why is ethics in communication important essay

Importance of Ethics in Communication Essay

Introduction, what is communication ethics, how can one observe ethics in communication, unethical communication, importance of ethics in communication.

In any organization, the workplace needs to be run in such a way that every person feels part of the organization. On many occasions, decisions are made by the leaders and supervisors, leaving the subordinates as mere observers. Self-initiative is crucial in solving some of the problems that arise and as such, every employee is expected to possess self initiative.

Communication ethics is an integral part of the decision making process in an organization. Employees need to be trained on the importance of ethics in decision making so as to get rid of the blame game factor when wrong choices are made. The working place has changed and the employees have become more independent in the decision making process.

The issue that arises is whether employees make the right decision that would benefit the company or they make the wrong choices that call for the downfall of the company. Some organizations have called for the establishment of an ethics program that can aid and empower employees so that unethical actions would be intolerable. This is because occasionally, bad decisions destroy organizations making the whole decision making process unethical.

Some programs on good ethics can help in guiding the employees in the process of decision making. This would ensure the smooth running of organizations and instances of unethical decision making would be null. An ethical decision making process is important in ensuring that the decisions made by the employees are beneficial to organization welfare and operations.

Ethical communication is prudent in both the society and the organizations. The society can remain functional if every person acted in a way that defines and satisfies who they are. However, this could be short lived because of the high probability of making unethical decisions and consequently, a chaotic society. For this reason, it would be of essence to make ethical rules based on a set guidelines and principles.

Ethical communications is defined by ethical behavioral principles that include honesty, concern on counterparts, fairness, and integrity. This cannot be achieved if everyone acted in isolation. The action would not be of any good to most people. Adler and Elmhorst (12) note that actions should be based on the professional ethics where other professionals have to agree that the actions in question are ethical and standard. If a behavior is standard there is nothing to fear if exposed to the media.

However, unethical behavior can taint the reputation of an organization. An action needs to do good to most people in the long run. Adler and Elmhorst (12) note that this golden rule needs to be applicable in organizations. Failure to do this, it becomes an obstacle to this principle.

In achieving the ideals, several obstacles are bound to arise in the process of decision making. Rationalizations often distract individuals involved in making tough decisions. According to the Josephson Institute of ethics (2002) the false assumption that people hold on to that necessity leads to propriety can be judgmental that unethical tasks are part of the moral imperative.

For example, assuming that a particular action is necessary and it lies in the ethical domain is a mere assumption that can be suicidal to an organization. This necessity assumption often leads to a false necessity trap that prompts individuals to take actions without putting into account the cost of doing or failing to do the right thing (Josephson Institute of ethics, Para 5). As part of a routine job, it is likely to be an obstacle in the sense that an individual is doing what he/she got to do.

For example, morality of professional behavior is often neglected at the workplace and on most occasions, people do what they feel is justifiable although it is morally wrong even if not in that context. Individuals often assume that if everyone is doing a certain action, then it is ethical. However, this is not the right way to go as the accountability of individuals and their behaviors should not be treated as a norm in the organization. For example, we could assume that everyone tells lies in an organization.

This assumption is uncertain because lying is unethical and can hinder the achievement of certain goals in an organizational. It may not bring harm at the given time but in the long run it may be chaotic. An observation by the Josephson Institute of Ethics (para 9) is that false rationalization is just an excuse to commit unethical conduct. Basically, the assumption that an action would not harm somebody or the organization does not give the limelight to committing unethical deeds.

The management of an organization should make the ethics of their employees their concern and business. The assumption that employees can make ethical decisions without advising them on what is ethical and then blaming the employees in case the plan backfires is unethical. In ensuring that the actions carried by employees are ethical, the human resource management should set up ethical programs within the organization.

As noted by Flynn (30) the principles of ethical behavior are bound to develop if an organization itself practices acts of ethics. For example, honesty, fairness, concern for others, morality and truthfulness can be achieved if code of ethical conduct is practiced in organization. In achieving an ethical decision some steps need to be followed. Decisions making should be ethical and objective to the organization and its components.

According to Flynn (37) the rules of the Texas instrument company noted that the legality of an action is of imperative importance. If for example an action is illegal then the law should not be broken because an action has to be taken. Instead, the executioner of the action needs to stop right away. Actions need to comply with the values of an organization. If the actions cannot comply with the set organizational values then the action may not fit well.

An action carried should not make someone feel bad or the actions carried should not be harmful to the executioner. The public image of an action in the newspaper or media should be considerate. An action should be within a given timeframe and be done even if its appearance will affect it. For an action that one is not sure, they are obligated to ask and if not satisfied they continue asking until an answer is got (Flynn 37).

Communication ethics is important in the operation of an organization. The way in which decision making is carried in an organization determines the outcome. Ethical decision making process is necessary in an organization. Some of the obstacles that restrict rationalization are merely based on assumptions. They lead to downfall or negative ramifications that affect the organizations. Organizational managers are advised to take decision making of employees as their own concern.

Legitimacy of actions is important and so are the values, because some actions maybe illegal or values fail to meet the organizational values. This may have negative impact if they are not illegal or in line with organizational goals. In general, ethical decision making process is important as it saves a company from the problems it would face for its unethical actions

Works Cited

Adler, Ronald B. and Jeanne Marquardt Elmhorst. Communicating at Work . 9 th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2008. Print.

Flynn, Gillian. “Make Employee Ethics Your Business.” Personnel Journal ( 1995) 74.6: 30-37. Web.

Josephson Institute of Ethics. “Making Ethical Decisions—Part Five: Obstacles to Ethical Decision Making.” Accounting Web (2002 ). Web.

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why is ethics in communication important essay

Together, We Succeed.

The importance of communication ethics.

Brown University describes ethics as “a set of standards for behavior that helps us decide how we ought to act in a range of situations.” But it’s more than just right and wrong, because hard decisions are not always so clear, and knowing how to make them is an important next step. The communication professional must carry both the understanding of ethical principles and the strict adherence to these values, as well as the ability to adhere to them through media literacy, research, fact-checking, and analytical skills. It’s two-fold: they must have both understanding and ability.

Building ethical understanding for communication professionals

Communication professionals who have thought about potential decisions they might have to make and hold true to their own codes of ethics are more likely to know what to do when faced with these decisions. Courses in Communication ethics, like the one all Communication students take at Saint Vincent, are crucial to help future communication professionals, journalists, PR professionals, and more navigate complex situations with these principles in mind.

Professional communicators are often faced with complicated decisions surrounding the ethics of their work. Decisions surrounding the credibility of sources. Decisions surrounding divulging certain names, or the language used in speaking about people. In business communication, communicators must achieve their company’s financial goals without sacrificing truth, accuracy, others’ privacy, and other obligations. These are just a few of the many examples.

The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics declares four principles as the “foundation of ethical journalism and encourages their use in its practice by all people in all media.”

First, Seek Truth and Report it.
Second, Minimize harm
Third, Act Independently
Be Accountable and Transparent

Because of the fast-paced nature of communication today, and its ability to spread quickly to places outside of one’s control, it is crucial that professional communicators adhere to these specific rules around accuracy, truth, respect, and more. Ethical communication is delivering your message in a way that is “clear, concise, truthful and responsible.”

Developing the concrete skills to becoming an ethical communicator

The reality is that it is easy to become a published communicator, but it is a challenge to do so with a strong tie to these principles. How do you truly adhere to principles of accuracy and clarity? You learn how to become a strong writer, you learn how to tell the difference between solid research and accurate sources and something less reliable, and how to check every fact. That is why, in addition to understanding the ethical principles surrounding ethical decision-making, communication professionals must truly understand the work that goes into accurate reporting. Courses like CA 201 Communication Research Methods and CA 230 Writing for Media among others at Saint Vincent work to build these skills so that communication graduates become responsible professionals able to take on the challenges this field faces every day.

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Media, Communications & Publishing

Ethical Communication and Its Importance: A Simple Guide

LHT Learning
May 5, 2022

The Importance of Ethical Communication

Ethical communication is essential for upholding a strong culture of compliance in the workplace. When done correctly, ethical communications can bolster your company’s character and decrease overall risk. However, when ethics are cast aside, businesses can face severe financial, legal, and reputational costs.

What Is Ethical Communication?

Put simply, ethical communication is communicating in a way that’s honest, open, clear, and respectful. These four pillars are essential for upholding strong communication ethics within your business. When even one pillar is left out, your foundation of ethics begins to weaken and crumble.

It may seem obvious, but don’t lie! Not only is it unethical, but spreading lies is the #1 way for your business to lose the trust of its customers and stakeholders. Without trust, your reputation will suffer, and customers are likely to stop buying from you . To ensure your communications are consistently honest, stick to the facts. Stretching the truth, making assumptions, and reading between the lines will only hurt your business in the long run.

Aside from confidential information, there’s usually no such thing as TMI in business. You need to pair your honesty with a willingness to share in order to be truly ethical. For example, a business may communicate in a way that’s technically 100% honest, but omits relevant information from customers and stakeholders. Because the withheld information has the potential to influence decision-making, the company is not practicing good communication ethics. Company’s need to be transparent about every relevant aspect of their business, even if the news is negative.

In many cases, misconduct isn’t born out of malicious intent, but misunderstanding. After all, it only takes one poorly worded document or passing comment to create a chain of confusion that spirals into misconduct. Because every person in your target audience must be able to understand your meaning, your business communications need to be as clear and concise as possible.

It should go without saying that ethical communications are respectful and tolerant in nature. When creating business communications, be mindful of the diverse identities of your intended audience and how they might interpret your message. The recipient should always feel like your company values their identity, ideas, and opinions. Using respectful communication will help promote a culture of open communication, decreasing potential retaliation and reporting concerns.

Dos and Don’ts of Ethical Communication

Even the smallest of communications can have a big impact on your workplace’s ethical culture. Knowing what to consider and what to avoid is essential when crafting your business communications.

Do: Consider Your Audience

Who is going to be on the receiving end of your communications? Your boss? Coworkers? Customers? Depending on who your message is intended for, your communication style will likely vary. In order to make your message as clear and relevant as possible, always keep your intended audience front of mind. Considering your recipient’s needs, knowledge level, and relationship to you will help eliminate any uncertainty or unintended interpretations.

Don’t: Use Jargon

Some businesses might be tempted to use wordy language and jargon to impress their audience. However, don’t fall into the trap of “sesquipedalian loquaciousness” (AKA using big words to appear smarter). In fact, studies show that needlessly using long, complex words actually makes you appear less intelligent . The most likely outcome is that recipients simply won’t understand what you’re trying to say. Ultimately, this leads them to wonder if you’re intentionally misleading them and calls your business ethics into question.

Do: Prioritize Accessibility

Your speaking and writing efforts are only as good as your ability to share them with your audience. Prioritizing accessibility across language, technology, and ability shows your business is dedicated to including all people in its communications.

Language Accessibility

The world is made up of over 7,000 different languages. While it would be impossible (and unnecessary) for your business to include every single one, you should make an effort to communicate in the language of your intended audience. When communicating directly in the target language isn’t an option, offering translation services or subtitles is another best-practice way to ensure your audience understands the message. For example, a global company should offer multiple language options in its eLearning training courses to ensure employees across the world understand its content.

Technology Accessibility

Despite the rapid advancement of technology, not everyone can access the internet or the equipment to do so reliably. Some audiences may have access to technology, but a limited understanding of its functionality. Businesses should consider what modes of communication their intended audience typically uses and make an effort to communicate across those channels. Not only is this a way to communicate ethically, but it’s an effective marketing strategy to meet customers where they’re at, even if it’s not in the digital realm. Companies can also use print resources and in-person training sessions to help bridge the technology gap among employees.

Disability Accessibility

Imagine your company is preparing a video presentation for a client. After you press play, you notice your client can’t understand its contents because she is hard of hearing and the video was not embedded with subtitles. This is a major and embarrassing oversight for the company that could have been resolved by better preparing the communication materials. Before deploying your communications, consider how people with disabilities might interact with them. Additionally, because many disabilities are invisible to the eye or undisclosed to the public, never assume that your materials aren’t in need of more work. It’s always a good practice to see how your company can improve its accessibility efforts.

Don’t: Betray Customer Privacy

Your clients and customers are trusting your company with their personal information, which you have an ethical duty to protect. However, before they hand over any information, customers need to feel reassured their data will be secure in your business’ hands. Ironically, the best way to protect sensitive data is by being frank and transparent. Be direct with your customers about what data you are collecting from them and why via a clear privacy policy. Most importantly, obtain explicit permission from your customers before collecting and give them options to opt-out of receiving business communications. Once you’ve obtained customer data, properly protect it in a secure network with limited employee access. Only collect and share the minimum amount of information necessary in order to minimize the potential for a data breach. Ultimately, protecting confidentiality and following transparent business practices is a balancing act that all businesses must master.

Do: Take Responsibility for Company Actions

At the end of the day, your business has a moral duty to practice ethical communication by standing up for what is right. That means stopping conversations that are heading toward a potentially non-compliant place and speaking up when you do witness misconduct. Taking responsibility can also go a long way to help your business rebuild trust after it’s been shattered. Following up with clear explanations of the company’s actions and committing to fixing the problem are also essential for holding your business accountable and mending relationships.

The Impact of Ethical Communication

Practicing ethical communication will help you build a foundation of trust in your business. Not only is practicing ethics the right thing to do — it’s profitable . The most ethical and just companies in America consistently outperform their competitors, usually by one to four stock percentage points. By standing to gain both a strong reputation and strong profit margins, your company has double the incentive to pay attention to ethical communication.

Want to learn more about communication ethics in practice? Check out our ethical communication training solutions or read our case study on the impact of unethical communication practices.

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1.7: Ethical Communication

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Defining Communication Ethics

Communication has ethical implications. Ethics in the broadest sense asks questions about what we believe to be right and wrong. Communication ethics asks these questions when reflecting on our communication. Everyday we have to make communicative choices, and some of these choices will be more or less ethical than other options. It is because we have these different options that our ethics are tested. We can never really say that something is completely ethical or unethical, especially when it comes to communication. “Murdering someone is generally thought of as unethical and illegal, but many instances of hurtful speech, or even what some would consider hate speech, have been protected as free speech. This shows the complicated relationship between protected speech, ethical speech, and the law” (Communication in the Real World, 2013).

When we make communication choices, the question of whether they are ethical or not depends on a variety of situational, personal, and and/or contextual variables that can be difficult to navigate. Many professional organizations have created ethical codes to help guide this decision-making, and the field of Communication Studies is no different. In 1999, the National Communication Association officially adopted the Credo for Ethical Communication. The NCA Credo for Ethical Communication is a set of beliefs that Communication scholars have about the ethics of human communication (NCA Legislative Council, November 1999).

