Background Nurse leaders increasingly need effective tools that facilitate the prioritisation of ethics and help staff navigate ethical challenges and prevent moral distress. This study examined experiences with a new digital tool for ethical reflection, tailored to improve the capabilities of both leaders and employees in the context of municipal long-term care. Aim The aim was to explore the experiences of nurse leaders and nurses in using Digital Ethical Reflection as a tool for ethics work in (...) home nursing care. Research design The study employed a qualitative design, incorporating individual and focus group interviews for data collection. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the data. Participants and research context The participants comprised six nurse leaders and 13 nurses, representing six home care zones across two Norwegian municipalities. Ethical considerations The study involved informed, voluntary participation and was approved by the Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research. Findings Four themes were developed: a constant walk on the edge between engagement and discouragement and lost in translation describe the process, while tuning in to the ethical dimension and navigating ethical uncertainties illuminate the experienced significance of Digital Ethical Reflection. Conclusion Success with Digital Ethical Reflection in home nursing care depends on clear leadership planning, nurses’ understanding of the tool’s purpose, and active use of digital registrations. Support from ethically interested nurses enhances overall engagement. Further research is needed to explore the potential of Digital Ethical Reflection as an additional tool in long-term care ethics work. (shrink)

Background Healthcare leader support and facilitation for ethics work are of great importance for healthcare professionals’ handling of ethical issues, moral distress, and quality care provision. A digital tool for ethical reflection in long-term care was developed in response to the demand for appropriate tools. Research aim This study aimed to explore healthcare leaders’ expectations of using a digital tool for ethical reflection among their home nursing care staff. Research design A qualitative research design with vignettes and (...) focus group interviews was used. The data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Participants and Research Context The sample comprised ten healthcare leaders from municipal long-term care in Norway. Ethical Considerations Participation was voluntary and based on informed consent. The Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research approved this study. Findings The analysis resulted in the development of three themes representing leaders’ expectations of the tool: (i) giving staff a voice, (ii) revealing ethics in practice, and (iii) keeping the pot boiling. Discussion Leaders must be informed about the ethical issues experienced to engage in supportive measures for their staff. Digital channels can increase the democratization, safety, and efficiency of communication between employees and leaders and increase awareness of ethical aspects in daily care work. The leaders had positive expectations of employees’ activities and benefits from using the tool for ethical reflection. However, they admitted that realizing the tool’s potential to ensure continuity in ethics work requires considerable organizational and leader involvement. Conclusions This study shows that healthcare leaders are open to digital solutions for managing ethics work in home nursing care. Both opportunities and important prerequisites for successfully implementing the digital tool were identified. (shrink)

Ethical codes, ethics committees, and respect for autonomy have been key to the development of medical ethics —elements that digital ethics would do well to emulate.

Digital ethics, also known as computer ethics or information ethics, is now a lively field that draws a lot of attention, but how did it come about and what were the developments that lead to its existence? What are the traditions, the concerns, the technological and social developments that pushed digital ethics? How did ethical issues change with digitalisation of human life? How did the traditional discipline of philosophy respond? The article provides an overview, (...) proposing historical epochs: ‘pre-modernity’ prior to digital computation over data, via the ‘modernity’ of digital data processing to our present ‘post-modernity’ when not only the data is digital, but our lives themselves are largely digital. In each section, the situation in technology and society is sketched, and then the developments in digital ethics are explained. Finally, a brief outlook is provided. (shrink)

This book is not a critique of digital ethics but rather a hack. It follows the method of hacking by developing an exploit kit on the basis of state-of-the-art social theory, which it uses to breach the insecure legacy system upon which the discourse of digital ethics is running. This legacy system is made up of four interdependent components: the philosophical mythology of humanism, social science critique, media scandalization, and the activities of many civil society organisations (...) lobbying for various forms of regulation. The hack exposes the bugs, the sloppy programming, and the false promises of current digital ethics, and, because it is an ethical hack, redesigns digital ethics so that it can address the problems of the global network society. The main idea of the book is that the social world of meaning is based on information, which, because of its relational nature, must be understood more as a common good than as private property. A digital ethics that relies upon humanistic individualism cannot address the issues arising from the global network society based upon information. This demands a complete revision of the philosophical foundations of current digital ethics by means of a redesign of ethics as a theory of governance by design. (shrink)

Given the rapid changes in technology and the growing use of electronic media there is a need for better understanding the ethical and social implications of digital media. The effects of digital media have significant ethical implications which are easy to overlook, given the embeddedness of the digital in our everyday lives. _Understanding Digital Ethics_ offers a philosophically grounded consideration of digital ethics and: Defines and critically evaluates the impact of digital ethics (...) on society Examines ethical concerns and issues, using sample case studies. Understanding Digital Ethics is an important resource for students and scholars in the field of philosophical ethics, digital technology and digital/moral literacy. (shrink)

The increasingly prominent role of digital technologies during the coronavirus pandemic has been accompanied by concerning trends in privacy and digital ethics. But more robust protection of our rights in the digital realm is possible in the future. -/- After surveying some of the challenges we face, I argue for the importance of diplomacy. Democratic countries must try to come together and reach agreements on minimum standards and rules regarding cybersecurity, privacy and the governance of AI.

