Abstract

Online media misinforming society and the social acceptance of this phenomenon. This article is an attempt to research the phenomenon of institutionalized lying, which in the author’s opinion is the practice of websites aiming to maximize the readership of their content to the detriment of the fairness and objectivity. First, an introduction to the basic concepts of media ethics and their source in general ethics will be presented. Then, a description of the changes which have taken place in the media over the past several years will be shown in order to identify potential sources of the problem and there is a review of opinions available on the Internet. The next step was to examine sample content published by selected websites, along with descriptions of the techniques and methods used by publishers that may be ethically questionable, and can be described as a lie. At the end there is an attempt to investigate the level of knowledge about this treatment and its acceptance by the Internet community as a process of institutionalized lying. The author also provides some ideas how to solve this problem.