We should always strive for ethical communication, but it is particularly important in interpersonal interactions. We will talk more about climate, trust and honesty, and specific relationships in the coming chapters, but at the most basic level you should strive to make ethical choices in your communication. Communication is impactful. Our communication choices have lasting impacts on those with whom we engage. While ethics is a focus on what is right and wrong, it is not easy to navigate. What is right in one circumstance may not be in another. To help us make our way through difficult ethical choices we must be competent.

Communication Competence

Communication competence focuses on communicating effectively and appropriately in various contexts (Kiessling & Fabry, 2021). In order to be competent you must have knowledge, motivation, and skills. You have been communicating for most of your life, so you have observational knowledge about how communication works. You are also now a college student actively studying communication so your knowledge will continue to increase. As you learn more about communication, continue to observe these concepts around you and you will expand the information you have to draw on in any given context. In addition to having basic information you must also be motivated to better your own communication and you need to develop the skills necessary to do so. One way to improve your communication competence is to become a more mindful communicator. “A mindful communicator actively and fluidly processes information, is sensitive to communication contexts and multiple perspectives, and is able to adapt to novel communication situations” (Communication in the Real World), 2013. Your path to improving your interpersonal communication competence is just beginning. You will learn more about specific aspects of mindfulness, such as listening, conflict management, deception, etc., in the coming chapters. For now we hope you are motivated to improve your knowledge and grow your skills.

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Communication ethics.

Lisbeth A. Lipari Lisbeth A. Lipari Department of Communication, Denison University
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.58
Published online: 27 February 2017

Communication ethics concerns the creation and evaluation of goodness in all aspects and manifestations of communicative interaction. Because both communication and ethics are tacitly or explicitly inherent in all human interactions, everyday life is fraught with intentional and unintentional ethical questions—from reaching for a cup of coffee to speaking critically in a public meeting. Thus ethical questions infuse all areas of the discipline, including rhetoric, media studies, intercultural/international communication, relational and organization communication, as well as other iterations of the field.

moral reasoning
normativity
communication and critical studies

Introduction

Broadly conceived, ethics concerns the creation and evaluation of goodness, or “the good,” by responding to the general question: How shall we live ? What makes any given decision good or right or wrong? Is it ethically good for governments to persuade poor people to fight, and perhaps die, in wars that disproportionately benefit the wealthy? Is it an ethical good for society to provide access to free and quality education to all children? Are politicians obligated to tell the truth to their constituents regardless of the consequence? By wrestling with the ancient human question of what is good , ethicists disclose the inherently social and political nature of communicative phenomenon—whether they are linked to laws, morals, values, and customs and whether they vary from region to region or culture to culture. The word ethics itself comes from the Greek word ethikos , which means habit or custom, whereas the word moral comes from the Latin translation of the Greek word ethikos . Ethics govern and yet are distinct from law. That is, while laws encode values and customs that will be enforced by the power of the state, more generally ethics concern those values and beliefs (whether enforced by law or not) that a society or group or individual believe will most likely create goodness. But as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others have famously said, one has a moral obligation to disobey unjust laws. And the questions of what makes a law or action just or unjust, who gets to deliberate, and how we decide are some of the central questions of communication ethics.

In the field of communication ethics , scholars draw upon a variety of ethical theories to address questions pertaining to goodness involving all manifestations of communicative interaction. And because both communication and ethics are tacitly or explicitly inherent in all human interactions, everyday life is fraught with intentional and unintentional ethical questions—from reaching for a cup of coffee to speaking up in a public meeting. Thus, ethical questions infuse all areas of the discipline of communication, including rhetoric, media studies, intercultural/international communication, relational and organization communication, and all other iterations of the discipline. Some scholars specialize in communication ethics as a subfield of communication studies with applications to all aspects of the field, while others work more theoretically in search of philosophical inquiry and understanding. After a brief introduction to the history of the field, this article sketches three central characteristics that shape contours of communication ethics scholarship—heterogeneity, interconnectivity, and historicity—and then goes on to follow three central concerns of communication ethics scholarship—integrity, power, and alterity. A brief overview of five modes of ethical reasoning will close the article.

Brief History of the Discipline

Some scholars trace the origins of communication ethics to American public education in the early 1900s, when questions about “speech hygiene” drove researchers to examine the role of education in fostering qualities of moral character and “mental health” in students (Arnett, 1987 ; Gehrke, 2009 ). Scholarship in subsequent decades came to emphasize speech education as a means to prepare citizens for participation, as both speakers and listeners, in democracy, and particularly as a way to resist fascist oratory. Developed at a time when access to education and the democratic process was shifting from elites to the masses, these scholars focused on speech education as a means to develop moral excellence in psychological, cognitive, and communicative terms they traced to the classical canon of rhetoric, such as the great Roman teacher/scholar Quintilian’s definition of rhetoric as “the good man speaking well” (Quintilian, 2006 ). Postwar decades in the United States brought increasing attention to questions of communication ethics involving demagoguery, persuasion, propaganda, and human rights (Lomas, 1961 ; Nilsen, 1960 ; Parker, 1972 ). Central to these studies were concern for accuracy and truthfulness such that “in each persuasive situation there is an ethical obligation to provide listeners with such information as it is possible to provide in the time available and with the medium used” (Nilsen, 1960 , p. 201).

In the 1980s and 1990s, communication scholars affiliated with what was then the Speech Communication Association (now the National Communication Association) inaugurated the first communication ethics commission and, subsequently, the first national conference on ethics (Arnett, Bell, & Fritz, 2010 ). These early scholars, such as Ken Anderson, James A. Jaksa, Richard Johannesen, Clifford Christians, and Ron Arnett, seeded what was to become a fertile field of scholarship connecting all areas of the discipline in ways that bridged philosophical and applied approaches. Also in the latter half of the 20th century , scholars in communication ethics began to wrestle with the problematics of power and truth in order to interrogate ethical questions regarding the relationship between social standpoint and social justice. Influenced by continental theorists such as Jacques Derrida, Jean-Francoise Lyotard, and Michel Foucault, communication ethics were sometimes characterized by the struggle between objectivist, absolutist questions of truth versus subjective, relativist conceptions of truth. Scholars critical of objectivist perspectives drew upon insights from critical, critical race, feminist, postcolonial and postmodernist theories that challenged prevailing orthodoxies about the nature of identity, the status of the subject, and the role of power in constructing models of “the good.” Scholars such as Molefi Asante, Larry Gross, and Janice Hocker Rushing undertook examinations of the relationship of ethics to racism, sexuality, and sexism (Asante, 1992 ; Gross, 1991 ; Rushing, 1993 ).

Influenced in part by Alasdair MacIntyre’s neo-Aristotlean work, “After Virtue,” as well as Jürgen Habermas’s discourse ethics, public sphere theory, and theory of communicative action, scholars in the last part of the 20th and first part of the 21st century became increasingly interested in ethical questions pertaining to truth conditions in political discourse, such as journalism, political rhetoric, and discourse in the public sphere (Baynes, 1994 ; Ettema & Glasser, 1988 ). At roughly the same time, an increasing number of communication scholars began to draw on the existentialist and hermeneutic continental scholarship of philosophers such as Martin Buber, Martin Heidegger, and Emmanuel Levinas to explore questions of alterity and otherness as it pertained to relational, rhetorical, and mediated communication (Hyde, 2001 ; Pinchevski, 2005 ).

Over the last 100 years, communication ethics has engaged questions about how to create ethical worlds with our communication processes, be they individual, face-to-face, mediated, or institutional. The area of corporate ethics, for example, concerns not “green-leafing” public relations, but institutional practices that create goodness—such as transparency, accountability, and profit-sharing—not just for owners or shareholders, but for all stakeholders including workers, the earth, the animals, and so forth (Groom & Fritz, 2012 ). Some ethicists, such as Zygmunt Bauman, would likely argue that the concept of corporate ethics is itself oxymoronic: “No moral impulse can survive, let alone emerge unscathed from, the acid test of usefulness or profit. All immorality begins with demanding such a test” (Bauman, 1993 ). In short, communication ethics concerns the discernment of the good, seeking to balance the competing values, needs, and wants of multiple constituencies inhabiting pluralistic democracies.

General Characteristics: Heterogeneity, Interconnectivity, and Historicity

At this point in time, communication ethics scholarship can be described by three central characteristics: heterogeneity, interconnectivity, and historicity. Communication ethics is marked by heterogeneity through the sheer multiplicity of ethical concerns, disciplinary contexts, theoretical perspectives, and modes of reasoning it can pursue. A question about deception, for example, could be examined in any number of communication contexts (e.g., social media, political campaigns, workplace organization, family relations), from any of a number of theoretical perspectives or concerns (e.g., ideological, dialogic, rhetorical, universalist), employing any number of modes of ethical reasoning (e.g., virtue, deontological, teleological, care) and any combination within and between these categories. Often ethical perspectives and values bump into one another, and the ethicist may employ multiple modes of thought to weigh the priorities of ethical value against another—questions about harassment for example, concerns the values of freedom of speech balanced against freedom from intimidation and harassment.

But heterogeneity should not be mistaken for relativism (Brummett, 1981 ). 1 Because ethical questions are embedded both tacitly and explicitly in all human interactions, communication scholars look at both covert as well as overt questions of ethics. Mission statements, for example, may set an overt frame for ethical values and ideals that a given organization aspires toward, but they may not facilitate the recognition of more hidden ethical questions that play out in daily operations. Similarly, ethical codes and credos that stipulate their norms and values are often written at the level of the individual and therefore obscure how institutions, organizations, and groups also function as (un)ethical agents. Codes and credos can also interfere with individual ethical agency and decision-making by removing from conscious awareness the need for vigilant attention to ethical issues that may be hidden. Other forms of overt ethics involve public argument, laws, policies, principals, guidelines, and so forth. In contrast, tacit ethics are implicit patterns of communicative interaction institutions that have ethical implications. That is, communication ethics looks not merely at individual agency and intersubjective processes but also at institutional norms, structural arrangements, and systematic patterns. In communication ethics, ethical questions are a question of not (only) individual agency but of shared implicit and explicit habits, norms, and patterns of communicative action. Communication ethics is therefore quite deliberate in examining both overt and covert contexts.

Heterogeneity also arises through the sheer number of values that may come into conflict in any given situation. In the case of hate speech, for example, the values of free speech bump up against the values of freedom from intimidation, harassment, and violation. Similarly, from the purview of communication ethics, context can mean nearly, if not fully, everything. The question of what makes a convincing ethical argument changes from setting to setting. In the context of a religious setting, for example, reasoning based on tradition and authority might take precedence over reasoning based on compassion and care. Within any given religious community, people wrestle with questions about how much they shall be governed by intelligence, compassion, and outcome and how much by faith. When intelligence tells us one thing and compassion another, which should we trust? Similarly, tensions between local and state or federal control can also shape what values or modes of reasoning take precedence. The communication ethicist must face this nearly endlessly multiplicitous diversity in her inquiry into questions of the good.

Because communication ethics is an immanent subfield that, like the myriad processes of communication itself, is inextricable from the deeply interconnected manifestations of all human interaction, our communicative interactions are inevitably intertwined. Interdependency manifests in the recognition that humans are socially embedded beings and therefore that no self exists completely independent of the social conditions (e.g., language, customs, narratives, hierarchies) from which that self emerged. But it is not simply the self that may or may not consciously choose a given action; communication ethicists also look at how actions choose persons. A worker in a health insurance industry is given an incentive to deny health claims knowing not only that if she does not do it someone else will, but that if she refuses she will be fired and her family will lose its insurance, upon which her disabled child depends. How much ethical agency and “freedom” can such a worker exert? Similarly, the financial managers of this company know that without such incentives, the company will lose money leading to layoffs of workers and possibly denial of even more claims. Thus, not only can there be a kind of independent ethical agency that stands apart from the set of relations it inhabits, there is little possibility of any ethical agent perceiving or anticipating all these ethical interconnections. I may serve my family a healthy dinner of quinoa not knowing that, as an indirect result, thousands of peasants high in the Andes can no longer afford to feed their families the very grain they grow.

Communication ethics is also deeply responsive to the historical events, conditions, and conventions that give rise to every communicative interaction. This can be seen in work on public memory, an area fraught with ethical questions—which historical events are commemorated or memorialized, and which are forgotten (Bruner, 2006 ; Vivian, 2010 )? What events rise to the level of national concern—that is, which events are remembered so as to reflect a shared national or cultural identity? Why is there a Holocaust museum but not a Native American genocide museum? Why have there been no reparations for centuries of American slavery? History relates to ethics via other questions of narrative, public and private. What stories are told, from whose point of view? When or how are these stories punctuated, and who speaks and who is ignored? When communication ethics examines concerns of power, it also explores how struggles over meaning and meaning making are always in dialogue with past and present discourses and regimes of power. How do the historical tensions between the differing goals of public education (i.e., serving to foster public goods such as democracy, liberty and citizenship vs. imposing social control through social stratification, compulsory subordination, and coerced conformity) continue to play out in today’s public debates about education policy, from questions of No Child Left Behind to the neoliberal moves to privatization? And what are the implications of education policy for class position, labor conditions, and increasing economic inequality? What has led public discourses about public goods to be subsumed so readily under neoliberal discourses emphasizing self-sufficiency and individual autonomy (Oh & Banjo, 2012 ; Saunders, 2010 )?

Integrity: Truth, Truthfulness, and Trust

Questions of truth and trust have long been at the center of communication ethics inquiry. As she noted in her classic treatise On Lying , Sissela Bok argues that few if any human groups, organizations, institutions, or states could succeed without the background assumptions of truthfulness (Bok, 1979 ). Distinguishing between truth and truthfulness, Bok puts the burden upon an individual’s active intention—intentionally misleading others differs, to Bok, from unknowingly uttering a falsehood. This distinction between conscious intention and unintentional distortion has been central to studies of journalism ethics, where questions of staged, falsified, and censored news are central (Wilcox, 1961 ; Wulfemeyer, 1985 ; Zelizer, 2007 ). Other questions involve the role of objectivity in news, its epistemic (im)possibility, and the ethical implications distinguishing between impartiality and objectivity (Carey, 1989 ; Malcolm, 2011 ; Ward, 2004 ). The role of the press as a watchdog of democracy has also been of central concern to journalist ethicists, principally through its imagined role as the fourth estate (or branch) of American government and the ethical implications of increasingly concentrated corporate ownership (Bagdikian, 2004 ; Huff & Roth, 2013 ; McChesney, 2014 ). A host of other issues, such as censorship, omission, bias, confidentiality, deception, libel, misrepresentation, slander, and witness, have long been central to ethical concerns in journalism. And some scholars, such as Stephen Ward ( 2005 ), have argued for a new philosophical basis for journalism ethics.