The Oxford Handbook of Digital Ethics is a lively and authoritative guide to ethical issues related to digital technologies, with a special emphasis on AI. Philosophers with a wide range of expertise cover thirty-seven topics: from the right to have access to internet, to trolling and online shaming, speech on social media, fake news, sex robots and dating online, persuasive technology, value alignment, algorithmic bias, predictive policing, price discrimination online, medical AI, privacy and surveillance, automating democracy, the (...) future of work, and AI and existential risk, among others. Each chapter gives a rigorous map of the ethical terrain, engaging critically with the most notable work in the area, and pointing directions for future research. (shrink)

Recent attempts to develop and apply digital ethics principles to address the challenges of the digital transformation leave organisations with an operationalisation gap. To successfully implement such guidance, they must find ways to translate high-level ethics frameworks into practical methods and tools that match their specific workflows and needs. Here, we describe the development of a standardised risk assessment tool, the Principle-at-Risk Analysis (PaRA), as a means to close this operationalisation gap for a key level of (...) the ethics infrastructure at many organisations – the work of an interdisciplinary ethics panel. The PaRA tool serves to guide and harmonise the work of the Digital Ethics Advisory Panel at the multinational science and technology company Merck KGaA in alignment with the principles outlined in the company’s Code of Digital Ethics. We examine how such a tool can be used as part of a multifaceted approach to operationalise high-level principles at an organisational level and provide general requirements for its implementation. We showcase its application in an example case dealing with the comprehensibility of consent forms in a data-sharing context at Syntropy, a collaborative technology platform for clinical research. (shrink)

The rapid and dynamic nature of digital transformation challenges companies that wish to develop and deploy novel digital technologies. Like other actors faced with this transformation, companies need to find robust ways to ethically guide their innovations and business decisions. Digital ethics has recently featured in a plethora of both practical corporate guidelines and compilations of high-level principles, but there remains a gap concerning the development of sound ethical guidance in specific business contexts. As a multinational (...) science and technology company faced with a broad range of digital ventures and associated ethical challenges, Merck KGaA has laid the foundations for bridging this gap by developing a Code of Digital Ethics (CoDE) tailored for this context. Following a comprehensive analysis of existing digital ethics guidelines, we used a reconstructive social research approach to identify 20 relevant principles and derive a code designed as a multi-purpose tool. Versatility was prioritised by defining non-prescriptive guidelines that are open to different perspectives and thus well-suited for operationalisation for varied business purposes. We also chose a clear nested structure that highlights the relationships between five core and fifteen subsidiary principles as well as the different levels of reference—data and algorithmic systems—to which they apply. The CoDE will serve Merck KGaA and its new Digital Ethics Advisory Panel to guide ethical reflection, evaluation and decision-making across the full spectrum of digital developments encountered and undertaken by the company whilst also offering an opportunity to increase transparency for external partners, and thus trust. (shrink)

The EDPS Ethics Advisory Group (EAG) has carried out its work against the backdrop of two significant social-political moments: a growing interest in ethical issues, both in the public and in the private spheres and the imminent entry into force of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May 2018. For some, this may nourish a perception that the work of the EAG represents a challenge to data protection professionals, particularly to lawyers in the field, as well as to (...) companies struggling to adapt their processes and routines to the requirements of the GDPR. What is the purpose of a report on digital ethics, if the GDPR already provides all regulatory requirements to protect European citizens with regard to the processing of their personal data? Does the existence of this EAG mean that a new normative ethics of data protection will be expected to fill regulatory gaps in data protection law with more flexible, and thus less easily enforceable ethical rules? Does the work of the EAG signal a weakening of the foundation of legal doctrine, such as the rule of law, the theory of justice, or the fundamental values supporting human rights, and a strengthening of a more cultural approach to data protection? Not at all. The reflections of the EAG contained in this report are not intended as the continuation of policy by other means. It neither supersedes nor supplements the law or the work of legal practitioners. Its aims and means are different. On the one hand, the report seeks to map and analyse current and future paradigm shifts which are characterised by a general shift from analogue experience of human life to a digital one. On the other hand, and in light of this shift, it seeks to re-evaluate our understanding of the fundamental values most crucial to the well-being of people, those taken for granted in a data-driven society and those most at risk. The objective of this report is thus not to generate definitive answers, nor to articulate new norms for present and future digital societies but to identify and describe the most crucial questions for the urgent conversation to come. This requires a conversation between legislators and data protection experts, but also society at large - because the issues identified in this report concern us all, not only as citizens but also as individuals. They concern us in our daily lives, whether at home or at work and there isn’t a place we could travel to where they would cease to concern us as members of the human species. (shrink)

The field of eSports is undergoing a process of developing and evolving with irresistible forces. The process witnesses the ever-refreshing and hybrid meanings and definitions of Sports and eSports in the digital era of technology empowerment and advancing artificial intelligence. This paper calls us to re-construct the meanings and sporting values of eSports, re-evaluate the eSports landscape, going beyond the debate ‘Are eSports Sports?’ and move to re-examine the contextual nature and values of Sports and eSports, as well as (...) their interweaving relationships in contemporary society. It is of significance to explore the way in which the intelligent embodiment of eSports and the virtualisation of traditional sports integrate with each other, offering the potential for fitness and physical exercises and practices in real and virtual spaces. Meanwhile, crucial digital ethics issues are emerging in the field of eSports, potentially challenging and alerting the eSports industry to take timely measurements to maintain the Sport’s integrity. (shrink)

