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2 illustrates the racial demographics of the NGO employers/managers and 3 illustrates the racial demographics of the employees/volunteers.
Source publication
The issue of ethics on the internet has become complicated due to a number of people placing material on cyberspace. NGOs are increasingly using social media to promote their products and services. Jürgen Habermas’ theory of communicative action and discourse ethics as a theoretical basis to the study merges together several factors which impact on...
Citations
... However, at present there is -as far as can be ascertained -no internationally agreed-upon cyber-ethics code, although the matter has been raised by several authors, and some countries have addressed related issues by means of existing laws (Umejiaku and Anyaegbu 2016). Since Mbinjama-Gamatham's (2014) study, it is still apparent that cyber-ethics as a research area needs to be better explored, especially during periods of crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Through a narrative analysis, the article focuses on contemporary issues and developments related to cyber-ethics and digital media by highlighting [mention the study] the ethical and moral problems encountered by five South African NGOs in their use of digital media communications and cyber-ethics during Covid-19. ...
... Against the background of an array of recently established organisational workplace rules, the present study addressed a clear gap in media ethics literature. Except for Mbinjama-Gamatham's (2014) contribution, no previous published research has looked into a practical code of cyberethics that can be imbedded in either drafted or existing procedural and public policies. However, although Mbinjama-Gamatham (2014, 191-193) proposed social media ethical guidelines for NGOs, such guidelines also need to accommodate broader digital media communications, since NGOs are exposed to multimedia platforms. ...
... My argument in the article is that there is a need for a better understanding of the possibilities to address the problem of formulating behavioural guidelines -in particular when such guidelines draw from Habermas' theory of communicative action and discourse ethics. The study from which the article has drawn thus offered a code of cyber-ethics derived from and extending Mbinjama-Gamatham's (2014) understanding of the eight ethical variables, namely, justice, privacy, access, accuracy, truth, human dignity, regulation, and ownership of information. ...
Jürgen Habermas’ theory of communicative action and discourse ethics as a theoretical basis merges several factors that have an impact on the use of digital media by internet users. This article provides a qualitative narrative analysis of a study of five South African-based based non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on their experiences with digital media and cyber-ethics during the Covid-19 pandemic. The author interviewed employers and digital media specialists from the NGOs about their experiences with the “eight ethical variables”, namely, justice, privacy, access, accuracy, truth, human dignity, regulation, and ownership of information, during the global Covid-19 (acronym for the coronavirus disease of 2019) pandemic. The article discusses how the NGOs have been affected by the increasing use of digital media. The article argues that a need exists for a framework of cyber-ethics for self-regulation purposes, to be followed by NGOs to deal with breaches of ethical conduct. Finally, the formulation of a microsocial contract based on the proposed eight ethical variables is offered. The present study contributes to media ethics literature by proposing a framework for ethical conduct for digital media use. This is of importance to internet users and may be achievable if imbedded in employee procedural policies and public policies. It is argued that in formulating appropriate ethical guidelines, Habermas’ discourse ethics should be kept in mind for an optimal microsocial contract to be attainable.
The aim of this paper is to assess the role of ‘dark technology’ in contemporary society, specifically in the context of reprehensible actions in the virtual space of the internet, for example what is known as ‘fake porn’, circulated in the form of ‘deepfake’ videos. This entails the construction of pornographic videos with the faces of ‘celebrities’ grafted on the bodies of pornographic actors, and arguably poses a serious ethical, privacy-related problem. This assessment must be seen against the backdrop of a discussion of the question about what the basis of human volition and action is – nature or culture (nurture) – with reference to a debate on this issue in the 18th century, and further relating it to the work of Darwin on the ‘struggle for survival’ in the 19th century and to Freud’s later work on the instincts (drives). Finally, in light of the findings regarding the possible grounds of human action – specifically those aimed at harming others in online spaces – the further question is posed, namely, what conditions a (code of) cyber-ethics has to satisfy to be able to influence the online behaviour of users significantly – to the point where one might ‘reasonably’ anticipate a decrease in cyber-crime and cyber-abuse. The answer to this difficult question, derived from critical theorist Jürgen Habermas’s discourse ethics and notion of communicative action, assumes the form of an indication how, in a multi-cultural world, linguistic communication and a ‘universalistic’ discourse ethics can lay the groundwork for cyber-ethics.
The aim of this paper is to assess the role of ‘dark technology’ in contemporary society, specifically in the context of reprehensible actions in the virtual space of the internet, for example what is known as ‘fake porn’, circulated in the form of ‘deepfake’ videos. This entails the construction of pornographic videos with the faces of ‘celebrities’ grafted on the bodies of pornographic actors, and arguably poses a serious ethical, privacy-related
problem. This assessment must be seen against the backdrop of a discussion of the question about what the basis of human volition and action is – nature or culture (nurture) – with reference to a debate on this issue in the 18th century, and further relating it to the work of Darwin on the ‘struggle for survival’ in the 19th century and to Freud’s later work on the instincts (drives). Finally, in light of the findings regarding the possible grounds of human action – specifically those aimed at harming others in online spaces – the further question is posed, namely, what conditions a (code of) cyber-ethics has to satisfy to be able to influence the online behaviour of users significantly – to the point
where one might ‘reasonably’ anticipate a decrease in cyber-crime and cyber-abuse. The answer to this difficult question, derived from critical theorist Jürgen Habermas’s discourse ethics and notion of comm unicative action, assumes the form of an indication how, in a multi-cultural world, linguistic communication and a ‘universalistic’ discourse ethics can lay the groundwork for cyber-ethics.
