M7d1: Ethical Standards for Diversity in Media
Social media primarily affects culture by improving innovations and sharing and creating awareness on social aspects between individuals with varying cultures. This, in turn, boosts cultural diversity. However, some social media platforms, such as television programs at times provide a negative illustration. For instance, the sexual content portrayed in some YouTube programs vastly influence the young individuals’ sexual beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes. According to Ngai et al. (2015), the increase in crime and police drama in the American television programs and films have also affected the audiences, as violent crimes evoke fear among the viewers, which, in turn, affects their perception of the criminal justice frameworks and attitudes. The violent crimes on American films create a “mean world perception” or scare images, and these views are characterized by alienation, mistrust, and beliefs that there are more violent and uglier crimes in society.
An example of a cultural relativism scenario is an Australian that met a Japanese for a business meeting to explain the business plan and strategies but the Japanese never responded. The Australian was offended because he thought that the Japanese ignored him. However, according to the Japanese culture, one should not react immediately to an idea. Rather he/she should listen, then go home and think about it critically before coming up with a concrete answer (Heaselgrave & Simmons, 2016). Absolutism entails making normal moral decisions concerning objective regulations while relativism claims that nothing is naturally wrong or right. Relativism respect human values and tries to examine why things occur. A good illustration is that absolutists would condemn a parent that steals to feed her child. On the other hand, relativists will agree that stealing is wrong but reason that the mother was right to feed her child, and thus should not be condemned.
References
Heaselgrave, F., & Simmons, P. (2016). Culture, competency and policy: Why social media
dialogue is limited in Australian local government. Journal of Communication
Management, 20(2), 133-147.
Ngai, E. W., Tao, S. S., & Moon, K. K. (2015). Social media research: Theories, constructs, and
conceptual frameworks. International Journal of Information Management, 35(1), 33-44.