Recent literature on Islam and the digital covers a wide range of topics and themes; however, what is yet to be developed from an Islamic perspective is a broader philosophical framework that accounts for the nature, exigencies and affordances of contemporary digital technologies. In advance of such a framework, this article is an attempt to open the way to philosophical engagement with issues of digital ethics from an Islamic perspective. After a brief review of recent literature (...) on Islam and the digital and a significantly earlier work by Ziauddin Sardar, in which he proposed an information strategy for the Muslim world, this paper provides some background to Islamic ethics and the wide field of ethical theories in the Islamic tradition. This paper then proceeds by identifying and outlining examples of contemporary themes in Islam and the digital which conceal underlying philosophical and theological issues. Finally, this paper considers the significant scale and scope of the transformations involved in the ongoing transposition to the ‘onlife’ and highlights several areas where Islamic perspectives may be seen to converge or diverge with other strands of scholarship on digital ethics. (shrink)

Modern digital technologies—from web-based services to Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions—increasingly affect the daily lives of billions of people. Such innovation brings huge opportunities, but also concerns about design, development, and deployment of digital technologies. This article identifies and discusses five clusters of risk in the international debate about digital ethics: ethics shopping; ethics bluewashing; ethics lobbying; ethics dumping; and ethics shirking.

The rapid technological transition requires the adoptive approach to the digital conduct of public and private institutions. Countries and companies strive to integrate a balanced understanding of digital ethics and sustainability concepts from various standpoints, which results in a dispersed and uncategorized knowledge base. This work presents a literature review on digital ethics published from 2010 to 2020 in three technical libraries and one library maintained by the community of philosophers. The investigation process integrates a (...) thorough review of digital ethics concepts in the leading academic libraries using keywords representing various concept applications. This study’s outcome is a quantitative and sectorial categorization of works on digital ethics, followed by a holistic review of concepts, maturity level, and conclusions on each category. This work aims to understand the trends from a technological and philosophical perspective towards designing a sustainable digital ethical frame-work applied in digital services that fulfill sufficiency thresholds of justice and do not foster overshooting of planetary boundaries. The first version of a holistic framework based on the literature review is presented at the end of this work. It will be extended in future work. (shrink)

The networked society is impacting all aspects of people’s lives and changing the way that information is obtained and used. For students this impact is changing how information is shared and tasks are performed. A digital enabled culture is resulting in changed norms on collaboration and providing more opportunities for teams to collaborate on a moment’s notice. The digital ethics code of the 1980s is addressed in the current digital culture. This research will develop a measurement (...) scale for digital ethics and assess this scale in the context using students from China. (shrink)

Intercultural Digital Ethics faces the central challenge of how to develop a global IDE that can endorse and defend some set of universal ethical norms, principles, frameworks, etc. alongside sustaining local, culturally variable identities, traditions, practices, norms, and so on. I explicate interpretive pros hen ethical pluralism ) emerging in the late 1990s and into the twenty-first century in response to this general problem and its correlates, including conflicts generated by “computer-mediated colonization” that imposed homogenous values, communication styles, (...) and so on upon “target” peoples and cultures via ICTs as embedding these values in their very design. I contrast different kinds of ethical pluralisms as structural apparatus for understanding what differences may mean and allow for, as these emerged in the 1990s forwards with EP. As interwoven with phronēsis, a form of reflective judgment and virtue, EP more radically preserves irreducible differences and so fosters positive engagements across deep cultural differences. I show how EP emerged in the context of empirical research on “Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication” beginning in 1998, and then in specific applications within Internet Research Ethics beginning in 2000. I summarize its main characteristics and trace how it has further been taken up in ICE, IRE, Intercultural Information Ethics, and virtue ethics more broadly. I respond to important criticisms and objections, arguing that EP thus stands as an important component for a contemporary IDE that seeks an ethical cosmopolitanism in place of computer-mediated colonization. (shrink)

In this article I propose the concept of ‘non-cinema’. The term points to that which is excluded from cinema, and accordingly I seek to explore the various reasons for these exclusions, in particular the political/ideological ones, together with how these exclusions are manifested on an aesthetic level. Instead of André Bazin's founding question regarding what is cinema, therefore, this essay asks what cinema is not – and why. This question is of redoubled importance in an age of technological change: not (...) only are nearly all films now not made using the traditional equipment of filmmaking (analogue cameras, linear editing systems, polyester film stock), but nor do they get exhibited in traditional theatrical venues (instead circulating on DVD and related formats, and online). On a related note, increasing numbers of filmmakers actively are moving away from feature filmmaking, e.g. into television. The essay focuses in particular on ‘non-cinematic’ works by Philippine director Khavn de la Cruz and American director Giuseppe Andrews. Formally, I argue that their films deliberately embrace that which is perceived as non-cinematic in order to put forward what Argentine philosopher Enrique Dussel might define as a ‘barbarian’ film-philosophical vision of the world, which is reminiscent of Antonio Negri's concept of multitude, and which also has an ethical dimension in that it proposes the inclusion of the overlooked and the dispossessed, and of the darkness that necessarily accompanies the light. (shrink)