But issues of integrity are not just central to journalism—other modes of mediated communication also give rise to ethical questions about appropriation, colonization, and misrepresentation in addition to the kinds of human interactions these media call forth (D’Arcy, 2012 ; Munshi, Broadfoot, & Smith, 2011 ). Jaron Lanier ( 2010 ), for example, has written extensively about ethical questions related to social media, including what he calls “Hive Mind” that induces mob behavior, an overall lack of independence, groupthink, and depersonalization. Lanier also finds fault with social media’s alienation of information from experience and the drive for anonymity that induces violation, reductionism, insincerity, and a general lack of intellectual modesty. Similarly, in an examination of fearless speech, Foucault ( 2001 ) looks into a series of questions about the philosophical foundations of parrhesia: “Who is able to tell the truth? What are the moral, the ethical, and the spiritual conditions which entitle someone to present himself as a truth-teller? About what topics is it important to tell the truth? What are the consequences of telling the truth?”

Ethical questions about truth and truth telling also show up in rhetorical studies, especially those involving regarding history and politics (Johnstone, 1980 ; Newman, 1995 ). Whistleblowing is another communicative phenomenon where issues of integrity meet ethics. Ostensibly, “whistleblowing happens when ethical discourse becomes impossible, when acting ethically is tantamount to becoming a scapegoat” (Alford, 2001 , p. 36). Yet, according to Alford, the common narrative of the whistleblower as a martyr to truth who is seeking institutional redemption is not played out in the lived experiences of whistleblowers. In fact, the whistleblower is by definition only constituted by processes of institutional retaliation wherein the whistleblower is punished and the institution merely carries on. Even laws supposedly aimed to protect whistleblowers function merely at the level of procedure, which work in turn to reinforce institutional power leaving questions of morality as purely private, not public, affairs. “To act politically in this depoliticized public space is to be a scapegoat” (Alford, 2001 , p. 130). Other areas involving integrity in a wide variety of communication ethics contexts include questions of authenticity, betrayal, cynicism, demagoguery, denial, disclosure, distortion, erasure, exposure, falsification, mystification, obfuscation, omission, secrecy, selectivity, silence, surveillance, suspicion, and transparency (Herrscher, 2002 ; Ivie, 1980 ).

Power: Justice, Normativity, and Force

Power is another central thread in communication ethics scholarship that reveals the extent to which politics and ethics are deeply interconnected. Power is here understood to describe the capacity to impose, maintain, repair, and transform particular modes of social structuring that explicitly and implicitly condition our ideas about the good. When ethical values rise to the level of social/cultural importance, they become laws and not merely customs. But all laws and questions of justice are inherently ethical questions insofar as they inherently shape the contours of what any given community conceives of as the good. As Reinhold Niebuhr put it, “Politics will, to the end of history, be an area where conscience and power meet, where the ethical and the coercive factors of human life will interpenetrate and work out tentative and uneasy compromises” ( 2013 , p. 4). The relationships between ethics and power can be understood in terms of three dimensions—justice, normativity, and force.

Normativity is a form of power with wide-ranging ethical implications. Not only do social norms become a framework within which all forms of the good (and by extension, the bad) may be produced, they also invisibly become part of the interconnected embeddedness of the social that make subjectivity itself possible. Gender, for example, is a form of social normativity with far-ranging ethical implications. Not only do gender conventions govern nearly every conceivable variation of human interaction (from the professions to child raising), violations of gender norms are soundly punished, often violently. Similarly, because every binary includes a hierarchy, in the case of gender male standards are not only normative but unmarked as such even while they serve to set the standard of what is “good” in many situations. Thus evaluations of performance of many communicative actions such as oratory, argument, debate, writing, turn-taking, holding the floor, delivering instruction, and so forth, may appear to be gender neutral when in fact the very standards of quality and merit may be deeply embedded in normatively masculine gender conventions. Thus, because of its relation to ideology as a means of legitimating existing social relations and differences of power, status quo, and common sense, normativity can exert tremendous and often invisible power that inevitable engender ethical questions. Who dictates the terms of what is normative, correct, standard, common sense?

At the same time, however, normativity fuels the very machinery of everyday communicative action. Without predetermined conventions, such as those that govern traffic (street, commerce, or Internet), human interactions would be fraught with peril or even simply impossible. Similarly, what some consider to be the social contract—the implicit moral obligations we have by virtue of being part of society—make everyday life in the shared social world possible. But at the same time, norms and conventions by necessity make some things possible and others impossible. A good example of the role of normativity in ethical questions of power relates to the questions of national and world languages. Language plays a significant role in the production, maintenance, and change in relations of power. For example, although to many native English speakers the United States appears to be a monolinguistic society, the truth is quite the contrary. Some tens of millions of American speak more than 25 languages other than English (not including the more than 175 native American languages now spoken in the United States) with 17.5 million Spanish speakers (Schmid, 2001 ). The implications of exclusive usage and public acceptance of English-only policies and laws involve a constellation of ethical questions ranging from access to recognition (in terms of citizenship, voting, education, courts, medical care, etc.).

Similarly, there are enormous political and ethical implications of so-called world English wherein there are 1.5 billion English speakers in the world, where English is designated as an official language of 62 nations, and where English serves of the dominant language of science, academic publishing, and international organizations (Tsuda, 2008 ). From a global perspective, world English can serve as problem of linguistic hegemony, whereby English dominates as a form of linguistic imperialism with ethical consequences ranging from linguistic and communicative inequality, to discrimination, and colonization of the consciousness (Tsuda, 2008 ). Thus, issues of communicative competence are not ethically neutral but can in fact become political means of social stratification employing linguistic, discursive, and social norms. Because discourses are ways of displaying membership in particular social groups, communicative norms can also serve to include as well as exclude, to mark as insider or outsider, and as a means to regulate other forms of behavior. Other issues of normativity that touch on communication ethics therefore include belonging, civility, codes, community, common sense, conformity, consensus, identity, homogeneity, legitimation, locality, loyalty, mimesis, narrativity, political correctness, precepts, principals, propriety, prudence, ratification, representation, rules, standards, uniformity, unity, and universalism (Lozano-Reich & Cloud, 2009 ).

The area of justice provides yet another means by which power interrelates with communication ethics. Typically, justice revolves around questions of rights, fairness, due process, discrimination, equality, equity, impartiality, participation, privilege, recognition, sovereignty, and so forth. The American political philosopher John Rawls maintained that justice was equivalent to fairness, and he designed a thought experiment called the veil of ignorance as a means to determine principles of justice (as fairness) in a given community. Rawls’s veil was intended to conceal the social position of each participant in the deliberation of justice. In other words, people would deem principles of fairness without knowing where in society they would end up at the end of the day. In Rawls’s view, meritocracy cannot be just unless everyone begins at the same starting line with the same resources, experiences, endowments, etc. So what principles would those behind the veil choose? Rawls says we would choose equal basic liberties for everyone, with social and economic inequalities existing only if they worked to the advantage of the least well off members of society. To Rawls, the facts of inequitable distribution of economic or other success or failure are, to a large degree, outside of our control and thus neither just nor unjust . What is just and unjust is the way that public and political institutions deal with these facts. Some communication ethicists, however, have challenged these Rawlsian ideals of the capacity for neutral imagination (Couldry, Gray, & Gillespie, 2013 ; Munshi, Broadfoot, & Smith, 2011 ).

Explicit and overt questions of communication ethics often involve the values of justice. Ethical credos, honor codes, moral principles, and ethical guidelines often stipulate “right vs. wrong” scenarios as a means to get at the good. When questions of justice need to be arbitrated, deliberative methods that weigh first principles, outcomes, and precedent are often employed. But these themselves often beg the ethical question of who deliberates, under what conditions, and with what resources (Fraser, 1994 ; Habermas, 1989 ). A community dialogue meant to empower citizens largely disenfranchised from the halls of power must contend with questions of access, competence, and convention that underlie the very possibilities of deliberation. For example, when knowledge and communication skills leading to social power are made available to advantaged social groups but are withheld from less advantaged groups in society, a community “dialogue” can inadvertently become an instrument of injustice (Gastil, Lingle, & Deess, 2010 ; Jovanovic, 2012 ). Similarly, inequitable access to the resources of symbolic capital—the prestige, privilege, and education needed to constitute arguments—cannot be just if the allocation of those resources is unequal and available only to a few.

Questions of force are often directly related to justice in that they present manifestations of state and social power that can violently silence, repress, or simply rule “out of order” questions of justice. Force creates situations in which people are not able to speak for themselves, where those in power do not listen, and when the very language needed to articulate claims to justice is not understood. An example of the ethical dimensions of force can be seen in Scott’s ( 1990 ) idea of the “hidden transcript,” a form of hidden public discourse produced by and witnessed only by those without the power to set norms and the claims of justice. As Scott writes, even the most violent political oppression never completely silences the voices of the oppressed—the unspeakable is spoken clandestinely through discourse hidden from those in power: “Most of the political life of subordinate groups is to be found neither in overt collective defiance of power holders nor in complete hegemonic compliance, but in the vast territory between these two polar opposites” ( 1990 , p. 136). Similarly, Squires ( 2002 ) draws on this concept to examine how subordinated groups voice political resistance in disguise, hidden between the lines of the official or public transcript in a multiplicity of coded forms: “In the history of Black public spheres, the pressures of living in a racist society, the ongoing fight for equality, and the rich cultural reserves have necessitated” the use of hidden transcripts (Squires, 2002 , p. 457). Thus explicit force such as prohibitions of speaking and listening are met with implicit and explicit modes of force involving rumor, gossip, disguises, linguistic tricks, metaphors, euphemisms, folktales, and ritual gestures: “For good reason, nothing is entirely straightforward here; the realities of power for subordinate groups mean that much of their political action requires interpretation precisely because it is intended to be cryptic and opaque” (Scott, 1990 , p. 137).

Other forms of the power of force can be seen in the selective aggregation of “big data” by media and Internet conglomerates, or the everyday silencing, censorship, coercion, compulsion, confession, diagnosis, interrogation, negation, marginalization, repression, and prohibition that occur in workplaces, schools, governments, and other organizations where force overtly and covertly serves power (Fairfield & Shtein, 2014 ; Nunan & Di Domenico, 2013 ). But force also resists power in forms such as (re)appropriation, critique, extortion, framing, mobility, negation, networks, parrhesia, speaking truth to power, subversion, and even violence. For example, during the height of state violence in response to the American civil rights movement, a group of Quakers began pamphleteering, witnessing, and organizing in search for forceful responses to violence. In their 1955 pamphlet, “Speak truth to Power,” the Quakers wrote, “if ever truth reaches power, if ever it speaks to the individual citizen, it will not be the argument that convinces. Rather it will be his own inner sense of integrity that impels him to say, ‘Here I stand. Regardless of relevance or consequence, I can do no other’” (Rustin, 1955 , p. 68).

Relation: Alterity and Compassion

Another central thread of communication ethics is the idea of the relation as ontologically basic, meaning that no self can exist outside of the myriad relationships that make up the social matrix of communication. As Martin Buber wrote, “man did not exist before having a fellow being, before he lived over against him, toward him, and that means before he had dealings with him. Language never existed before address” ( 1998 , p. 105). The relational thread of communication ethics calls upon us to never lose sight of the radical alterity, or otherness, of the other. That is, we are asked to never mistake our understanding of the other for the other herself , never to impose our meaning and understanding upon him, never to attempt to absorb/assimilate/appropriate the other into ourselves. We are enjoined to avoid absorbing the other’s difference into my own same .

One of the central concerns of communication ethics pertains to our relation to others and, in particular, to the radical otherness , or alterity, of others. Postmodern and post-colonial literatures have clearly identified and lucidly critiqued the many ways in which political hegemons cast the other in the role of feared and threatening stranger where the other is depicted as without humanity or legitimacy, resulting in patterns of annihilation, oppression, and alienation or of appropriation, assimilation, and absorption. In contrast, the ethical relation to alterity approaches the other as welcomed—as “the stranger, the widow, the orphan” (Levinas, 1969 , p. 77). To Levinas, the other is a moral center to whom one owes everything, and the other must always come first, not last: “To recognize the Other is to recognize a hunger. To recognize the Other is to give. But it is to give to the master, to the lord, to him whom one approaches as ‘Vous’ in a dimension of height” ( 1969 , p. 75).

In writing about this second, ethical sense of alterity, Levinas observes how the other is always more than she appears: “The face of the Other at each moment destroys and overflows the plastic image it leaves me” ( 1969 , p. 51). The acknowledgment of alterity enables speakers to acknowledge, if not honor, radical differences in thought, belief, political and social location, communicative, symbolic and social capital, and so forth. Other aspects of alterity that arise in communication ethics involve relations of alienation, ambiguity, asymmetry, contradiction, cosmopolitanism, discord, diversity, incongruity, interruption, intersectionality, and ostracism (Arneson, 2014 ; Hyde, 2012 ; Pinchevski, 2005 ).

Thus, unlike a Habermasian discourse ethics of the ideal speech situation, where interlocutors are instructed to “bracket status differentials and deliberate as if they were social equals,” (Fraser, 1994 , p. 117), or a Rawlsian theory of justice, which asks interlocutors to deliberate behind a “veil of ignorance,” alterity deliberately invites and acknowledges difference, acknowledging that each of us arrive “on the scene” of communication with different histories, traditions, values, and experiences. The acknowledgment of alterity gives rise to a sense of ethical responsibility—the ability to respond to the other—which leads to compassion. To Buber, therefore, “Genuine responsibility exists only when there is real responding” ( 1975 , p. 16). Ethical compassion arises not because one identifies with the others’ suffering but because one recognizes the other’s alterity, and therefore, her suffering. As Noddings writes, “I do not ‘put myself in the other's shoes,’ so to speak, by analyzing his reality as objective data and then asking, ‘How would I feel in such a situation?’ On the contrary, I set aside my temptation to analyze and plan. I do not project; I receive the other into myself, and I see and feel with the other” ( 1984 , p. 30).

Noddings illustrates the idea of empathic engrossment as our response to an infant crying. We know something is wrong, and the infant’s feeling becomes ours. This is not a problem-solving state, but a feeling-with state. Thus ethical compassion is not vulnerable to ideological ideas about worthy and unworthy suffering but simply feels with the other because she is suffering. Therefore, relational compassion is open to transformation of the self wherein “we are not attempting to transform the world, but we are allowing ourselves to be transformed” (Noddings, 1984 , p. 34). The relational dimension of communication ethics are also important in feminist care-based ethics, focusing less on the rights of individuals and more upon caring responsibilities in relationships (Tronto, 1993 ). Other dimensions of compassion that arise in communication ethics involve acknowledgment, advocacy, affirmation, amnesty, atonement, attunement, embodiment, forgiveness, generosity, gratitude, humility, kindness, leisure, precarity, reconciliation, and sharing (Arnett, 2013 ; Holba, 2014 ).

