Controversies in Digital Ethics

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Controversies in Digital Ethics explores ethical frameworks within digital culture. Through a combination of theoretical examination and specific case studies, the essays in this volume provide a vigorous examination of ethics in a highly individualistic and mediated world. Focusing on specific controversiesprivacy, surveillance, identity politics, participatory culturethe authors in this volume provide a roadmap for navigating the thorny ethical issues in new media. Paul Booth and Amber Davisson bring together multiple writers working from different theoretical traditions to represent the multiplicity of ethics in the 21st century. Each essay has been chosen to focus on a particular issue in contemporary ethical thinking in order to both facilitate classroom discussion and further scholarship in digital media ethics. Accessible for students, but with a robust analysis providing contemporary scholarship in media ethics, this collection unites theory, case studies, and practice within one volume.

Reviews

Controversies in Digital Ethics addresses the complex issues raised by the intrusion of digital technologies in our private lives and public spaces, ranging from interpersonal relationships to professional interactions to mass entertainment. As technology alters media, we must continue to interrogate our ethical frameworks for evaluating its impact on our lives, adjusting the traditional ethical models to meet new challenges from creep shots to digital hactivism to game design and social robots. Traditional ethical models for understanding communication have lagged behind the rapid evolution of media formats that affect a broad variety of fields from journalism, advertising, and public relations to politics, crowd-sourcing, and entertainment. This volume raises complex questions that underscore moral decisions, aiding producers and consumers of digital technologies to evaluate mediated messages through a series of case studies. It also recognizes the shifting power dynamic as consumers become producers of media in a world that is being rapidly transformed by participatory knowledge. As we find ourselves in situations that we could not have anticipated even a few years ago, we simultaneously confront controversies that are generated with the increased capacity to create, process, and distribute media. These essays illuminate the intersections where innovations challenge behaviors, asking the reader to reflect on the struggle to arrive at new guidelines for behavior from these quandaries. * Kathleen German, Professor of Media and Culture, Miami University, USA *
Networked life often reminds us that communication situations were never as clear cut as we thought, and Controversies in Digital Ethics provides us with a range of tools for navigating the ethical predicaments that emerge in digital spaces. Davisson and Booth's collection expertly demonstrates how to ask the right questions as we become immersed and enmeshed in the various controversies of the digital world. * James J. Brown, Jr., Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Digital Studies Center, Rutgers University-Camden, USA *
Controversies in Digital Ethics offers a comprehensive look at the ethical complexities of the digital lives we live. Focusing on a vast selection of topics, everything from fandom to cyberbullying, this edited volume offers an important set of case studies that encourage us to think critically about how these ethical moments challenge our sense of self and collective communities. * Adrienne Massanari, Assistant Professor of Communication, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA *

Author Bio

Amber Davisson is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Keene State College, USA. She is the author of Lady Gaga and the Remaking of Celebrity Culture (2013). Her research on political communication in digital spaces has appeared in Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Journal of Media & Digital Literacy, Journal of Visual Literacy, and the American Communication Journal. Paul Booth is a Professor of Communication at DePaul University, USA. He is the author of Digital Fandom: New Media Studies (2010), Time on TV: Temporal Displacement and Mashup Television (2012), Playing Fans: Negotiating Fandom and Media in the Digital Age (2015) and Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games (Bloomsbury, 2015). He is the editor of Fan Phenomena: Doctor Who (2013).