The Role of Faith and Religious Diversity in Educational Practices, edited by Jason DeHart, offers a compelling solution to address this critical issue. This transformative book explores the intersections between faith and educational practices, drawing on research-based narratives and studies to illuminate the implications of policy and practice through a faith-based lens. By embracing a broad definition of religion and faith, it fosters diverse perspectives and encourages critical reflection on the importance of religious diversity in education. Through practical insights and (...) evidence-based guidance, this book empowers researchers and educators to create inclusive spaces for faith-related discussions and develop policies that honor and respect religious identities. By engaging with this book, scholars and educators can take tangible steps toward cultivating inclusive and enriching learning environments that value and celebrate the diverse religious perspectives of all students. (shrink)

Our lives are increasingly intertwined with the digital realm, and with new technology, new ethical problems emerge. The academic field that addresses these problems—which we tentatively call ‘digital ethics’—can be an important intellectual resource for policy making and regulation. This is why it is important to understand how the new ethical challenges of a digital society are being met by academic research. We have undertaken a scientometric analysis to arrive at a better understanding of the nature, (...) scope and dynamics of the field of digital ethics. Our approach in this paper shows how the field of digital ethics is distributed over various academic disciplines. By first having experts select a collection of keywords central to digital ethics, we have generated a dataset of articles discussing these issues. This approach allows us to generate a scientometric visualisation of the field of digital ethics, without being constrained by any preconceived definitions of academic disciplines. We have first of all found that the number of publications pertaining to digital ethics is exponentially increasing. We furthermore established that whereas one may expect digital ethics to be a species of ethics, we in fact found that the various questions pertaining to digital ethics are predominantly being discussed in computer science, law and biomedical science. It is in these fields, more than in the independent field of ethics, that ethical discourse is being developed around concrete and often technical issues. Moreover, it appears that some important ethical values are very prominent in one field (e.g., autonomy in medical science), while being almost absent in others. We conclude that to get a thorough understanding of, and grip on, all the hard ethical questions of a digital society, ethicists, policy makers and legal scholars will need to familiarize themselves with the concrete and practical work that is being done across a range of different scientific fields to deal with these questions. (shrink)

Recent advances in the capability of digital information technologies—particularly due to advances in artificial intelligence —have invigorated the debate on the ethical issues surrounding their use. However, this debate has often been dominated by ‘Western’ ethical perspectives, values and interests, to the exclusion of broader ethical and socio-cultural perspectives. This imbalance carries the risk that digital technologies produce ethical harms and lack social acceptance, when the ethical norms and values designed into these technologies collide with those of the (...) communities in which they are delivered and deployed. This special issue takes a step towards broadening the approach of digital ethics, by bringing together a range of cultural, social and structural perspectives on the ethical issues relating to digital information technology. Importantly, it refreshes and reignites the field of Intercultural Digital Ethics for the age of AI and ubiquitous computing. (shrink)

What is the relation between the ethics, the law, and the governance of the digital? In this article I articulate and defend what I consider the most reasonable answer.

Digital transformation doesn't just raise ethical issues, it-in itself-is an ethical shift. Business leaders today are struggling to manage conflicting imperatives, those of the emerging digital world and those of the bureaucratic world of the past. The act of digital transformation requires a deep change in the moral outlook and ethical assumptions of a business. But how do we get there? Enterprise strategist and author Mark Schwartz shows how we need to learn to think differently about relationships (...) with customers and employees. That the ethics of digital transformation is a matter of cultivating and applying virtues rather than applying rules. Ethics is not just a matter of refraining from doing bad things. It's a matter of building the world we want, and it's the job of company executives. Featuring a chapter on bullshit, a handy chart of excuses for bad behavior, and Schwartz's typically paradoxical blend of deep insight and pasta jokes, this book guides business leaders as they struggle to adapt their bureaucratic framework of ethics to the emerging landscape of the digital world. By the end of the book, business leaders will rethink what it takes to be an ethical organization. (shrink)

This book explores a wide range of topics in digital ethics. It features 11 chapters that analyze the opportunities and the ethical challenges posed by digital innovation, delineate new approaches to solve them, and offer concrete guidance to harness the potential for good of digital technologies. The contributors are all members of the Digital Ethics Lab, a research environment that draws on a wide range of academic traditions. The chapters highlight the inherently multidisciplinary nature (...) of the subject, which cannot be separated from the epistemological foundations of the technologies themselves or the political implications of the requisite reforms. Coverage illustrates the importance of expert knowledge in the project of designing new reforms and political systems for the digital age. The contributions also show how this task requires a deep self-understanding of who we are as individuals and as a species. The questions raised here have ancient -- perhaps even timeless -- roots. The phenomena they address may be new. But, the contributors examine the fundamental concepts that undergird them: good and evil, justice and truth. Indeed, every epoch has its great challenges. The role of philosophy must be to redefine the meaning of these concepts in light of the particular challenges it faces. This is true also for the digital age. This book takes an important step towards redefining and re-implementing fundamental ethical concepts to this new era. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to propose an ethical approach best suited to dealing with the issues of digital ethics in general and internet research ethics in particular. Design/methodology/approach This article engages with the existing literature on virtue ethics, situationism and digital ethics. Findings A virtue-based casuistic method could be well-suited to deal with issues relating to digital ethics in general and internet research ethics in particular as long as it can take (...) place in communities with shared practices and traditions. Originality/value These insights could add and further deepen the rich debate about research ethics that is already ongoing within the internet research community. (shrink)

