” in the morgue, so their bodies were left for some time in the toilets to make sure they were actually deceased. A third student was told she needed to be part of a sting operation targeting casinos that allowed underage children to gamble. She was asked to play the part of a child. She objected. So she was told to recruit an actual child. Again she objected, telling the producer that casinos were run by known mobsters, and playing such a role, or recruiting someone to do so, could put their lives in danger once the story aired. She was fired.

Many students came from countries, such as Georgia, Belarus, or Turkmenistan, that had strict controls over the press, and / or had media owners who cozied up to the political powers such that they could do what they liked, without consequence, or who were targeted by political elites for adverse reports and whose employees were often beaten up or jailed for stories. One student's mother had to flee Kyrgyzstan when her extended family was threatened as a result of her reporting on a labor strike that had been brutally put down by the military.

Using a text that emerged from an environment of independent ownership, professional commitments, and a guaranteed free press became increasingly problematic. Ethics in a “free” versus a corrupt, controlled, or amoral environment seemed to Robert a stretch too far. These students' experiences were merely one type of experience outside the zone of a free press. Experiences both Mark and Robert have had in other contexts, from Europe to the Middle East and North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Asia, culminated in the decision to write this book.