The digital media has offered opportunities in society for people of various backgrounds to express themselves to a larger audience. As a result of the use of digital media, technical and economic advancement has been accelerated. The major problems raised by the operationalization of digital media are whether they are a bane or a facilitator of mass media. The digital media has made a significant contribution to the reconfiguration of the mass media by adding questions of ethics and the law of legal issues that occur on these platforms. This paper will concentrate on the legal and ethical challenges that have arisen as a result of the widespread use of digital media. The legal issues that emerge in this discussion include the protection of the freedom of expression and the restraints that must be observed under the law to avoid the influx of defamation cases over the digital media platforms. Essentially, the digital technologies have undergone proliferation in modern times leading to ethical and legal consequences in the society. The current digital age portends various challenges to the stakeholders which include the professional journalists, consumers of information, communication regulators and content producers. The internet has been the main culprit in terms of mutilating the profession of journalism. Legal and ethical challenges due to the publishing of stories based on hearsays or information sourced from the internet undermining the credibility of the media in reporting.
The sensationalizing of stories reported by the media practitioners in modern times has been affected by acts such as plagiarism, fabrication, manipulation of pictures and publishing of falsehoods by the journalists. The hard laws that only focus on the excesses of the traditional media are ineffective in modern times and hence need revision. The information control has shifted in contemporary times leading to a democracy in the media content is produced and disperse around the world. The main undoing of the digital media is giving people who are not trained as media professionals to produce content while unaware of the media laws protecting the rights of other people.
Professional communicators and other members of the public do not have the knowledge on the standing ethical standards and policy environment which creates problems when they become content developers. Digital technologies have aroused a lot of great interest and, in some cases, high profile court cases have been launched after leaking of high secret government information as exemplified by the Snowden`s case in the USA. Media regulators and policymakers must rethink their positions and how they can act as the gatekeepers in the digital age to avoid the proliferation of information control around the world. A big loophole exists between the laws that were created to control the traditional media and the existing legal rules to guide the digital media which includes mobile technology and social media.
New levels of illegalities have realized as journalistic rules are trampled on by bloggers and modern journalistic rendering the ethics and old laws redundant. The social space has been replaced by the social media where people withhold their identities in order to publish conflicting or dissenting information. There are compelling reasons to the effect that those operating amateur journalists and others using pseudonyms must be subjected to the laws that control the civilized media. The highly opinionated and personal websites on the internet have a massive following making it a special society that is separate from the traditional media which is based on the meticulous journalistic work and facts-based stories.
The big difference that exists between amateur journalism and the traditional media has disappeared as the traditional media is tainted by instances of invented stories and in other cases unethical conduct has become a common practice. The credibility of the traditional journalism to engender their profession with facts that are verifiable and as an image of the society has been challenged over time. Media plays an important role of dispersing credible information and when it is compromised the society lose focus as there is no a threshold for telling the truth about social, economic and political issues. Digital media has led to great benefits in terms of expanding the space for the democratic expression of the various freedoms; however, it has made it extremely easy for the violation of the rights of the state and other people.
Misinformation and verification ethics
Core values such as verification are very important in journalism and they play a crucial role because of reinforcing the integrity of this profession. The digital media has made it possible for amateur journalists to report the story live as it happens bypassing the procedures required before a story is published which has increased the desires of the journalists to do stories before they have verified the information. Imperatives to publish at first instance have gained prominence over the verification process as the digital media reports instantly making the traditional journalists seem irrelevant. The verification element of news production is very critical as the validity and accuracy of information is paramount. The digital era media makes it impossible for the important process of gathering news and dissemination and hence the online platforms for reporting such as social media and blogs scoop the stories at every available opportunity (Hobbs, 2010).
Mainstream media is compromising the traditional values of journalism because of the fear of losing relevance amid the high competition from the citizen journalism. This makes it necessary that the modern journalists have the ability to report as the events are in action and to ensure that they give proper references on the whether what they report is verifiable. Constant desires by the media practitioners to undercut online news market niche has led to desertion of accurate and professional reporting, an issue of ethics in the media. The authenticity and the veracity of news sources have coerced the journalists to being compromised by the digital media as they engage in cut-throat competition with the online news. Outsourcing the credibility of their sources from third parties instead of applying of the common rules of engaging the eyewitnesses has been a great undoing by the modern journalists (James et al, 2009).
Competing interests and the freedom of expression
Internet users and amateur journalists that have the capacity to exploit the digital media to create and disseminate information, but in ace of violation these individuals can be prosecuted for defamation in the court of law. In case these unregulated media stakeholders violate the existing media laws, there is a legal recourse for the parties that have been affected by their actions. However, the operationalization of these rules are subject to a lot of processes especially on the offences committed on social media platforms as there is a conflict of interests being the freedom of expression and acts that qualify to be defamation. The freedom of the media and the freedom of expression have become the main terminologies used by the internet users to denounce the torts launched in the courts of law criminalizing the defamation caused through some of disseminated content. The court has the leeway to determine the criminality of the individual cases involving utterances and publication that have a grave impact on reputation of personalities or cause instability in particular areas. The excesses that can be executed by the media to mutilate the private citizens require the intervention of the government so as to control the information publicized by the media.