Discussion of the Literature: Five Modes of Ethical Reasoning

As a branch of philosophy, ethics concerns questions about what makes some actions right and some wrong in a given context. Throughout history all cultures have developed particular doctrines or philosophies of the good, many of which are classified in the West along four primary lines: virtue ethics , which locate the good in the virtuous character and qualities of actions or individuals; deontological ethics , which locate the good in an act or an individual’s adherence to duties or principles; teleological ethics , which locate the good in the consequences of actions and choices; and dialogic ethics , which locate the good in the relations between persons. During the 20th century , postmodern ethics has called these prior ethical theories into question by challenging not merely the value of rules, procedures, systems, and fixed categories for understanding or theorizing ethics, but the humanist ideas of persons as autonomous agents who can act independently as ethical agents. Below are described five such modes of ethical reasoning.

Most commonly associated with the 5th-century bce Greek philosopher Aristotle, virtue ethics focus on the choice, cultivation, and enactment of “virtuous” qualities, such as courage, temperance, truthfulness, and justice, in both the individual and in civic life. In his foundational Nicomachean Ethics , Aristotle ( 1998 ) describes how virtue is an expression of character in which we become temperate by doing temperate acts. In the Aristotelian sense, then, ethics are a human activity rather than a creed, principle, or goal. Most religious traditions articulate a number of overlapping virtues, many of which derive in turn from even earlier traditions and cultures. For example, the so-called cardinal virtues of 12th-century Roman Christianity emphasize courage, prudence, temperance, and justice; these were derived from the earlier Greek philosophies of Plato and Aristotle that in turn derive from far earlier Egyptian wisdom literature (ca. 3000 bce ). Similarly, the 5th-century bce Paramitas of Indian Buddhism stress generosity, patience, honesty, and compassion and are derived in part from virtues articulated in Hindu scriptures that originated around 1000 bce . Further east in 5th-century bce China, both Confusianism and Taoism identified virtues such as empathy, reciprocity, and harmony for the cultivation of an ethical personal and civic life. Even the 18th-century American political virtues of Jeffersonian democracy (inscribed in the Declaration of Independence as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) derive in part from the Aristotelian idea of eudaimonia , the happiness caused by living a virtuous life. Outside of religious traditions, contemporary Euro-American theorists of ethical virtue, sometimes called neo-Aristotelians, locate virtue variously, for example, in the enactment of intentions and motives (Phillipa Foot, Michael Slote), in practical action or phronesis (Alasdair MacIntyre), and in the civic value of emotions, especially compassion (Martha Nussbaum).

Deontological ethics (derived from the Greek word for duty ) are most commonly associated with the 18th-century Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant, who constructed a theory of moral reasoning based not on virtues, outcomes, or emotions but on duties and obligations. In his book Foundations for a Metaphysics of Morals , Kant proposes that ethics are based on a universal law that he calls the categorical imperative . Sometimes mistakenly confused with the golden rule (i.e., do unto others as you would have them do unto you ), the categorical imperative holds that a person should only act on the principles that she or he would want everyone else to always act upon. Kant’s universal law is categorical because there are absolutely no exceptions under any conditions, and it is imperative because it is a necessary duty to which everyone must adhere. But the imperative is dictated not by goods in and of themselves, but by logical reasoning. For example, Kant argues that the ethical prohibition against lying is a categorical imperative because if lying were universalized, no one would believe lies, which depend for themselves on public trust. Bok’s work on lying builds upon this logical contradiction inherent in lying. Similarly, the second formulation of Kant’s categorical imperative—which states that we should never treat people as means to our ends, but always as ends in and of themselves—is readily understood as a universalizable, prohibitive law. Other deontological ethical theories include religious and monastic approaches (such as adhering to divine commands, doctrinal principles, and the fulfillment of monastic vows) and social-contract theories based on the philosophers Thomas Hobbes and Jeans-Jacques Rousseau. In contemporary Euro-American contexts, deontologists, also called neo-Kantians, have developed rights-based approaches (e.g., John Rawls’s theory of justice ), discourse-based approaches (e.g., Jürgen Habermas’s discourse ethics ), and contract-based approaches (e.g., Thomas Scanlon’s contractualism ). Significantly for communication, both Habermas’s and Rawls’s theories center on processes of communication from which ethical norms and principles are derived. For example, Habermas’s discourse ethics prescribes the development and acceptance of rationally grounded validity claims and nontranscendable norms that are produced in democratic argumentation, whereas Rawls’s theory of justice relies upon the discursive achievement of overlapping consensus and public reason . Both approaches have been critiqued on a number of grounds from differing theoretical perspectives, including feminist, postmodernist, Marxist, communitarian, libertarian, and noncognitivist. For example, Chantal Mouffe critiques both Habermas’s and Rawls’s theories because they rely upon idealized, conceptually impossible, and hyper-rational models of deliberative democracy.

Sometimes considered the foil of deontological ethics, teleologica l (from the Greek word for goal ) ethical theories (also known as consequentialist ) exercise moral judgments based on the outcomes and consequences of actions rather than on principles, duties, or virtues. Among the most common ethical theories are utilitarianism and ethical egoism . Utilitarianism, associated with the 18th-century British philosophies of John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, theorizes that we are ethically bound to do what is best for the most people. According to Mill, for example, actions are good when they promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number . In the contemporary Euro-American context, consequentialist theorists include Peter Singer, who extends utilitarianism to include the good of animals and other beings on the planet; Shelly Kagan, who defends consequentialism from critiques by contemporary deontological ethicists; and Amartya Sen, who applies utilitarian ethics to economics, democracy, and public health. Another form of teleological ethics— ethical egoism (which is sometimes called rational self-interest theory)—theorizes that all ethical actions are ultimately self-serving, even those that appear to be self-sacrificing. Some contemporary theorists argue an ethical egoist position from a psychological point of view that stresses the emotional and social benefits of ethical actions to self, whereas others argue ethical egoism from an evolutionary point of view that stresses the genetic and biological benefits to self. Still others argue ethical egoism from a rational point of view, positing that both individuals and society benefit when each individual benefits. Teleological ethics have been critiqued on a number of grounds from a number of perspectives, especially the deontological and virtue-based approaches. Martha Nussbaum, for example, argues that consequentialist reasoning all too easily leads to a kind of heartless cost-benefit calculation that excludes the full expanses of the ethical.

Associated largely with late 20th-century Euro-American philosophers, such as Zygmunt Bauman, Joseph Caputo, and Michel Foucault, but also with feminist ethicists such as Carol Gilligan, Joan Tronto, and Nel Noddings, postmodern ethicists critique so-called modernist and enlightenment ethical philosophies such as virtue, deontological, and teleological ethics. Rather than conceptualizing human beings as free, autonomous, independent, and rational agents, as do the modernist theorists, postmodernists view human beings as inter-related, interdependent, contradictory, emotional, and, occasionally at least, irrational social beings. Drawing in part on the 19th-century philosopher Frederick Nietzsche, who crafted a brilliant challenge to traditional religion, philosophy, and morality, postmodern ethicists further reject modernist ideals of certainty, universalism, and essentialism, as well as rules, codifications, and systems. In place of ethical rules or precepts, for example, Zygmunt Bauman posits the idea of moral responsibility in which each person must stretch out towards others in pursuit of the good in all situations, even, or perhaps most especially, when what is the good is most uncertain. Thus, Bauman cautions against certainty, calculation, and precept, arguing that reason alone is an insufficient basis for ethical action. Similarly, feminist ethicists from a range of perspectives, such as Annette Baier’s virtue-oriented ethics to Chantal Mouffe’s Marxist-oriented ethics, critique deontological perspectives such as Rawls’s idea of the priority of the right over the good because it categorically privileges individualistic and abstract rights over collective goods and values. From a somewhat different postmodern perspective, Michel Foucault posits ethics as caring for the self through what he calls a practice of freedom . Joseph Caputo, in contrast, argues against ethics itself and in its place posits the affirmation of the other, the singularity of each ethical situation, and the centrality of the unqualified, unconditional gift that requires precisely those things that are not required.

Rather than theorizing an ethics based in individual character, duty, outcome, or interest, dialogic ethics locates the ethical in the intersubjective sphere of communicative relationships between and among persons. The issues of response and responsibility are woven into the center of dialogic ethics. Associated largely with the work of two 20th-century Jewish European philosophers, Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas, dialogic ethics posits ethics as first philosophy wherein the ethical relation with the other, rather than the ontology of the self, is understood to be foundational to human experience. To Buber, the person becomes a person by saying Thou and thereby entering into relation with other persons. The Thou , in Buber’s understanding, is not a monadic subjectivity but a relation of intersubjectivity , or development of mutual meaning, that arises from people cohabiting communication exchanges in which understanding arises from what happens in between the subjectivity of persons. To Levinas, one’s personal subjectivity can only arise through one’s own responsibility to the other , who is utterly different from oneself and to whom one owes everything. Dialogic ethics thus requires a healthy respect for the irreducible alerity , or otherness, of persons with whom one has dialogue, wherein the self never mistakes its own understanding of the other for the other herself. In the context of communication studies, dialogic ethics has generated a rich body of research by contemporary scholars such as Kenneth Anderson, Ronald Arnett, Rob Cissna, Michael Hyde, and Jeffrey Murray, wherein the ultimate issues in communication ethics pertain not so much to words themselves but rather to the ethical realm in which communication is constitutive of persons, cultures, publics, and relationships. For example, to Cissna and Anderson, dialogic ethics involve an awakening of other-awareness that occurs in and through a moment of meeting.

In the field of communication, ethicists make use of all of the above theories in approaching questions of ethics in interpersonal, intercultural, mediated, institutional, organizational, rhetorical, political, and public communication contexts. Clifford Christians and Michael Traber, for example, take a deontological approach in searching for ethical universals and protonorms across cultures. In contrast, Josina Makau and Ronald Arnett take a more dialogic approach in a volume on communication ethics and diversity. In contrast, Fred Casmir takes a multi-perspectival approach to intercultural and international communication ethics. More recently, Michael Hyde has drawn on the dialogic ethics of Emmanuel Levinas to explore ethical rhetorical action in personal and public life, and Sharon Bracci and Clifford Christians have brought a wide range of ethical perspectives to bear on a range of communication questions.

In the classroom, communication ethicists emphasize the importance of cultivating attunement to silences, erasures, and misrecognitions that occur when one voice speaks in place of another or when another is silenced. By asking questions such as who speaks, who is heard, or whose voice is rendered unintelligible, students are encouraged to more fully recognize both tacit and overt ethical questions in all manner of communicative interactions. While most communication ethics textbooks tend to include some combination of theory, disciplinary context, and applied context, each tends to principally emphasize one or two of these areas. Some communication ethics textbooks are organized principally around modes of moral reasoning, while others address ethics as it is understood in different areas of the field. Some textbooks are embedded in specific applied contexts such as the workplace or the media, and some attempt to combine theory, disciplinary context, and value.

Addendum: Some Key Themes of Communication Ethics

Websites/other information.

Communication Ethics Division of NCA: http://commethics.org/news/

Institute of Communication Ethics: http://www.communicationethics.net/sales/index.php?nav=book .

Quintilian’s Institutes of Oratory: http://rhetoric.eserver.org/quintilian/

Importance of Ethics in Communication

1. introduction.

Introduction plays a major role in any communication regardless of its type. Ethics is the code of values and moral principles that are based on what is the right or wrong way of human behavior. Communication ethics is the principal's capacity to deal with doing right and wrong. Nowadays, numerous laws have been made which are identified with ethical examination, for example, social and professional bodies' obligations to all parties involved in professional communication and encroachment of privacy. It is basic for every professional not to mislead anyone and carry on in professional life honestly. Actually, business professionals live with pressure because it is more challenging to keep professional and personal life separate. In business communication, the focus is on the ideas and strategies which can lead to more ethical, effective, and productive communication. Honesty is fundamental in business communication. As indicated by Murphy et al, ethics is tied in with what is correct. If there is a relevant code of conduct, then that should be maintained, and if there is no code of conduct, then there should be a determination of "what might be the effective and efficient" way. Actually, some people of different religions argue that a successful way is an ethical approach to take a decision. In the current technological period, there is a great deal of resources on the internet and people can easily share and access the information that is out there, achieving good ethics in online communication and in learning or teacher situations. Ethical interneting requires the understanding and the use of methods in order to achieve proper practices in online activities. For example, while looking for information about an assignment, it is important not only to consider which websites on the internet to trust but also the potential impact on others of the materials that may be accessed. We can find an item on our computer screen and that can be conveniently shared with others by directly linking to that screen or even printing the image. This may give rise either intentionally when making a diagnostic essay. Cyberspace may also allow a perspective that makes something else that is good behavior seem less important. This fact goes under the term "disinhibiting effect" that is people act differently from their true self when communicating through the internet which requires exact and clear guidelines of online behavior called as net etiquette or network civility.

1.1. Definition of Ethics in Communication

So, let's first define what exactly communication ethics is - communication ethics is the notion that an individual's or group's actions are guided by some set of moral standards or norms, often for the greater good. It is an idea that is typically learned in families and communities and displayed in our actions towards various people that we interact with. Communication ethics focuses on the universal values of judicious choices, integrity and honesty in communication, on the assumption that both the internal climate of dialogue and external mechanisms of communication practices, be it personal, public or organisational, should be led by a sound ethical consideration. An ethical choice many times is defined as what is best for the individual making the decision and also for the common good of everyone else involved in the communication situation. Ethical choices are normally predicated on some basic principles and concepts of ethics, which further guide the ethical decision making in the various communication practices. Some of these principles, just to name a few, include utilitarianism, deontological ethics, virtue ethics, dialogical ethics and relational ethics. Many ethical decisions are made in the field of communication given the complexities in everyday human interactions and also the fast development of the information communication technologies which have altered the ways we communicate and exchange knowledge and ideas. Therefore, whether or not a participant in a communication and information exchange process has made an ethical choice reflects either morally right or wrong in aiding or undermining the human dignity, rights and democracy. Such ethical consideration is particularly important in the information age, in which more sophisticated and invasive forms of technologies can interact with human experiences and create potential new levels of unethical behaviours in societal and global communication practices, such as perpetuating injustice and inequalities, suppressing human freedom or other marginalizations of certain culture groups. Last but not least, the term "communication ethics" is also understood as a branch of applied ethics, a hybrid discipline between communication studies and ethics, as the focus is how one makes good ethical decisions through communication practices, as one tries to make meaning in a public and inter-subjective world. Cultivation of ethical literacy and fostering a strongly and richly ethical climate and practices in both professional and personal life are the common goals of communication ethics study.

1.2. Importance of Ethics in Communication

One key objective of the exercise of ethics in communication is that it seeks to bring about honesty and credibility. As such, one is not allowed to engage in any form of distortion when communicating. As a result, persons engaging in ethical communications will at all times seek to provide accurate and truthful information. In case there may be any limitations in terms of sharing information that may be perceived to be truthful, then it becomes necessary for such persons to qualify such kind of information. This, as a result, helps in providing a high level of a shared pool of knowledge among individuals in the society. It also helps in inspiring research and contributions that are geared towards improving knowledge to the benefit of all of us in the society. Therefore, any falsification, plagiarism or cover up of any form of information is against the very fundamental objectives or ethics in communication.