This annual edited volume presents an overview of cutting-edge research areas within digital ethics as defined by the Digital Ethics Lab of the University of Oxford. It identifies new challenges and opportunities of influence in setting the research agenda in the field. The 2020 edition of the yearbook presents research on the following topics: governing digital health, visualising governance, the digital afterlife, the possibility of an AI winter, the limits of design theory in philosophy, (...) cyberwarfare, ethics of online behaviour change, governance of AI, trust in AI, and Emotional Self-Awareness as a Digital Literacy. This book appeals to students, researchers and professionals in the field. (shrink)

The web is increasingly inhabited by the remains of its departed users, a phenomenon that has given rise to a burgeoning digital afterlife industry. This industry requires a framework for dealing with its ethical implications. We argue that the regulatory conventions guiding archaeological exhibitions could provide the basis for such a framework.

Digital tracing technologies are heralded as an effective way of containing SARS-CoV-2 faster than it is spreading, thereby allowing the possibility of easing draconic measures of population-wide quarantine. But existing technological proposals risk addressing the wrong problem. The proper objective is not solely to maximise the ratio of people freed from quarantine but to also ensure that the composition of the freed group is fair. We identify several factors that pose a risk for fair group composition along with an (...) analysis of general lessons for a philosophy of technology. Policymakers, epidemiologists, and developers can use these risk factors to benchmark proposal technologies, curb the pandemic, and keep public trust. (shrink)

Purpose In the face of the enormous rise in digital fraud and criminality, resulting in diverse afflictions to millions of user-victims, emanating from users’ horizontal interactive and transactive exchanges on the internet, but due significantly to internet’s deregulation and anonymity, this study aims to showcase the need for a socially grounded self-regulation. It holds, that this is feasible and that it can be achieved through large scale, comprehensive digital communication education programs. Design/methodology/approach The composite methodology of the study (...) comprises four types of components, namely, analytic, exploratory-discursive, constructionist and propositional. The construction-creation element consists of the design of an original combinational research tool: triangular relational pattern. Through TRPs, researchers can locate the types of relations involved between three implicated entities, namely, the affliction, the culprit and the victim and can study them in-depth. Subsequently, based on the TRP, DCE programs are composed, which are, also, proposed to be deployed by educational authorities and digital civil society associations. Findings The created, applied here and proposed TRPs can be used by other researchers aiming to locate, map and analyze the variants of internet criminality and victimhood and their implications across the global frontierless world and in the digital human condition, educational purposes but also to create social cohesion. Originality/value The study offers two original contributions. The TRP as a significant relational research tool-grid. The DCE programs that are linked to the repertories of digital relations and can be introduced in the general education programs. (shrink)

Common mental health disorders are rising globally, creating a strain on public healthcare systems. This has led to a renewed interest in the role that digital technologies may have for improving mental health outcomes. One result of this interest is the development and use of artificial intelligence for assessing, diagnosing, and treating mental health issues, which we refer to as ‘digital psychiatry’. This article focuses on the increasing use of digital psychiatry outside of clinical settings, in the (...) following sectors: education, employment, financial services, social media, and the digital well-being industry. We analyse the ethical risks of deploying digital psychiatry in these sectors, emphasising key problems and opportunities for public health, and offer recommendations for protecting and promoting public health and well-being in information societies. (shrink)

In Third Digital Documentary: A Theory and Practice of Transmedia Arts Activism, Critical Design and Ethics Anita Chang offers a theory and methodology of transmedia arts activism within the technocultural and sociopolitical landscape of expanded documentary production, distribution, reception and participation. Through a detailed analysis of her transmedia project on indigenous and minority language endangerment and revival that consists of the feature-length documentary Tongues of Heaven, and the companion web application Root Tongue: Sharing Stories of Language Identity and (...) Revival, she reveals the layers and depths that comprise a critical arts practice when confronted with complex sociopolitical issues while working with multiple communities across territorial/national boundaries. In the context of the growing field of transmedia documentaries, Chang discusses the potentials and benefits of a critical design practice and production ethics that can transform this field to pilot new collaborations in documentary and digital media platforms towards a third digital documentary. (shrink)

This article presents the first thematic review of the literature on the ethical issues concerning digital well-being. The term ‘digital well-being’ is used to refer to the impact of digital technologies on what it means to live a life that is good for a human being. The review explores the existing literature on the ethics of digital well-being, with the goal of mapping the current debate and identifying open questions for future research. The review identifies (...) major issues related to several key social domains: healthcare, education, governance and social development, and media and entertainment. It also highlights three broader themes: positive computing, personalised human–computer interaction, and autonomy and self-determination. The review argues that three themes will be central to ongoing discussions and research by showing how they can be used to identify open questions related to the ethics of digital well-being. (shrink)