The legal intrusion into the media space is a result of the realization by the legislators that the communicators are in some of the cases biased and with ill intension (Reamer, 2013). The publications can be a source of public instability and character assassination in case it is not controlled. The dichotomy of the broadcast and the print media is now superfluous as instantaneous sharing of content can happen in a record time necessitating for strict rules to filter bad elements in the media industry. The fact that information published on online platforms has credibility problems gives credence to the argument by traditional media practitioners that governments must regulate the content disseminated through the internet. Essentially, there is an increased power of control by the media which demands for the reconstruction of the media ethics to reflect the changes that have been effected in the society as a result of the digital media.
Application of the global media ethics has paramount importance in contemporary digital media space as this will serve as the reinforcing values to withhold the standards of professional journalism. The legal framework that supports media in a particular country cannot make changes to the other crucial jurisdictions in the dissemination of information that covers the whole world. The consciousness of a journalist is guided by the immediate environment of operation and there is need for training based on the challenges presented by the digital media. The law developed in individual countries must be in tandem with the global journalism ethics developed over time and they must be modified to fit into the current challenges brought about by the digital media. Essentially, laws do not operate in a vacuum and thus, the media practitioners must be consulted in the development of laws impacting on the digital media.
Journalists should focus on the cultural peculiarities of a particular area before disseminating information that might injure individuals or groups. Freedoms guaranteed to each and every person such as human dignity must be respected by the media fraternity including the new unregulated operatives on the digital media platforms. The universal principles that guide the practice of media must be instituted in local jurisdictions to control the proliferation that has been influenced by the expanded democratic space provided by the digital media.
Internet has been described as a disruption to the other of things in modern days and the media industry has been revolutionized as a lot of news consumers have access to the internet (Whitehouse, 2010). The digital media has in some instances been described as the new media and the government has to come up with regulation to control the excesses that are envisioned as a result of unprofessional dispensing of news item. Freedoms that are guaranteed in the law such as the right to expression are not absolute as it does not extend to the acts that might considered as being incitement. News item that are deemed to be invading a private citizen`s privacy or damaging the reputation of another person have become popular at the digital age making necessary to create statutes that address the emergent challenges. The issue of the protection of copyright has been affected as there is no ultimate assurance in its protection through the judicial process. Digital media has become a crucial tool in how the sharing of the copyrighted works in the modern world.
The digital space has been infested by criminals leading to high instances of cybercrimes. The fact that some of the media practitioners have used internet sources so as to write credible reports is worrying because these sources not verifiable and the people who upload the information cannot be authenticated. Digital manipulation of pictures has become a major challenge as it may lead to grave impacts with regard to misinformation to the public. The era of concentrating ownership, internet and deregulation of media has led to significant transformations to the profession of journalism. Media laws developed in contemporary times have given a leeway for the government to institute measures that will ensure that the new media is not used to spread hate speech, fake news and cause instability in the society.
Media laws have impactful consequences on the way people in particular society conduct their public conversations. The government is involved heavily in the creation the environment for the digital media by laying down the regulation and the rules that will help to create a relationship with the traditional media. New legal and ethical issues have emerged with new versions of new media including social media and blogs that are not properly regulated to control the information they disperse. Legal issues emerge from the ease and the possibility of people falsifying their identity and using the pseudo accounts to spread fake news and unverified information through the digital media.
The issue of public interest is a dominant factor in the development of media laws in any country that has great interest in controlling the excesses of digital media (Dominick, 2010). One issue that is in the public space is that blogging has become an alternative to the traditional media becoming a force with an authority within the digital media platforms. Most countries have not established proper legal framework to caution the traditional media from being challenged in an unregulated media industry environment. The development in the digital technology has led to revisiting of the traditional laws to reflect the changes in the society. This has been exemplified by the legislation of social media laws that help in controlling the information posted in these applications. The laws that are developed by the legislative institutions have not reflected the changing society where ethics has not been at the center of the public debate. Conflict of interest and partisan journalism has gained prominence in modern times as there are a lot of opportunities for profiteering under the digital media to unqualified journalists. Reporters have also been encouraged to exploit the wider space provided by social media platforms to engage the news consumer and to build their own brand.
Conclusively, the traditional media has been proliferated by the influences of modern technology that has democratized the media space. The new media has brought a lot of benefits to the traditional media in terms of reaching out to much younger consumers of their content. Essentially, these benefits have also introduced new challenges with regard creating legislations on how the digital media can be used responsibly to spread information. Governments will have to develop mechanisms and seal the loopholes that are exploited by rogue media practitioners on spreading fake news and mutilating individual freedoms.
References
Dominick, J. R. (2010). The dynamics of mass communication: Media in the digital age. Tata McGraw-Hill Education.
Whitehouse, G. (2010). Newsgathering and privacy: Expanding ethics codes to reflect change in the digital media age. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 25(4), 310-327.
James, C., Davis, K., Flores, A., Francis, J. M., Pettingill, L., Rundle, M., & Gardner, H. (2009). Young people, ethics, and the new digital media: A synthesis from the GoodPlay Project. MIT Press.
Reamer, F. G. (2013). Social work in a digital age: Ethical and risk management challenges. Social work, 58(2), 163-172.
Hobbs, R. (2010). Digital and media literacy: A plan of action. Washington, DC: The Aspen Institute.