2. Ethical Principles in Communication

Ethical principles in communication today, the role of communication and ethical behavior is essential. Society has now come to understand that an ethical and responsible approach to communication is a very sensible view. This is on the account that it can drive us to act in a very respectful manner to other individuals and groups. In this type of environment, trust and cooperation will develop and society as a whole will benefit. Ethics ensure that every party in the process or the act of communication is valued and respected. In general, principles of communication will create a very strong and great cooperative relationship among both individuals and society as a whole. The first principle in ethical communication in any environment comes with trust. If you hope to create potential changes by means of communication, it is essential that your audience has trust in you. Trust, in the sense that others will have faith in your intentions and they will believe what you say. This is the reason why honesty, neutrality, and respect for others are very important. In this context, the ultimate aim of ethical communication is to ensure that every message delivered and shared with others is right, fair, and not misleading. As there are several different methods in which communications can be ethical, some examples are like, for example, political philosophers view the statements of actions as ethical if they engage in a process of common good and collective deliberation as availed by High (2009). Whereas the act utilitarian will consider actions to be ethical if they bring the most good to the most people. Professional codes of ethics are a fundamental part of many professions, like in doctor-patient relationships, lawyers. The workplace also has several codes of conduct, like in Intel we have an open door communication and suggested hotline. Intel is committed to efficient and effective communication. Every employee and all members at the company should show respect, cooperation, and sensibility in all company's communication. Every member is encouraged to communicate further information which they think is in the company's interest. Also, the different methods to send and receive a message and ways of improving current methods by users will be encouraged. Also, in order to create and maintain a healthy workplace, it's made appropriate that the company offer a confidential, private, and anonymous communication channel between employees and the company. Such high standards are stated in "Our Code of Conduct" where it says Intel promotes and protects an openly exchange of ideas and knowledge to continue to drive innovations and excellence in business practices, in addition to complex thinking and affable scrutiny. The code also makes clear that employees are expected to apply strong communication skills and all workplace conditions to value diversity and respect in every work well-done.

2.1. Honesty and Transparency

Honesty and transparency are two important ethical principles of communication. According to Nelson (1993), honesty means that communicators should tell the truth and not intentionally deceive each other. However, the author also recognizes that honesty does not necessarily mean the full disclosure of information: withholding information doesn't necessarily violate honesty. On the other hand, transparency refers to the practice of being open and self-revealing in communication (Arts, 2009). In interpersonal relationships, it means the willingness to share our private selves with others. In a broader sense, transparency requires that public deliberation and reasoning be as open as possible. Arts (2009) makes it clear that a commitment to the contestatory nature of a democratic society means that we cannot simply give up our right to be private even for the sake of a better understanding among us. I agree with the above elaboration on honesty and transparency. I believe that being honest in communication will bring people closer to each other and make the interpersonal relationship more solid. Depending on the sequence, honesty helps build trust in both personal and professional relationships. If there exists an atmosphere of honesty in the workplace because people can work together more productively; hence, open communication is promoted. On the other hand, transparency in any respect is the key element to medical privacy. As we continue to digitize and make the medical record more accessible to patients and even among healthcare providers, cybersecurity and protection of patients' information become a primary concern. Meanwhile, accurate documentation and trust based on transparency in handling patients' information are critical elements in maintaining patients' privacy in the modern technology-dependent healthcare environment. As the article 'How ethics serves business goals' in the Dialogue on Business, a quarterly publication by the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics mentioned, honor and promote the customers' right to privacy as set forth in Article 8 of the European Union's Data Protection Directive, it will result in better customer relationship and further promote business prosperity. This demonstrates that compliance with the ethical principles in communication, such as commitment to enhance patients' willingness of seeking evaluation and availability of true options, may actually lead to practical business benefits.

2.2. Respect and Empathy

Respect in communication signifies acknowledging each other and grasping for a better understanding in terms of thoughts and feelings, instead of criticizing or interpreting each other. Empathy, on the other hand, is the ability to understand and share the feelings of one another. Both respect and empathy are vital in attaining a successful and ethical communication. First and foremost, conversation should always commence in a mutually respected and agreed manner. Forcing a conversation or insisting an ill feeling party to talk will only lead to more frustrations and it will never do any good to the situation. It is important not to interrupt when someone is talking. Interjections can be seen as a sign of disrespect and it may eventually overwhelm one or both parties. It will lead to a situation where neither feels being understood. In addition, it is best to refrain from the first emotional response, which is to fix the problem straightaway. Instead, one should embrace and respect the feelings and emotions involved. Showing understanding and sympathy will help to nurture a better communicative environment. A common ground of respect can lead to the foundation of empathy, which is acting based on an understanding attitude. It is essential not to judge the second party's feelings, regardless of whether it is right or wrong. Instead, try to perceive what and how the second party is feeling. Such respects and understandings will cultivate trust and openness in communication. These principles of respect and empathy are essential components of a just and a fair person-centered care. For instance, the nurses should respect and recognize the uniqueness of each individual, the importance of connection and the protection of the dignity and honor of those who are vulnerable. These virtues guide the core of the professional commitment of providing and maintaining a high quality nursing care. By doing so, this will ensure better care standards and promote patient wellness. On the contrary, ignorance and disregard of these principles will lead not only to ineffective communication. Patients and individuals may feel disrespected and violated, compromising both their physical and psychological well-being and therefore give rise to potential ethical issues. Such disregard of these principles does come with significant impact. Only when everyone involved in a communicative process really grasps the true meaning of respect and empathy, a complete harmony in personal and moral values congruent environment can be established, thus opening the door to numerous wonderful possibilities and potentials.

2.3. Confidentiality and Privacy

When exchanging private information, it is important to follow the ethical standard of confidentiality. This suggests that experts should not allow themselves to uncover information given in the possibility of trust without the express approval of the customer, or as required by law. Privacy suggests the ethical standard that individuals are entitled to some degree of protection and confidentiality in their lives, including what they reveal to others. Trust is a fundamental building block in the client/supplier relationship. Clients are more likely to seek professionals for their administrations if they believe that their personal data will be kept in confidence. Breaches of confidentiality and challenges to privacy present themselves in various different forms. For example, carelessness in keeping private information, such as losing a record, can compromise both privacy and confidentiality. The theft of private information, whether it be in a physical or electronic format, can similarly result in both privacy and confidentiality breaches. With the increase in information sharing through technology, both healthcare and mental health professionals have to be cautious that confidential information is protected to the same standard as any other form of information exchange. This usually means that physically or electronically, distributed information can only be accessed by those who have a duty to help see it and it should be protected by secure client access and by means of a secure environment. However, the Protection Act is the primary legislation that sets out the law on confidentiality in the UK and the standards that should be followed by the NHS within the act are known as good practice to experts. This implies that experts should comply with the terms of the Protection Act and act in accordance with said good practice at all times when dealing with private and confidential information. This ensures that each person is entitled to an, but like the Privacy Act in the US, the provision of the Act ensures that a client's right to confidentiality is respected.

3. Ethical Challenges in Communication

As the technological environment develops, different innovative techniques arise to disrupt the constructive and ethical communication process. One of the most current problems is the rise of misinformation and "fake news." Misinformation refers to the sharing of false information without the intention to deceive; however, there are many possible hidden agendas behind it, such as seeking attention. This creates a huge problem for ethical communication. Firstly, it damages individual and group well-being - in order to make a sound judgment based on critical thinking, people need access to reliable and undistorted information. Secondly, the rise of misinformation narrows the scope of the public debate. Legitimate and genuine issues that deserve attention can be silenced in the face of misleading and unrealistic claims. In the long term, trust in public institutions and shared moral values can be eroded because critical links between the free flow of information and a flourishing democracy are lost. In response to these challenges, educational, legal, and technological efforts should be brought into place. For example, people can be taught and encouraged to distinguish between different sources of media and to reflect on transparency and editorial independence in media; laws can target both the dissemination of manifestly harmful content and the engagement with the public debate in a deceptive manner. Online interfaces can also be designed in ways to encourage trustworthy communications and reward critical dialogue. For example, social media platforms should impose a higher duty of care to make decisions more transparent to users, issue more detailed impact reports to authority, and allow independent scrutiny instead of pursuing a purely profit-driven agenda that strives on polarization and fake news. Social media influencers should also be mandated to verify their identities.

3.1. Dealing with Misinformation

In today's world, the widespread use of digital media and the internet has made it easier for misinformation to spread. Misinformation is false, inaccurate, or misleading information that is communicated regardless of an intention to deceive. It has always been prevalent in the world, but its dissemination more rapidly, more efficiently, and to more people has become a major issue. Many have taken advantage of the very low cost of making and delivering a message on the internet, leading to a high supply of misleading information. In addition, the lack of regulation and monitoring of online content results in misinformation being circulated on the internet without obstacles. Misinformation serves a variety of purposes, including political influence, promoting or discrediting certain social interpretations, and for economic purposes, such as advertising and selling products. Therefore, such challenges of misinformation in communication, and calls for a better practice in ethical and responsible information communication. It is especially important for public relations practitioners who are often involved in the dissemination of messages to be aware of potential misinformation and to take responsibility to prevent the further spreading of such misleading information. This requires deploying strategies to minimize the likelihood of misinformation being generated and spread, such as user education and increasing public awareness of this issue. Also, being aware of legal and regulatory frameworks of information communication in different jurisdictions would be vital for public relations professionals in order to avoid illegal practices of generating and delivering misinformation. Last but not least, the study suggests that embracing the concepts of "transparency" and "ethical practice" could lead to a more truthful and responsible nature of information communication. That means public relations professionals should seek to be honest, open and self-critical; and to serve the public interest. Such spirit of openness and honesty will naturally diminish the possibility of misinformation being generated and delivered because an ethical practitioner will always verify and justify his or her operation. Misinformation becomes unethical communication because it serves the communicator's interest at the expense of the society and those who consume the information blindly. On the other hand, ethical and honest communication shows respect to an audience who are autonomous and may reach their own conclusions. Such respect is also the very basis of public relations that professionals have an obligation to communicate responsibly with people and to respect the truth. These philosophical ideas well support the empirical study of dealing with misinformation in modern society, and shed lights on the ethical practice to achieve a better working environment in public relations.

3.2. Balancing Freedom of Speech and Responsibility

To begin with, the ethical principle of freedom of speech is crucial in the discussion of ethical challenges in communication. Freedom of speech is defined as the right of a person to express his or her ideas and opinions, and this right is very much important in the ethical challenges in communication. However, freedom of speech brings with its own limitations and responsibilities. In the past decade, in the light of the Information Age, focus has been placed on the freedom of expression and how this is deeply embedded in the process of democracy. In the context of Singapore, the government contended that the issue of "false news" is a major challenge given the expansion and growing influence of social media platforms. As a small and highly globalized city-state, information that is malignant and unfavorable spread quickly, placing the nation in a vulnerable position. Maintaining social order is one of the social goals of the government, and ensuring access to a variety of information sources for the people is also important. Singapore has a diverse media environment with newspapers, Internet editions of newspapers, and news websites. The government is active in regulating media, and the maintenance of different regulatory frameworks are deemed crucial in the process of ascertaining "adequate" and "appropriate" contents. Well, the government and the parliament are not the only players in the task to govern "information". The court, the civil society groups, technology companies, and even members of the public play equally vital roles to ensure freedom of speech is exercised responsibly. For instance, in June 2017, a newly set up Select Committee was called by the parliament of Singapore for public consultation on deliberate online falsifications. As part of the evidence-gathering process, the Committee accepted written representations from the public. In fact, the members of the public, including professionals and experts in the field of media and communication, are invited as witnesses to give testimonies and to be examined by the Committee as well. Most importantly, the public is ensured via such platforms that their voices will be heard and their input will be valued. Singapore is often criticized for placing undue restrictions on freedom of speech, which includes political restrictions and limits on content in the arts and social media. My personal belief is that the liberal position is that public discourse should be given a breathing space that is wider than the process of representative and responsible government would allow.

3.3. Addressing Bias and Stereotypes

In today's increasingly globalized world, where different cultures interact and communicate with one another in all sorts of ways, the issue of bias and stereotypes is becoming more and more prevalent, especially in communication. Bias is defined as a particular tendency, trend, inclination, feeling, or opinion, especially one that is preconceived or unreasoned. Stereotype refers to a fixed, over generalized belief about a particular group or class of people. This is a two-part issue. First, communication may be full of such bias and stereotypes, which might influence both the encoder and the decoder in the communication process. The encoder, in a rhetoric sense, is the person who creates the message to be sent, while the decoder is the one who interprets the message. Therefore, when dealing with such biases and stereotypes in communication, the concern should not just settle at not hurting people's feelings or advocating for political correctness. Rather, the deeper concern should turn towards how such bias and stereotype may influence the rationality and objectivity in human communication. So, the second point is about how such bias and stereotypes are harmful, for they may affect the objectivity of giving, understanding and receiving information during communication. Since it is almost impossible to abandon one's judgements and values in human communication, the existence of bias and stereotypes may only blur the reality and rationality in discerning and resolving disputes, and eventually harm the possibility of producing a justified consensus through discourse. One way to manage such problem is to have the deep-seated beliefs and values behind the biases and stereotypes to be brought upon the surface for questioning. Such reflective endeavors, according to Kristof, fosters a critical and democratic environment, in which the opportunity of everyone to present their arguments equally and the possibility of reaching at a rationally justified consensus may be enhanced. However, in reality, especially in some public discourses where attention is of paramount interest, it is possible that an individual or a group of people make use of such biases and stereotypes, rather than promoting reflection, in order to draw the attention from the public and deliver their messages more efficiently. The possible solution is to bring upon a kind of "non-oppressive attention", in which people may redirect the attention from what is imposed by others to what they think it really matters in the discourse. I believe it is really a hard work to be done for all different sorts of attention have to be taken into account, some are generated by the social and cultural norms, some are created by the physical environments, and some are in a way acting powerfully than the others. However, it is definitely worth trying for in the end of the day, as attention determines what we value and what we value determines who we are, nurturing such "non-oppressive attention", then a more objective and peaceful communication is foreseeable.

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Communication Ethics

This chapter introduces you to communication ethics in general and provides a more detailed explanation of dialogic ethics which is a cornerstone for developing skills in leadership ethics and practices. There has been a lot written about communication ethics especially in the last 25 years. There are good reasons to think about communication ethics, here are some:

Learning Outcomes – after reading this chapter, the student will

1. develop a general understanding of the field of inquiry labeled Communication Ethics

2. differentiate between different dialogic philosophers/scholars

3. apply basic principles of communication ethics to specific situations/ethical dilemmas within leadership contexts

Thought-Provoking Questions

1. Understanding that dialogue can sometimes be messy or uncomfortable, do you find it difficult to stay in dialogue with an individual with whom you have strong different opinions?

2. Even if you do not care about the specific disagreement or the specific individual you have contention with, why should you stay in dialogue and continue to feel uncomfortable or challenged?

