Digital Media: Ethics and Theory
Social media has become an integral part of life in the modern-day society. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn provide ample means for people to communicate with friends and family, and at the same time build and develop their professional networks. I, personally, use Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family members that I may not be able to interact with physically. I get to post photos, videos, and updates that make it possible for my friends and family members in far-off locations to share in my most memorable moments. This way, I am able to maintain strong and healthy relationships, and to stay in constant touch with those people who matter most, even when they are miles away.
Besides communication, I use social networking sites to keep myself at par with current news and happenings within my locality. The 'events' feature on Facebook allows me to connect with people within my locality, and to remain current with significant happenings within the area. By attending some of these events, I am able to network, remain current, and at the same time meet people that could influence my personal and professional development.
As an entrepreneur, I also rely on social networking sites to market and grow my business. I have created a page for my business, through which I get to market my wares to friends and potential customers without incurring unnecessarily high costs.
Social media use can be quite beneficial to an individual or a business entity; however, it is not without its share of ethical concerns. First, some serious privacy issues arise. We expose a lot of personal details...
This information is visible to a wide range of people, and it could easily be used by unscrupulous persons to harm us. We have come across numerous cases where social media users are kidnapped by strangers they met online, or where an individual uses another's photos and identity to commit crime and unlawful acts (Spivet, 2011). All these pose a privacy risk to the effective use of technology and social media.
A second concern has to do with pornography and other social evils. It is commonplace these days to find oneself tagged in pornographic or other inappropriate material on social networking sites such as Facebook. Such occurrences affect the moral fabric of society and could be detrimental to one's ethical standing, particularly in the case of younger viewers.
These concerns raise some serious implications for professionals as they implement social media policies at both the personal and the organizational level. At the personal level, they need to take action to promote their own security on social networking sites. This they could do through the use of strong passwords and utilization of maximum security setting features on their social media accounts to avoid falling victim to viruses, hackers, and other unscrupulous persons (Spivet, 2011). At the organizational level, professionals will need to ensure that they remain ethical in their social media policies. As more and more organizations move to using social media as their core marketing and interaction platform, professionals will…
