ETHICAL ISSUES IN COMMUNICATION

Introduction

• Ethics can be defined as ‘science of character of a person expressed as right or wrong conduct of action.’

• Objective is to establish moral standards and behavioural norms.

Ethics and communication

• Ethical communication involves all the relevant information.

• It is true and accurate.• It avoids the language that manipulates,

discriminates or exaggerates.

Some examples of unethical communication

Plagiarism Stealing someone else’s work and claiming it as your own.

Selective misquoting Deliberately omitting damaging or unflattering comments to paint a better (but untruthful picture ) of you or your company

Misrepresenting numbers Increasing or decreasing numbers , altering statistics or omitting numerical data.

Distorting visuals Making a product look bigger or changing the scale of graphs and charts to exaggerate or conceal the differences.

• Selective Misquote : I’ve enjoyed.......our firm’s association with Technology Inc. The quality of service was ..........excellent.

• Full quotation: I’ve enjoyed at times our firms’ association with Technology Inc, although I was troubled by the uneven quality of their service. At times it was excellent while at others it was far less so.

Communicating ethically

• Conveying the point without offending the audience

• Maintain a relationship with the audience• Avoid withholding crucial information• Accuracy of information