Last night I sat on a panel and we spoke about online media (new media) and the ethics involved in using social media, among many other things.
It went really well. I was nervous, of course, right up until we started and then it was fine.
I came away with some things to think about and think about them I did. At 3am. When I couldn’t sleep. Sigh.
Anonymous comments – what value do they hold? Do they still hold value if the person has a differing point of view to yourself?
I think anonymous comments can and do add value to a conversation. People will share things anonymously that for whatever reason they couldn’t share commenting with their name. I think anonymous comments and whether they should be allowed through are always going to come down to the tone of the comment itself.
Of course, I still get that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I see a comment from anonymous, but that’s a hangover from trolls and such.
Now the conversation was more geared towards why a news website, The Mercury in particular would allow comments from anonymous readers if they’re not adding to the news – and the simple answer is that people like to participate in the conversation. People like to share their views and in my opinion, doing so anonymously is fine, so long as the tone of the comment is respectful. That’s called debate.
Of course, we’re not all going to agree on things all of the time and so at the end of the day, some people will wonder why a comment went through, or didn’t go through as the case may be.
Yet another reason why moderators on news sites are so very very important.
What are the ethics of blogging and new media?
Blogging doesn’t have a code of ethics as such, we don’t answer to anyone else and I think that is a lot of the problem between ‘new’ media and ‘old’ media – or traditional journalists and bloggers. Journalists can sometimes see bloggers as rogues, unanswerable to anyone else, writing on the internet, whereas bloggers see journalists stealing quotes without linking and acting holier than thou. (obviously not the journalists I was speaking to last night, who were all lovely).
We need to bridge that gap and as bloggers, realise that we are part of the media too. We might be talking about our families, or food, or reviewing products, but we are media too and we need to be ethical.
And without a code of ethics, and laws to enforce them, bloggers are going to have to rely on their good sense and their peers to work out what is acceptable and what isn’t. It’s remembering the good manners we were taught in primary school and putting them to use. It’s never nice to bully, or harass and you can disagree with something without turning it into a personal vendetta.
We might be ‘playing’ on the Internet, but we’re all adults here and we need to act like that.
The ethics of blogging are the ethics that we hold ourselves. We need to rely on our moral standards and ask ourselves, does this feel right? Would I like to read this written about me? Because that celebrity/blogger/journo that we bitch about on twitter, or on our blogs, they’re real people too.
Sometimes it’s about saying, yes, I know I can, but should I?
Definitely some interesting things to think about anyway and I’ll be interested to see how media evolves to hopefully embrace bloggers and our online medium over the next few years.
Finally, I’d just like to quickly thank the Walkley Foundation for sponsoring the forum last night and the other three speakers, Philip Young, online editor at the Mercury, Nicola Goc, Senior Lecturer on Journalism at the University and Kylie Eastley, writer and blogger. It was good fun and amazing to meet the three of you. And thank you to Pat O’Donnell from the MEAA for moderating.