3. Consider this question, what are your relationships like, their quality, with people to whom you have rich and authentic dialogue? Do you think dialogue plays a role in that or those relationships?

Chapter Outline – this chapter includes discussions around the following

1. A basic introduction to Communication Ethics in the Communication Academic Discipline

2. A focused explanation of the dialogic philosophies of Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas

3. Two examples of communication ethics application within particular contexts

Basic Introduction

The National Communication Association (NCA) is the national organization that binds together communication and media studies scholars. Originally the American Speech Association (way back in the early 20th century), NCA provides support, professional development, and resources for teaching and scholarship in the area of communication and media. The NCA has divisions of focus and one particular division is the Communication Ethics Division. This is how they describe the focus of the division:

“The purpose of the Division is to promote research and teaching relating to ethical issues and standards in all aspects of human communication and to encourage educational programs that examine communication ethics. General membership in the Communication Ethics Division is open to any member of NCA who is interested in promoting the Division’s purpose.”

You can read more about NCA here . You can read more about the Communication Ethics Division here .

Communication ethics is a couplet that denotes diverse orientations, perspectives, and challenges. What people value can often be in contention with what other people value. The subject matter within this couplet, communication ethics, constitutes multiple perspectives and does not dictate a straightforward answer, one way or another. It is however, concerned with “the good” and “the right” that might be different for different people. Communication ethics act as guideposts, moving from one unique position to the next, a standpoint of sorts, like a lighthouse, as one navigates a world of narrative and virtue contention in dark and muddy terrain. Communication ethics perspectives provides support for one to respond to the demands and questions they face situated within particular contexts and shadows.

Through the ages, philosophers, thinkers, and practitioners have navigated their terrain using well-reasoned frameworks to guide their discernment, thinking, and reasoning in order to make decisions and take actions that they recognize will impact other people and other environments. So, there is no one way to think and decide ethically. You might choose one approach to making a decision but you will have a variety of approaches to choose from. Finally, with the advancements in AI, the ways in which we make ethical discernment and decisions has to change and expand how we think ethically. It has to. AI is a game changer but we are not there yet.

Dialogic Philosophies

The following discussion of dialogic ethics is taken again from the CMS Seniors Open Education Resource. You can access it directly here .

Dialogical ethics concerns itself with the relationship between people; it does not have to be concerned about virtue, duties, or consequences, although sometimes those elements are also considered as a result of engaging in dialogue with others. However, the relationship is always central and it is a driving element to making decisions. This emphasis builds what some scholars (Neher and Sandin, 2007) refer to as a firewall which is designed to ensure fair play when one encounters the other. It is too easy to manipulate and take advantage of the other in a deceptive manner (language creates this potential). Dialogue creates a “safe zone” for people to communicate.

Dialogic ethics emerged from philosophers such as Martin Buber (1878-1965) and Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995). When it comes to communication, Martin Buber distinguishes between I-It and I-Thou.

I-It experiences are often describe as communication that objectifies the other or manipulates the other in some fashion. I-It can also be closer are communication experiences that can be described as phatic communication (for example, small talk with people you know or you do not know-we sometimes do this when we are waiting in line at a grocery store and we engage in communication with people about the weather or the delay at the check-out counter), technical communication (for example, giving someone directions to go somewhere or providing instructions to someone who is trying to make something), or some forms of negative communication like gossip (for example, hurtful communication about another person, behind their back, that can either be true or not true).

Dialogic ethics require the shedding of one’s personal needs and desires in order to communicate ethically with another. In dialogic engagement, we experience the I-Thou . Here is a video that explains the difference between the I-It and I-Thou.

In the I-Thou, there is reciprocity toward the other. So, for example, in my communication with you, me as the faculty member in the CMS department and you as a CMS major (student), I recognize that I am a faculty member because there are students here AND you are one of them. I recognize and honor our relationship. I cannot be a faculty member/teacher if we do not have students. You, as well, cannot be a student without a teacher and you could not be a student here in the CMS department at PSU if we did not exist. Our relationship is reciprocal. This distinction in reciprocity grounded Buber’s teaching philosophy.

In his book, I and Thou , Martin Buber (1970) wrote about “the Between” on the “narrow ridge” as essential qualities of dialogue. He describes these as places between extremes in communication. By avoiding the extremes of positions (For example, the radical left and the radical right in politics), there is a better chance of having authentic and genuine dialogue that is capable of finding common ground, or as Buber would say, a common center from which dialogue can grow. This is important to keep dialogue ongoing and constructive.

In Between Man and Man , Buber (1978) reveals the first time he understood about genuine dialogue. In this moment, he was in the barn with his horse at his grandparent’s farm. He said while he was combing the mane on his horse, that there he met her eye to eye and communicated without words. He said once he realized he was connecting with her genuinely and dialogically, and that he no longer noticed the separateness between beings, they were one. The moment he again felt the separateness, that genuine moment was over. But while he was in it, he no longer was aware of anything external in their environment. He said these moments of authentic dialogue happen rarely between human beings but that we ought to be so preoccupied with the other that they can happen more often. He doesn’t negate technical dialogue or monologue because there is absolutely a place for them in human communication, but he advocates that we should not forget or turn away from the other by not being open to those serendipitous moments of genuine dialogue.

Emmanuel Levinas believed that all communication is an act of violence since we impose our language, thoughts, actions on others in the process of communication. When he said communication is an act of violence, he was referring to the interruption that we are when we impose our thoughts, ideas, and positions on others because they then have an obligation to respond. This is unavoidable. But, because of this perspective, Levinas advocated for each person to be thy brother’s keeper, observe, reflect, and select the language most appropriate toward the other and invite the other to respond. In some cases, one must wait for the other to respond and in this waiting, one bears witness to other.

Levinas believed in ethics as a first philosophy and that ethics begins first and foremost in person to person contact. We should become preoccupied with the Other. Our motto should be, I am my Brother’s Keeper. At the same time, we cannot impose this sentiment of brother’s keeper on others, it cannot be demanded from the other.

Here is a video of an interview with Emmanuel Levinas which does not totally get into his dialogic ethical theory but it gives you a treat to hear him speak himself in general terms related to our relation to the other (and in French, there are English subtitles). The notion of transcendence becomes important in this interview.

For Levinas, ethical dialogue creates common ground where there is no power imbalance; there is no recognition of power, period. He advocates for us to engage response-ability by putting self-interests aside and respond to the other.

Dialogic Ethics :

Provides for us a method in which to engage others
Helps us comprehend why some of our relationships go wrong or succeed
Helps us comprehend larger scale societal marginalization
Provides ways to resolve conflicts

While easy to understand, it is not so easy to behave in this way. There is also no guarantee a similar response from the other will come (especially with Levinas).

These are some ways for us to consider how to engage in dialogic ethics and practices:

Set aside or suspend our own positions;
Openly listen to others and their needs/opinions;
Understand where the other is coming from;
Share your position and be willing to let your position shift/alter/be reshaped by the other as dialogue emerges;
Engage in mutual respect for the other and the opinions of the other;
Do not make demands on the other;
Be open in the dialogical/conversational process;
Provide unconditional positive regard to the other;
Empower the other through voice;
Through dialogue, find mutually agreed upon common ground (even if it is a sliver of ground)

Some challenges of dialogic ethics involve unwillingness to set self-interests aside, unwillingness to relinquish control and allow others a voice of difference; unwillingness to accept the no demand rule; and unwillingness to be open to the other.

When we develop a communication ethics disposition, we take the high road, the road less traveled; we do this because of care we have toward other.

Applications of Communication Ethics

Here are two applications for decision-making using a communication ethics lens:

Application 1

People Involved:

Jenna – Company manager hired 30 days ago

George – CEO who hired Jenna

Jason – employee of 4 years

Lucy – employee of 12 years

Frank – employee of 6 months

Sandy – newest employee

Sandy is now at work for a week and enjoying her job. The most important thing to her is to have a job with flexibility and Company X gave her this. More specifically, Sandy has two children, 6 months and 2 years. She can’t afford childcare if she works full-time, so she has flex hours (works 25 hours a week and sets the hours to her convenience) which enable her to have family watch her children so she does not have to pay the high costs at a for-profit daycare.

As other employees notice her flexibility in her schedule, they start to grumble. Lucy is angry because she says that Sandy gets easier cases/clients to work with because she has flex hours. This leaves the more complex clients for Lucy, the most experienced. Lucy feels it is unfair that Sandy gets to pick and choose her hours while she (Lucy) is stuck with working 9-5, five days a week. Lucy puts in a request to Jenna to work four days a week in the office and have a floating day each week where she can work from home. Jenna receives Lucy’s request in writing and asks Lucy for a meeting. In the meeting Jenna asks Lucy why she needs to change her hours and Lucy responds, “It doesn’t matter why. That is my personal business.” Jenna tells Lucy she will consider the request and let her know later in the week.

Jason requests to work half days so he can train for a marathon. He is an avid runner and says that this keeps him healthy and mentally fresh in his job. He says he can make up his work from home at night and on weekends. Jenna, tells Jason she will consider his request and let him know later in the week.

Frank sends an email to Jenna claiming he will be filing a lawsuit against the company because he was hired 6 months ago and did not have the option to negotiate a flex schedule like Sandy did. He says he will not file the suit if he can make his schedule more flexible so that he can take courses in a graduate program. Jenna again tells Frank she will get back to him.

Jenna meets with George and asks him what she should do. George says, “Well Jenna, this is why I hired you. You are on your own with these requests.”

What should Jenna do with each request? Use the framework of dialogic ethics above to discern the issues involved and then take specific action.

(Adapted from Neher, W. W., & Sandin, P. J. (2007) Communicating ethically: Character, duties, consequences, and relationships . Allyn & Bacon.)

Application 2

Is Lying on your Resume Ethical (and what does it mean to lie on your resume?)

Graduation is months away, and Nicole still doesn’t have a job. Thousands of dollars in college loans are backing up and payments are due soon. Furthermore, her mother was recently laid off, and her parents are in need of some supplemental income. Stress and pressure, then, is building as Nicole remains jobless.

Fortunately, she just received a request from a marketing firm to send in her resume. However, Nicole’s resume is not quite up to the standard that this job expects. She has had an internship in marketing before, even excelled in the subject at school, but she doesn’t have the proper list of real-world experience her employers will desire. When pondering the issue, she realizes that she could exaggerate her responsibilities from her internship. Although she was typically filing and making coffee, she could say that she “wrote” a report she had in truth transcribed. When she staffed the front desk, she could claim she was doing “client intake.” And even though she quit after a quarter due to boredom, she could say she worked there for six months.

Nicole knows she’s competent and capable of doing the job well; it’s just that her employers might not recognize it based solely on her resume. Since she is buried in debt and her family is in need, is it all right for Nicole to simply alter or embellish some facts?

1. Consider this from a communication ethics perspective. What action would you take?

2. Compare now, consider this from one of the other ethical lenses in the previous chapter. Are your action steps the same or different? How so?

This is adapted from Santa Clara University , Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.

This chapter dove deeper into communication ethics by providing some context and detail around ethical thinking coming from a communication perspective. Dialogic ethics is only one form of communication ethics. Depending upon communication practices and preferences, there may be other ways of applying communication ethics other than through dialogue. One way might be always using feedforward messaging that focuses on transparency, and not on dialogue. Perhaps another way would be to emphasize a framework for a feedback loop that is not dynamically dialogic but still uses other people’s feedback to make decisions. There are endless ways in which we might employ a communication ethic differently across all situations. Can you think of any other ways a communication ethic might work? The next chapter discusses Leadership Communication Skills, what they are and how to develop them.

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Module 8: Communication in the Workplace

Ethics in communication, learning outcomes.

Discuss ethics in communication

American business woman and lifestyle expert Martha Stewart is famous for her recipes, her home decorating tips, and her jail time. In late 2001, Stewart avoided losses of about $45,000 when her broker came to her with a tip of “nonpublic” information. That tip motivated Stewart to sell ImClone Systems stock the day before it took a 16% drop in the market.

That tip was an unethical communication. And unsurprisingly, Martha Stewart was tried and sent to prison for using that information to try to save her investment.

Organizations have to manage sensitive information every day, whether it’s an employee’s personal tax information, news about financial results, or information about upcoming layoffs. Leaders are asked to treat such information confidentially, as leaked information can lead to an ethical issue, either within the company (internally) or for their customers and investors (externally)

Any communication should follow these three ethical standards:

Refrain from doing harm
Fairness to all stakeholders (internal and external)

Honesty should be a feature of every communication, whether it is directed downward to employees, upward to management, laterally to other peers and departments, or externally. Facts and figures should be correct to the best of a preparer’s knowledge. Precautions should be taken to protect any sensitive information contained within.

Honesty should also prevail when communicating goals, expectations, decisions, feedback, or judgments to employees.

Refrain from Doing Harm

Whether communicating on a corporate or an individual level, the communication should make every effort to cause no harm. For instance, tobacco companies are required to communicate that the practice of consuming their products may lead to physical conditions like emphysema or lung cancer. A company who is aware of a danger like that and doesn’t communicate it would be breaking this rule of ethical communication.

Fairness to all Stakeholders

When communicating internally or externally, the organization should attempt to be fair to its employees, customers, and community.

If a manager were to exert inappropriate control over employees, stockholders or customers, this would be a violation of this standard. Price fixing, bribery, and insider training are examples of behaviors and communications that are exerting unfairness to stakeholders.

Sadly, there’s no shortage of examples where organizations making unethical decisions and creating unethical communications as a result. Take this very famous example of a corporate communications and activities gone wrong:

Enron made a variety of unethical decisions that led to the demise of the company and the incarceration of several of its C-level executives. Let’s take the ones highlighted in this video one at a time:

Enron started losing money, and executives chose to hide it rather than admit their investment mistakes – An unethical decision that was followed, no doubt, by dozens of unethical communications, both to their employees, who were directed to disguise losses, and to external stakeholders, who read 10Ks and annual reports that suggested Enron was doing much better than it was. This definitely breaks the honesty and fairness standards. No harm has yet been done, but surely that’s to come.

Media wondered if Enron was overvalued, which put pressure on stock prices, and insiders decided to start “cashing out” – Essentially, these insiders were doing exactly what Martha Stewart had done. The media was only wondering if the stock was overvalued, but, because they were aware of the lies being told, insiders knew it was overvalued. They decided to take their money while they could. Ultimately, the communications that led to these actions were not only lacking in honesty and fairness, but they’re about to do others harm: financial harm.

Enron filed for bankruptcy – Now, 20,000 jobs have been lost, as well as employee pensions, etc. All the actions and communications that led to this moment violated all three of the ethical standards.

Practice Question

It’s every individual’s responsibility to communicate and behave ethically in an organization. And any individual who knows that someone else is not behaving ethically needs to make a choice to either do the socially responsible thing by reporting it, or stay quiet. Unfortunately, many stay quiet, because they feel their careers will be in danger if they speak out. The ethical choice isn’t always the easiest, but usually it’s the best.