This chapter serves as an introduction to the edited collection of the same name, which includes chapters that explore digital well-being from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including philosophy, psychology, economics, health care, and education. The purpose of this introductory chapter is to provide a short primer on the different disciplinary approaches to the study of well-being. To supplement this primer, we also invited key experts from several disciplines—philosophy, psychology, public policy, and health care—to share their thoughts on what (...) they believe are the most important open questions and ethical issues for the multi-disciplinary study of digital well-being. We also introduce and discuss several themes that we believe will be fundamental to the ongoing study of digital well-being: digital gratitude, automated interventions, and sustainable co-well-being. (shrink)

From analog to digital news -- A new paradigm for news -- Legacy news organizations move from analog to digital -- Intellectual property and information sharing -- Citizen responsibility in the digital era -- Thinking through ethical issues in digital journalism -- DOIT, a process for normative analysis -- Issues in convergent journalism -- Privacy and disclosure -- Deception in sourcing and presentation -- Media corruption -- Using the virtual world to create a better physical world (...) -- Beyond ethics: communicating wisely -- Digital diversity and democracy. (shrink)

This article presents the first thematic review of the literature on the ethical issues concerning digital well-being. The term ‘digital well-being’ is used to refer to the impact of digital technologies on what it means to live a life that isgood fora human being. The review explores the existing literature on the ethics of digital well-being, with the goal of mapping the current debate and identifying open questions for future research. The review identifies major issues (...) related to several key social domains: healthcare, education, governance and social development, and media and entertainment. It also highlights three broader themes: positive computing, personalised human–computer interaction, and autonomy and self-determination. The review argues that three themes will be central to ongoing discussions and research by showing how they can be used to identify open questions related to the ethics of digital well-being. (shrink)

The Ethical Journalist Praise for the Third Edition of The Ethical Journalist “A riveting examination of journalism ethics, updated for the seismic change that is now an industry constant. The Ethical Journalist is written to fortify journalism students, but real-life examples of everything from faked photographs to reporting on presidential lies make it valuable to all of us who care about the news.” ANN MARIE LIPINSKI, CURATOR OF THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY AND FORMER EDITOR OF THE CHICAGO (...) TRIBUNE Praise for the Earlier Editions “The book is superb — the definitive work on journalism ethics and practices. It should be a basic text in every school of journalism.” GENE ROBERTS, FORMER EXECUTIVE EDITOR OF THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER AND FORMER MANAGING EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES “At a time when the internet has turned journalism inside out and blown up long-held traditions, the need for media ethics is even more critical. This is the book to help guide students and the rest of us through the revolution.” ALICIA C. SHEPARD, FORMER NPR OMBUDSMAN The third edition of The Ethical Journalist is a comprehensive examination of current issues in the field of journalism ethics, researched and written by four journalists with experience in both the newsroom and the classroom. It gives students and professionals the tools they need to navigate the challenges of journalism today, first explaining the importance of ethics in journalism and then putting a decision-making strategy to work. The text is supplemented by case studies and essays, and two companion websites provide additional materials for educators and a forum for all users to discuss new topics in journalism ethics as they arise. (shrink)

Recent studies highlight the need for ethical and equitable digital health research that protects the rights and interests of racialized communities. We argue for practices in digital health that promote data self-determination for these communities, especially in data collection and management. We suggest that researchers partner with racialized communities to curate data that reflects their wellness understandings and health priorities, and respects their consent over data use for policy and other outcomes. These data governance approach honors and builds (...) on Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDS) decolonial scholarship by Indigenous and non-indigenous researchers and its adaptations to health research involving racialized communities from former European colonies in the global South. We discuss strategies to practice equity, diversity, inclusion, accessibility and decolonization (EDIAD) principles in digital health. We draw upon and adapt the concept of Precision Health Equity (PHE) to emphasize models of data sharing that are co-defined by racialized communities and researchers, and stress their shared governance and stewardship of data that is generated from digital health research. This paper contributes to an emerging research on equity issues in digital health and reducing health, institutional, and technological disparities. It also promotes the self-determination of racialized peoples through ethical data management. (shrink)

This chapter serves as an introduction to the edited collection of the same name, which includes chapters that explore digital well-being from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including philosophy, psychology, economics, health care, and education. The purpose of this introductory chapter is to provide a short primer on the different disciplinary approaches to the study of well-being. To supplement this primer, we also invited key experts from several disciplines—philosophy, psychology, public policy, and health care—to share their thoughts on what (...) they believe are the most important open questions and ethical issues for the multi-disciplinary study of digital well-being. We also introduce and discuss several themes that we believe will be fundamental to the ongoing study of digital well-being: digital gratitude, automated interventions, and sustainable co-well-being. (shrink)

