Communication ethics is concerned primarily with human communication mediated by communications technologies, from print to radio, television, and other advanced electronic media. As such it assumes the importance of ethical responsibilities in direct or immediate communication, such as the obligation to speak truthfully, and seeks to reflect on how these carry over into the complex circumstances that arise with the development of communications science and technology. Because of the historical role played by reflection on ethics in relation to mass circulation print technologies in the form of newspapers during the first half of the twentieth century, communication ethics has its roots in journalism ethics. Because of the multiplicity of communications media during the last half of the twentieth century, the term media ethics is sometimes used as a synonym for communication ethics.

Contemporary Context

The communication technologies that produce and distribute information are an economic paradise...