Ethics in Communication. Authored by : Freedom Learning Group. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
The Enron Scandal Explained in One Minute: Corporate Recklessness, Lies and Bankruptcy. Authored by : One Minute Economics. Located at : https://youtu.be/jrEf8uabe7E . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube License

Communication Ethics: A Vital Resource in an Ever-Changing World (October 2016): Dialogic Ethics—Communication Ethics’ Most Significant Contribution

Early History of Communication Ethics
Professionalization of Communication Ethics

Dialogic Ethics—Communication Ethics’ Most Significant Contribution

Contemporary Scope and Context
Media Ethics
Philosophical and Normative Approaches
Case Studies, Organizational Communication, and Workplaces
Rhetorical Approaches, the Communication Process, and the Public
Pedagogy and Teaching

Works Cited

Virtue, duty, and consequentialist ethics form the foundation of classical ethics study. From a communication ethics standpoint, they originate in philosophy and are applied to communicative actions, such as speaking your mind on what you believe (virtue of courage), not lying even when it is unpleasant news (duty), or not revealing something on a news broadcast that might cause widespread panic (consequential). While built on the foundation of these classical approaches, today’s communication ethics differs dramatically. In particular, there is dialogic ethics, which locates ethics in the communicative relationships between people rather than in philosophical thought. Thinkers in this area include Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas, whose work has been expanded by contemporary communication ethicists.

Buber’s I and Thou emphasizes mutuality and reciprocity between persons, suggesting that we relate to others along a continuum of “I-It” to “I-Thou.” In the former, we treat another person as an object and keep her/him at a distance. The latter relationship is one of mutual and shared vulnerability in which there are high levels of trust and intimacy. For Buber, being connected to others is the foundation of our personhood. Conversely, in Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority and Otherwise than Being , both by Levinas, the foundation of our personhood is rooted in our responsibility for others as it emerges in communication. For Levinas, ethics is “response-ability” for another person who is radically and infinitely different from the self. Ethics is putting the other before and above one’s self without the expectation of reciprocity, and thereby not viewing the other as an extension of one’s self. Amit Pinchevski’s By Way of Interruption: Levinas and the Ethics of Communication and Jeffrey Murray’s Face to Face in Dialogue: Emmanuel Levinas and (the) Communication (of) Ethics apply Levinas to the study of communication in terms of dialogue, language, experience, and mediated forms of communication.

Mikhail Bakhtin’s work on dialogue has also influenced communication ethics. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays and Speech Genres and Other Late Essays provide a philosophical explication of how humans are dialogical beings, composed of many voices and influences. Communication ethicists cite Bakhtin alongside Buber when articulating how the ethical nature of dialogue is fundamentally connected to what it means to be human. Bakhtin’s Toward a Philosophy of the Act critiques Kant’s ethics while also centralizing the importance of action. His notion of “non-alibi of Being” speaks to the primacy of “answerability” related to communicative (and other) actions: we cannot act without being answerable for the decisions, choices, and actions we engage in.

Rob Anderson, Kenneth Cissna, and Ronald C. Arnett spearheaded contemporary examinations of dialogue as an ethical form of communication in their edited volume The Reach of Dialogue: Confirmation, Voice, and Community. It was followed a decade later by Anderson, Leslie Baxter, and Cissna’s seminal edited volume Dialogue: Theorizing Difference in Communication Studies . Another foundational work is Charles Brown and P. W. Keller’s Monologue to Dialogue: An Exploration of Interpersonal Communication , which situated ethics as a dialogic interchange within interpersonal interaction. It proffered early arguments for ethics as a communicative phenomenon, not as a wholly philosophical one. An emphasis on connecting ethics and cooperative communication engagement is maintained in Dialogue and Deliberation by Josina M. Makau and Debian L. Marty. Dialogic Civility in a Cynical Age: Community, Hope and Interpersonal Relationships by Pat Arneson and Ronald C. Arnett offers a pragmatic philosophical response for people interested in improving interpersonal relationships in an era of cynical communication.

I and thou by Martin Buber Publication Date: 1937

Toward a philosophy of the act by M. M. Bakhtin ISBN: 9780292765344 Publication Date: 1993
The Reach of dialogue: confirmation, voice, and community by Rob Anderson; Kenneth N. Cissna; Ronald C. Arnett; Brenda Dervin (editors) ISBN: 9781881303008 Publication Date: 1994

Monologue to dialogue : an exploration of interpersonal communication by Charles T. Brown and Paul T. Keller ISBN: 9780136008255 Publication Date: 1979

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MindEdge Online Learning

Corporate, Continuing, and Higher Education

Ethical Communication in the Workplace

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Blog post content.

By Tricia Goodwin Senior Editor, MindEdge Learning

Most of us spend half (or more than half) of our waking hours in the workplace, whether it’s physical or virtual.

At work, we communicate with a range of people with different roles, experiences, cultures, perspectives, and power levels. Knowing how to communicate skillfully across such a wide spectrum of colleagues is an essential skill set in the modern workplace.

Workplace communication often involves the delicate intersection of authority, power dynamics, and collaborative teamwork. We often refer to this intersection as “workplace politics,” though these politics have less to do with the White House and more to do with the underlying attitudes that influence how ideas are received and adopted within a workplace.

But what do we mean by authority and power, and how do these relate to collaborative teamwork? While “authority” is the power that comes with a specific role or title, “power dynamics” refers to the ability of one person to influence the behavior and attitudes of others— and how those others respond to the person with influence. The “power” of one individual or team over others sometimes sets up an unhealthy dynamic that can be reinforced through communication styles. Indeed, the quality and tenor of communication may have a negative impact on different individuals and teams— and that, in turn, can affect the entire company’s well-being.

Over the last few years, the news has been full of stories detailing how communications between authority figures and workplace subordinates have led to deeply troubling power dynamics. Companies, therefore, need to model and practice ethical communication at both the policy and everyday levels, to maintain healthy workplace politics.

“Ethics” refers to the behavior of people to choose the right or best path, and to make the most correct choice from a variety of choices; this includes how and why they communicate with their colleagues and clients. In the workplace, you will face a variety of ethical choices that can influence how others relate to you and how deeply they value you as a coworker. Your communication, therefore, needs to reflect your ethics.

What does it mean, then, to communicate ethically in the workplace?

Honesty should be the cornerstone of all your workplace communications. Honesty builds trust between you and authority figures, as well as between you and your colleagues and clients. Communication can be both verbal and non-verbal. Your actions are just as important as what you say or write. Honest communication not only builds trust, it also helps you and others identify and work on any fissures that may arise in the intersection between authority, power, and teamwork. Without honesty, communication fails at its core purpose.

Transparency

When communicating in your workplace, transparency is key. First, you need to be clear in your purpose and message. You also need to be lawful (i.e., you must know the laws and regulations that govern communication in your industry); reveal any research that contributed to the content of your communication; and identify any errors you’ve made. Your willingness to admit when you are wrong not only shows your degree of honesty, it also shows how you and your colleagues can learn from your mistakes.

Respect is essential to ethical workplace communication. This concept should seem self-evident, yet there are many ways in which a lack of understanding can result in workplace communications that lack proper respect. Consider, for instance, whether there are cultural or gender differences and dynamics in your workplace; if there are, you should fashion a communication plan that builds equitable bridges between these differences, rather than relying on outdated hierarchies that stymie communication.

How can you do this? Be a careful listener, especially to those whose backgrounds and perspectives differ from your own. Use affirmation and encouragement to build bridges between communication gaps. Ask polite questions to help improve your cross-cultural competency, both within your company and outside it. Clue in to personal space, as different cultures have different social norms around personal space. Again, what you do often communicates as much as what you say and write.

Remember that effective, ethical communication is foundational to a healthy work environment, because it is how you represent yourself and your company as a whole. Ethical communication is, therefore, essential to fostering positive, respectful working relationships—both within your workplace, and between your workplace and others.

For a complete listing of MindEdge’s course offerings on business communications skills, click here.

[An earlier version of this article ran in the MindEdge Learning Workshop Blog on April 13, 2018.]

Ethical Communication: The Basic Principles

First Published: October 23, 2020
Updated on: Oct 23, 2020

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The Basic Principles Of Ethical Communication

While project workflows, strategic planning, advanced technology, and business analyses are often topics associated with critical corporate discussions, an enterprise’s code of ethics – and its key ethical communication principles – is not often discussed. Businesses of all sizes rely on optimal person-to-person communication so that projects can be effectively completed, management and employees can understand each other, and for business to flow in the most efficient manner possible. While effective communication is necessary in all human relationships, it is even more critical in businesses of all sizes in order for confusion to be mitigated, and everyone is on the same page.

Humans rely on communication to express personal desires of what needs to be done, and how it is to be done. In a business, this is most important for both managers and employees to effectively express what they want done, and how they want it to be done. Communication is always a two-way, mutual set of actions that includes the communicator, and the receiver. Typically, communication will include two or more communicators and receivers, and spoken communication will often illicit a reply from the initial receiver.

A set of clear-cut principles exists, that every business should follow, to ensure all personnel, including C-suite executives and employees, effectively and ethically communicate in the workplace. Ultimately creating a comfortable, efficient environment where everyone is on the same page, and everyone is aligned to the principles and values of the enterprise. These ethical communication principles stem form a critical framework of values that every CEO should seek to discuss with all employees, executives, managers, and shareholders so the business is able to effectively leverage its relationships to better its bottom and top lines.

What Is Ethical Communication?

While hard skills are invaluable in any industry, there is a greater knowledge among SMEs – and larger enterprises – that soft skills and emotional intelligence are just as important in establishing effective workplace relationships that can produce results. While logical intelligence denotes one’s cognitive brainpower, emotional intelligence is based on an empathetic ability to understand people, which relates to having the ability to effectively communicate with people. Soft skills represent the other side of an employee’s personal skill set, and encompasses a group of workplace competencies focusing on working well with others – including the most critical soft skill, which is the skill of communication. And while there are many different types of communication principles that businesses need to know about, ethical communication is the most important.

Ethical Communication Defined

Ethical communication is a type of communication that is predicated upon certain business values, such as being truthful, concise, and responsible with one’s words and the resulting actions. As a set of principles, ethical communication understands that one’s thoughts must be conveyed and expressed effectively and concisely, and that the resulting actions or consequences will [potentially] be based solely on how the message was communicated. Thus, ethical communication defines a framework or set of acceptable communication principles that align with an enterprise’s overarching code of conduct or code of ethics.

Fundamentals Of Ethical Communication

Perhaps the main principle of ethical communication is honesty, as other factors stem from this core value of presenting information in the most reliable and factual way possible. Any attempt to mislead or present confusing information is not ethical communication. Additionally, the “honesty” principle of ethical communication is linked inexorably to other core principles – consistency and responsibility. This entails that information presented to different parties be consistent, and that short-term and long-term consequences of honest communication are to be accepted as one’s responsibility.

Ethical communication also assumes that communicated information is always presented (and received by the listener) according to one’s subjective perception, even if only in the most minimal way, and thus the goal of ethical communication is to be as objective as possible when communicating with others and to ensure that every recipient receives the same message.

Openness and Transparency

Truthfulness & honesty is the most core principle of ethical communication. This means that speaking 99 percent of the truth in a matter – while leaving out one percent of the facts – is not ethical communication, as omitting any detail (intentionally) changes the way that a listener will perceive an event. Thus, being 100 percent open and transparent, and hiding nothing, is key in order for all business relationships – whether within a business between its members, or with business and their partners, or even customers – to succeed in the short term and long term.

Being honest is linked to one’s personal and professional trustworthiness and integrity. In a perfect world, all members of an organization would have a positive reputation of honesty, such that listeners never doubt that what they are saying is 100 percent true. Within an organization – and between businesses – this type of honest communication can be the difference between a project being completed successfully or not. For instance, utilizing ethical communication, to be honest about the time and/or budget constraints during a board meeting with primary stakeholders can be the difference between the project meeting its goals, or failing due to misunderstandings and/or miscommunication. Thus, one of the primary goals of ethical communication is to prevent any misunderstandings or instances of miscommunication.

Consideration for Any Potential Roadblocks

When communicating with another party, truly ethical communication entails considering any potential factor that may influence how the recipient understands – or receives – the information that is being communicated. If there are any known roadblocks, then ethical communication principles dictate that the speaker/communicator utilize whatever means possible to mitigate or attenuate the roadblocks and ensure that the recipients of the information are able to fully understand what is being communicated.

Several examples are below where roadblocks may present themselves, resulting in the communicator needing to take steps to attenuate any potential instances of miscommunication:

Language Use

Obviously, ethical communication dictates that speakers utilize the language that listeners understand. It would make little sense to present a business presentation in English to a non-English speaking Chinese audience. Taking this example further, it would also be unethical to communicate the information mostly in Chinese, with a certain section in English, presenting only parts of the data to the Chinese audience.

Every industry has its own jargon. When speaking to a layperson, it is ethical to speak with simple, easy-to-understand words, while avoiding the use of heavy jargon, resulting in portions of the presentation/communication being incomprehensible to a portion of the audience.

Language Fluency

Ethical communication takes into account the level of fluency as well as the language spoken by listeners so that recipients of the communication (whether it be spoken or written) are able to fully understand what is being communicated.

Accessibility to Technology

In this information and digital age, some take accessibility to advanced technology for granted. For instance, while smartphones are readily available, and translation apps are abundant, not everyone is able to access such applications or platforms. If a business wanted to present certain pieces of information to an audience while expecting the audience to translate it into their native language via an application, there may be confusion. Thus, the ability to access certain technology – and the know-how on how to use certain applications – may be a roadblock when it comes to ethically communicating to a particular audience.

Development of Relationship

The art of communication allows people to express themselves in order to develop relationships. In business, this can be an employee dealing with a manager, executives communicating with stakeholders, or managers talking with other business representatives. It is critical for there to be no confusion or misunderstandings when businesses try to develop relationships within themselves and with other business entities or clients/customers. To accomplish this, ethical communication principles must be followed, ensuring that all parties can receive the consistent truth, and understand what needs to be done, and how it needs to be done.

Principles of Ethical Communication

There are a myriad of core principles associated with ethical communication, starting with the core value of honesty that all other values are connected to. However, it can be said that there is a value underlying honesty (with regard to ethical communication) and that is emotional intelligence/empathy as the precursor of all soft skills, which allows all personnel to be understood, and to effectively communicate with others. Emotional intelligence, within the framework of ethical communication, allows one to understand the needs of others, and meet those needs in the most efficient manner possible as if you were in their shoes.

1. Be Truthful And Honest

Being honest means communicating what is known to be true (only 100 percent the facts) to a listener, with no intent to deceive or present only parts of the truth. It also means being as objective as possible, that is, not tailoring the story based on what the speaker wants the listener to believe. Letting the listener take the data that is objectively presented and believe what they choose to believe is a core goal of ethical communication. Ethical communication should be based on accurate information and facts – in a word, do not lie.