Journalism is being transformed by the digital revolution. Journalists working for media organisations are having to file and update stories across multiple platforms under increasing time pressures. Meanwhile, anyone with sufficient literacy skills and access to the internet can aspire to practise journalism, and many are doing so. And yet journalism in any form still depends for its legitimacy on the observance of ethical principles and practices. For example, it has to maintain a commitment to telling the truth, and (...) to minimise deception and betrayal; deal with conflicts of interest; protect sources and their confidences; know how to report on traumatised and vulnerable people; and know when to respect privacy. Journalism Ethics for the Digital Age covers all these areas and more. It traces the ethics of journalism from their origins in philosophy to the new challenges brought about by digital technology, with practical examples to show how ethical values and principles can play out in the real world. An invaluable tool for ethical decision-making, this is a book for professional journalists and citizen journalists, for students in the disciplines of journalism, media, communications, and applied ethics, and for the engaged reader everywhere. (shrink)

The paper deploys the disclosive computer ethics (DCE) approach to reconstruct the ethics and politics of one of the sharing economy’s flagships—Airbnb. I investigate Airbnb’s technical design to identify the moral and political values that are embedded in the platform’s technology. I then analyze the platform’s ethics and politics towards a generalization of relevant ethical and political aspects by reconnecting them to the mechanisms, operations, rationales, and ideologies of the sharing economy in general. The paper contributes to (...) the existing literature by linking between the ethics and politics of digital platforms and their technical design, using the case study of Airbnb. Additionally, it explores Airbnb as a specific platform technology with unique ethical and political values. Thus, the paper refutes the neutrality thesis and similar claims made by sharing economy platforms. Finally, the paper makes a methodological contribution to the literature on the ethics and politics of technology. It develops a practical DCE research methodology for uncovering the values, ethics, and politics of digital technologies. (shrink)

Ethics of Inclusion captures fairness and social justice for all from an ethical perspective in our post-pandemic world. The book discusses inequality in Healthcare, Economics & Finance, Education, Digitalization, and the Environment, in order to envision economics of diversity and a transition to a more inclusive society. A wide-ranging approach addresses issues of inequality in access to innovations such as telemedicine and artificial intelligence, economic gains of robotics, and big data insights. A rising performance gap between the finance sector (...) and the real economy opens in the post-COVID-19 era, with system-inherent inequality, given elevated inflation levels and disparate impacts of low interest rate regimes around the globe. Education offers social transfer hubs and inclusion potential for societal advancement and international development. The transition to a greener economy is addressed in an analysis of the Green New Deal and European Green Deal including the Sustainable Finance Taxonomy. The book sets out a hopeful agenda for equality and social justice to deliver a post-pandemic Renaissance. (shrink)

The digital era has brought many opportunities - and many challenges - to teachers and students at all levels. Underlying questions about how technologies have changed the ways individuals read, write, and interact are questions about the ethics of participation in a digital world. As users consume and create seemingly infinite content, what are the moral guidelines that must be considered? How do we teach students to be responsible, ethical citizens in a digital world? This book (...) shares practices across levels, from teaching elementary students to adults, in an effort to explore these questions. It is organized into five sections that address the following aspects of teaching ethics in a digital world: ethical contexts, ethical selves, ethical communities, ethical stances, and ethical practices. (shrink)

Digital COVID certificates are a novel public health policy to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. These immunity certificates aim to incentivize vaccination and to deny international travel or access to essential spaces to those who are unable to prove that they are not infectious. In this article, we start by describing immunity certificates and highlighting their differences from vaccination certificates. Then, we focus on the ethical, legal, and social issues involved in their use, namely autonomy and consent, data protection, equity, (...) and international mobility from a global fairness perspective. The main conclusion of our analysis is that digital COVID certificates are only acceptable if they meet certain conditions: that they should not process personal data beyond what is strictly necessary for the aimed goals, that equal access to them should be guaranteed, and that they should not restrict people’s autonomy to access places where contagion is unlikely. We conclude that, if such conditions are guaranteed, digital COVID certificates could contribute to mitigating some of the most severe socioeconomic consequences of the pandemic. (shrink)

Following the trend of sharing, and associating being on-line with being 'on-life', many people are now demanding the ownership and control of their data across all processing phases, including the erasure of their presence on the web. In Europe, recent proposals for regulation include an explicit 'Right to be Forgotten'; this right stated in the European Commission Proposal for Regulation COM 2011/12 does not emerge without controversy. It is being criticised on several grounds, including clashing with other rights, such as (...) freedom of expression, as well as setting the terrain for censorship. Besides the purely legal aspects of the proposed provisions, the chapters of this volume discuss how those legal provisions correspond in practice to worldviews and how individual and collective memory must be governed. They look into the deeper consequences of such provisions to construction of identity, culture and community formation, and how such a right affects how, what and why individuals, groups and societies remember and forget. (shrink)