2. Active Listening

Hearing someone and listening to them are two different things. In order for ethical communication to be effective, it is necessary for the recipient to pro-actively listen to the speaker, and to not just hear what they want to hear, or to hear only parts of the conversation. This also means asking questions when any point is not completely understood, for the sake of clarification.

3. Speak Non-Judgmentally

Ethically and concisely communicating means speaking in a non-judgmental manner with every recipient, negating unnecessary conflict, which typically creates a breakdown in communication and causes misunderstandings. Unnecessary conflict is never good for any business, and such conflicts usually result from unethical communications, with judgmental, accusatory, and overly-critical comments often being the catalyst for such breakdowns in communication.

4. Speak From Your Own Experience

Bringing your personal experience into a dialogue with business listeners is important, providing backup for your arguments with something more tangible. Such a communication method (experiential communication) paints a complete picture for your audience and helps to prove your points so that the listeners have a better understanding of what is being said.

5. Consider the Receiver’s Preferred Communication Channel

You risk losing an audience if you use a communication channel that is not preferred by your intended receiver. To effectively communicate with your listeners, use the most preferred communication channel, whether that be face-to-face, email, conference call, phone call, messenger app, etc. Also, when presenting data to a business audience, be aware of the preferred method of presentation for that business, whether it be graphs, slides, PowerPoint presentations, etc. Additionally, since body language is very important, it is often preferred to meet business clients face-to-face.

6. Strive To Understand

While it is important to be proactive in listening, it is important for listeners to also strive to fully understand what is being said before responding. While asking for clarification or confirmation of a point is fine, many times questions that listeners pose have already been answered. Listeners should think about what has been said before constructing a reply. Reading “in between the lines” is also an important skill that allows for understanding what isn’t said, but was implicitly said or implied.

7. Avoid A Negative Tone

Ethically communicating assumes the speaker will avoid rudeness, be polite and professional, and have tact. The ethical communicator knows that it’s not only important what you say, but how you say it. Tone is one of the most critical facets of communication. A listener may miss the meaning altogether if the tone is wrong, which can lead to unnecessary confrontations that decrease business productivity.

Controlling one’s tone goes along with self-control, a soft skill that allows one to know how they wish to reply to a terse business message (for instance) versus the most effective manner for replying. Essentially, keeping the tone positive or neutral is best, as the tone of a written message – or of one’s voice – is always picked up by the receiver, and can alter how the message is received and/or understood.

Additionally, while it is acceptable to be honest and open, tact – and professional maturity – means knowing when it is inappropriate to speak up, and when it is crucial to. Tact also means knowing that being completely honest does not equate with being rude or negative – it is possible to be completely honest and open with one’s thoughts and feelings while still remaining polite and respectful.

8. Do Not Interrupt Others

Allowing others to speak is important for the creation of a civil, effective working environment. Interrupting others results in misunderstandings and unnecessary conflicts and a breakdown in workplace communications, which only hinders corporate progress and creates problems. Interrupting others not only shows a lack of respect, but does not allow the listener to fully grasp what is being said, which often results in incorrect assumptions being made.

9. Respect Privacy And Confidentiality

Most businesses should include a clause in their code of ethics defining what is appropriate when it comes to honoring client and employee confidentiality and privacy. This can have a wide range of implications, including minimizing workplace gossip, and mitigating toxic conversations about the private lives of clients and/or personnel.

10. Accept Responsibility

As noted before, a core tenant within any ethical communication framework is taking responsibility for the actions that result from one’s words, whether it be good or bad. This includes both short term and long term consequences of one’s communications. Owning one’s words reinforces the importance of being conscientious about ethical communication.

Example Of Ethical Communication

There are a myriad of examples of how ethical communication can change the outcome of a problem in a business or workplace environment, revealing why ethical communication principles should be followed:

Medical industry: In the medical industry, not only is there the key HIPAA regulation , but there are numerous medical codes of ethics that medical professionals have to follow, with regard to their actions, conduct, and communications. These principles ensure that all patients and fellow medical professionals have their rights protected. For instance, doctors are required by law to not divulge private information about patients to anyone whom the patient has not consented to be privy to such private info.
Property Consulting industry: Ethical communications in the property consulting industry can take several forms, including revealing key pieces of information to would-be home owners of a property, including “negative” truths about the property – for example, divulging the entire history of the property, including any accidents or crimes that happened in the property.
Marketing industry: Ethical communications in the marketing industry can include revealing to clients that their business marketing applications are not optimal, and that a cheaper vendor, or a different form of marketing, will yield better results.

Virtually every industry can benefit from ethical communication principles, which always seeks to ensure that every enterprise member is able to present valuable pieces of information so that the best decisions can be made.

Ethical Communication In An Organization

In business organizations, communicating concisely, ethically, and appropriately are all necessary so a business can operate effectively and efficiently. Operating according to a communication-based code of ethics is important for both small and large scale person-to-person conversations. For larger audiences it is often important for business members to employ additional values to their communication principles, such as:

Choosing the right place/time: Speaking about a particular topic in a business often requires choosing the most pertinent and appropriate time and place in order for the message to be most effective. This requires knowing the recipients and having tact, along with utilizing strategy and planning.
Knowing one’s Audience: Certain audiences may prefer different verbiage or jargon, or may prefer one communication channel over another. Being an effective communicator means knowing your audience in order to communicate in the way that he/she will understand the best.

Business communication requires ethical values to form the foundation of all of its relationships, which ensures that all enterprise workflows, short term projects, and long term projects are effectively managed and carried out. Any lapse in efficient and ethical communication can result in misunderstandings, conflicts, delays with projects, and the creation of an ineffective working environment.

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Essay on Importance of Communication for Students and Children

500+ words essay on importance of communication:.

Communication is one of the important tools that aid us to connect with people. Either you are a student or a working professional, good communication is something that will connect you far ahead. Proper communication can help you to solve a number of issues and resolve problems. This is the reason that one must know how to communicate well. The skills of communication essential to be developed so that you are able to interact with people. And able to share your thoughts and reach out to them. All this needs the correct guidance and self-analysis as well.

Meaning of Communication

The word communication is basically a process of interaction with the people and their environment . Through such type of interactions, two or more individuals influence the ideas, beliefs, and attitudes of each other.

Such interactions happen through the exchange of information through words, gestures, signs, symbols, and expressions. In organizations, communication is an endless process of giving and receiving information and to build social relationships.

Importance of Communication

Communication is not merely essential but the need of the hour. It allows you to get the trust of the people and at the same time carry better opportunities before you. Some important points are as follows –

Help to Build Relationships

No matter either you are studying or working, communication can aid you to build a relationship with the people. If you are studying you communicate with classmates and teachers to build a relationship with them. Likewise in offices and organizations too, you make relationships with the staff, your boss and other people around.

Improve the Working Environment

There are a number of issues which can be handled through the right and effective communication. Even planning needs communication both written as well as verbal. Hence it is essential to be good in them so as to fill in the communication gap.

Foster strong team

Communication helps to build a strong team environment in the office and other places. Any work which requires to be done in a team. It is only possible if the head communicates everything well and in the right direction.

Find the right solutions

Through communication, anyone can find solutions to even serious problems. When we talk, we get ideas from people that aid us to solve the issues. This is where communication comes into play. Powerful communication is the strength of any organization and can help it in many ways.

Earns more respect

If your communication skills are admirable, people will love and give you respect. If there is any problem, you will be the first person to be contacted. Thus it will increase your importance. Hence you can say that communications skills can make a big change to your reputation in society.

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Don’t Go Overboard With Your Point

The conversation is about to express your thoughts. And to let the other person know what you feel. It is not mean to prove that your point is correct and the other person is wrong. Don’t Overboard other With Your Point.

Watch Your Words

Before you say something to Watch Your Words. At times, out of anger or anxiousness, we say somethings that we must not say. Whenever you are in a professional meeting or in some formal place, where there is a necessity of communicating about your product or work then it is advised to practice the same beforehand

Communication is the greatest importance. It is important to sharing out one’s thoughts and feelings to live a fuller and happier life. The more we communicate the less we suffer and the better we feel about everything around. However, it is all the more necessary to learn the art of effective communication to put across ones point well.

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What Are Business Ethics & Why Are They Important?

Business professional pressing a graphic that reads "Business Ethics" and is surrounded by icons

27 Jul 2023

From artificial intelligence to facial recognition technology, organizations face an increasing number of ethical dilemmas. While innovation can aid business growth, it can also create opportunities for potential abuse.

“The long-term impacts of a new technology—both positive and negative—may not become apparent until years after it’s introduced,” says Harvard Business School Professor Nien-hê Hsieh in the online course Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “For example, the impact of social media on children and teenagers didn’t become evident until we watched it play out over time.”

If you’re a current or prospective leader concerned about navigating difficult situations, here's an overview of business ethics, why they're important, and how to ensure ethical behavior in your organization.

Access your free e-book today.

What Are Business Ethics?

Business ethics are principles that guide decision-making . As a leader, you’ll face many challenges in the workplace because of different interpretations of what's ethical. Situations often require navigating the “gray area,” where it’s unclear what’s right and wrong.

When making decisions, your experiences, opinions, and perspectives can influence what you believe to be ethical, making it vital to:

Be transparent.
Invite feedback.
Consider impacts on employees, stakeholders, and society.
Reflect on past experiences to learn what you could have done better.

“The way to think about ethics, in my view, is: What are the externalities that your business creates, both positive and negative?” says Harvard Business School Professor Vikram Gandhi in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “And, therefore, how do you actually increase the positive element of externalities? And how do you decrease the negative?”

Related: Why Managers Should Involve Their Team in the Decision-Making Process

Ethical Responsibilities to Society

Promoting ethical conduct can benefit both your company and society long term.

“I'm a strong believer that a long-term focus is what creates long-term value,” Gandhi says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “So you should get shareholders in your company that have that same perspective.”

Prioritizing the triple bottom line is an effective way for your business to fulfill its environmental responsibilities and create long-term value. It focuses on three factors:

Profit: The financial return your company generates for shareholders
People: How your company affects customers, employees, and stakeholders
Planet: Your company’s impact on the planet and environment

Check out the video below to learn more about the triple bottom line, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more explainer content!

Ethical and corporate social responsibility (CSR) considerations can go a long way toward creating value, especially since an increasing number of customers, employees, and investors expect organizations to prioritize CSR. According to the Conscious Consumer Spending Index , 67 percent of customers prefer buying from socially responsible companies.

To prevent costly employee turnover and satisfy customers, strive to fulfill your ethical responsibilities to society.

Ethical Responsibilities to Customers

As a leader, you must ensure you don’t mislead your customers. Doing so can backfire, negatively impacting your organization’s credibility and profits.

Actions to avoid include:

Greenwashing : Taking advantage of customers’ CSR preferences by claiming your business practices are sustainable when they aren't.
False advertising : Making unverified or untrue claims in advertisements or promotional material.
Making false promises : Lying to make a sale.

These unethical practices can result in multi-million dollar lawsuits, as well as highly dissatisfied customers.

Ethical Responsibilities to Employees

You also have ethical responsibilities to your employees—from the beginning to the end of their employment.

One area of business ethics that receives a lot of attention is employee termination. According to Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability , letting an employee go requires an individualized approach that ensures fairness.

Not only can wrongful termination cost your company upwards of $100,000 in legal expenses , it can also negatively impact other employees’ morale and how they perceive your leadership.

Ethical business practices have additional benefits, such as attracting and retaining talented employees willing to take a pay cut to work for a socially responsible company. Approximately 40 percent of millennials say they would switch jobs to work for a company that emphasizes sustainability.

Ultimately, it's critical to do your best to treat employees fairly.

“Fairness is not only an ethical response to power asymmetries in the work environment,” Hsieh says in the course. “Fairness—and having a successful organizational culture–can benefit the organization economically and legally.”

Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability | Develop a toolkit for making tough leadership decisions| Learn More

Why Are Business Ethics Important?

Failure to understand and apply business ethics can result in moral disengagement .

“Moral disengagement refers to ways in which we convince ourselves that what we’re doing is not wrong,” Hsieh says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability . “It can upset the balance of judgment—causing us to prioritize our personal commitments over shared beliefs, rules, and principles—or it can skew our logic to make unethical behaviors appear less harmful or not wrong.”

Moral disengagement can also lead to questionable decisions, such as insider trading .

“In the U.S., insider trading is defined in common, federal, and state laws regulating the opportunity for insiders to benefit from material, non-public information, or MNPI,” Hsieh explains.

This type of unethical behavior can carry severe legal consequences and negatively impact your company's bottom line.

“If you create a certain amount of harm to a society, your customers, or employees over a period of time, that’s going to have a negative impact on your economic value,” Gandhi says in the course.

This is reflected in over half of the top 10 largest bankruptcies between 1980 and 2013 that resulted from unethical behavior. As a business leader, strive to make ethical decisions and fulfill your responsibilities to stakeholders.

How to Implement Business Ethics

To become a more ethical leader, it's crucial to have a balanced, long-term focus.

“It's very important to balance the fact that, even if you're focused on the long term, you have to perform in the short term as well and have a very clear, articulated strategy around that,” Gandhi says in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability .

Making ethical decisions requires reflective leadership.

“Reflecting on complex, gray-area decisions is a key part of what it means to be human, as well as an effective leader,” Hsieh says. “You have agency. You must choose how to act. And with that agency comes responsibility.”

Related: Why Are Ethics Important in Engineering?

Hsieh advises asking the following questions:

Are you using the “greater good” to justify unethical behavior?
Are you downplaying your actions to feel better?

“Asking these and similar questions at regular intervals can help you notice when you or others may be approaching the line between making a tough but ethical call and justifying problematic actions,” Hsieh says.

How to Become a More Effective Leader | Access Your Free E-Book | Download Now

Become a More Ethical Leader

Learning from past successes and mistakes can enable you to improve your ethical decision-making.

“As a leader, when trying to determine what to do, it can be helpful to start by simply asking in any given situation, ‘What can we do?’ and ‘What would be wrong to do?’” Hsieh says.

Many times, the answers come from experience.

Gain insights from others’ ethical decisions, too. One way to do so is by taking an online course, such as Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability , which includes case studies that immerse you in real-world business situations, as well as a reflective leadership model to inform your decision-making.

Ready to become a better leader? Enroll in Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability —one of our online leadership and management courses —and download our free e-book on how to be a more effective leader.

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The Importance of Ethics in Our Daily Life

Categories: Ethics Ethics in Everyday Life Personal Ethics

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Published: Oct 2, 2020

Words: 530 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

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Importance of Ethics in Communication Essay

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Introduction

Brief History of the Discipline

General Characteristics: Heterogeneity, Interconnectivity, and Historicity

Integrity: Truth, Truthfulness, and Trust

Power: Justice, Normativity, and Force

Relation: Alterity and Compassion

Discussion of the Literature: Five Modes of Ethical Reasoning

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