This paper explores how consumers’ ethical food consumption practices, mediated by mobile phone applications (apps), are transformed into digital data. Based on a review of studies on the digitalization of ethical consumption practices and food apps, we find that previous research, while valuable, fails to acknowledge and critically examine the digital labor required to perform digitalized ethical food consumption. In this paper, we call for research on how digital labor underlies the digitalization of ethical food consumption and (...) develop a conceptual framework that supports this research agenda. Our proposed conceptual framework builds on three interconnected analytical concepts—datafication, affordances and digital labor—that enable the study of digital labor as an infrastructural element of digitalized food consumption. We illustrate our conceptual framework through our previous research concerning Buycott, a US-based mobile app whose stated aim is to facilitate consumers’ ethical purchasing decisions. Using the walkthrough method, we consider how the Buycott app engages user-generated data and what implications this holds for consumers. The app’s infrastructure, we suggest, connects ethical consumption and digital labor. A richer understanding of the digital food economy, we propose, enables social scientists not only to elucidate how consumers engage in digital labor, but also to contribute to the development of new data governance structures in the digital food economy. We therefore call for social scientists interested in food, consumption and the digital economy to contribute to a new research agenda for studying everyday food digitalization by empirically examining how ethical consumption apps implicate ethical consumers’ work. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore a new perspective on digital humanism, emphasizing the centrality of multi-stakeholder dialogues and a bottom-up approach to surfacing stakeholder values. This approach starkly contrasts with existing frameworks, such as the Vienna Manifesto's top-down digital humanism, which hinges on pre-established first principles. Our approach provides a more flexible, inclusive framework that captures a broader spectrum of ethical considerations, particularly those pertinent to the digital realm. We apply our model to two case studies, comparing (...) the insights generated with those derived from a utilitarian perspective and the Vienna Manifesto's approach. The findings underscore the enhanced effectiveness of our approach in revealing additional, often overlooked stakeholder values, not typically encapsulated by traditional top-down methodologies. Furthermore, this paper positions our digital humanism approach as a powerful tool for framing ethics-by-design, by promoting a narrative that empowers and centralizes stakeholders. As a result, it paves the way for more nuanced, comprehensive ethical considerations in the design and implementation of digital technologies, thereby enriching the existing literature on digital ethics and setting a promising agenda for future research. (shrink)

The rapid growth of online media has led to new complications in journalism ethics and practice. While traditional ethical principles may not fundamentally change when information is disseminated online, applying them across platforms has become more challenging as new kinds of interactions develop between journalists and audiences. In Ethics for Digital Journalists, Lawrie Zion and David Craig draw together the international expertise and experience of journalists and scholars who have all been part of the process of shaping (...) best practices in digital journalism. Drawing on contemporary events and controversies like the Boston Marathon bombing and the Arab Spring, the authors examine emerging best practices in everything from transparency and verification to aggregation, collaboration, live blogging, tweeting and the challenges of digital narratives. At a time when questions of ethics and practice are challenged and subject to intense debate, this book is designed to provide students and practitioners with the insights and skills to realize their potential as professionals. (shrink)

Digital medicine is a medical treatment that combines technology with drug delivery. The promises of this combination are continuous and remote monitoring, better disease management, self-tracking, self-management of diseases, and improved treatment adherence. These devices pose ethical challenges for patients, providers, and the social practice of medicine. For patients, having both informed consent and a user agreement raises questions of understanding for autonomy and informed consent, therapeutic misconception, external influences on decision making, confidentiality and privacy, and device dependability. For (...) providers, digital medicine changes the relationship where trust can be verified, clinicians can be monitored, expectations must be managed, and new liability risks may be assumed. Other ethical questions include direct third-party monitoring of health treatment, affordability, and planning for adverse events in the case of device malfunction. This article seeks to lay out the ethical landscape for the implementation of such devices in patient care. (shrink)

Digital change is one of the most critical factors influencing social change in most societies. The Digital Evaluation Index 2017 (Chakravorti & Chaturvedi, 2017) showed based on 60 national economies that almost no digitally indifferent societies exist anymore. However, different speeds of development and, above all, different attitudes towards the challenges and opportunities of digitization can be observed. Primarily industrially, highly developed nations are also digitally highly developed. However, a "trust deficit" is prevalent in those nations as well; (...) that is, there is a rather reserved attitude on the side of policymakers and the population towards digital development. This "trust deficit" points to a changing attitude towards media and thus towards social change as a whole. According to the mediatization theory (Krotz, 2009), "digitization" can be understood as a factor of social change brought about by media-technical progress. This media-driven change is pedagogically and ethically relevant. Digitization does not only influence the ways we engage with one another (online vs. offline) but, more importantly, seems to influence the attitudes and feelings we have towards engaging with one another and also the attitudes and feelings towards how we engage with one another. Phenomena like cyberbullying, hate speech, digital addiction are examples of behaviors that are (seemingly) made possible through digitization. These negative examples might be considered to show the downsides of digitization, though, at the same time, the way these examples are portrayed generates a fear-based attitude around digitization that contributes to the "trust deficit." German teachers – as several international studies, especially the ICILS studies (cf. Fraillon et al. 2014; Fraillon et al. 2019), have shown – are rather critical and restorative media users. Research shows that ethically sound knowledge and easy use tools for reviewing and normatively evaluating media offerings and practices can have a positive impact on educational institutions (Marci-Boehncke & Vogel 2018). The interdisciplinary German research project DigitalDialog21 aims to contribute to a comprehensive evaluation of current and future technologies, practices, and ways of thinking of digital change. The task of an ethical reconstruction of the "trust deficit" is to make the attitudes of the population accessible and processable via a digital assessment of ethics (Rath, 2003). This task will set the theoretical framework for comprehensive digital literacy. One pedagogical goal of the project is to develop practical tools that help to arrive at a concrete, well-founded evaluation of digital offers at the individual level. (shrink)