Marxist ethics
Marxism is an economic and social system based upon the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism is the system of socialism of which the dominant feature is public ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.
Marxist ethics proceeds out of Marxist theology, philosophy, economics, and history. According to George Brenkert, from the Marxist point of view, the society should be based on the motto "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" which stems the idea of equality, which will bring together all people, who thus work together for the benefit of the society to which they all belong. Ethics are the primal cause of the proletarian revolution, and serve as the guiding force in the realization of a communist society. Howard Selsam has explained that Marxists ethics determines what is right or wrong by what is best for this evolution. If the bourgeois class hinders either biological or social evolution of the classless society, even nature dictates the removal of that class.
When pursuing Marxist ethics, revolution is the most efficient means for creating a society without class distinctions. According to Marxists, revolution is unavoidable and it is the only way to overthrow the bourgeoisie and lift up the proletariat. They perceive this forcible overthrow as morally right. It is right because it destroys hindrances to a communist society. By Marx’s definition, our social and economic status is always changing according to the laws of the dialectic, so our ideas about morality must also be in a state of continual change. It is biological and social evolution that determines morality.
Many critics claim that Marxism deals very little with the ethics and some state ethics in Marxism are non-existent. They describe Marxist ethics as “each act is considered ethically good if it assists the flow of history toward a communist end. Killing, raping, stealing, and lying are not outside the boundaries of communist morality if they help produce the classless communist society.”
Marxists retort the claims of critics by positioning the class struggle to be not peaceful just as the struggle for survival in nature is not peaceful. According to Marxists, nature accumulates the good and disposes of the bad and they go with ‘survival of the fittest’. And the ‘fit’ is defined by them are the contributors of foundation of communist society and the ‘unfit’ are the members of social institutions used by the exploiting class to suppress the exploited class such as Church. Marxists judge the results, not the methods.
In the perspective of Marxist ethics, media should not be owned by the bourgeoisie but there should be equal ownership of all class of people. When the media is owned by the bourgeoisie, they can disseminate the information that is in convenience to them and thus the proletariats can be easily exploited by the exploiting class. When the media ownership is equal, only then, the content of the media can serve in the favor of the general public and not only the elites.
Works cited
Definition, Marx. "Marxist Ethics." Worldviews - AllAboutWorldview.org. Web. 10 June 2010. .
Somerville, John. "Marxist Ethics, Determinism, and Freedom." JSTOR. International Phenomenological Society, Sept. 1967. Web. 06 June 2010.
"What Is Marxism." Philosophy - AllAboutPhilosophy.org. Web. 06 June 2010. .
Hodges, Donald C. "Marxist Ethics And Ethical Theory." Socialist Register, Vol 1. Web. 04 June 2010. .
Miller, Richard W. "Capitalism and Marxism : A Companion to Applied Ethics : Blackwell Reference Online." Blackwell Reference Online. Web. 12 July 2010. .
Significance of Media Research
Among the four methods of knowing, research uses the scientific method of investigation. The other three methods; tenacity, authority and intuition differ from the method of science because it is verifiable, objective, empirical, systematic, cumulative and logical. Some scholars also take it as the valid way of attaining knowledge because of its two basic characteristics:
· It is an objective state of human mind.
· It follows a systematic procedure.
Media research is the part of communication research which does the scientific study of mass communication processes including how people interact with mass media as an individual or in a group, media contents and the activities of media professionals and media owners. Media scholars have defined the three approaches under mass media research, they are; people or behavior oriented research, media oriented research and artifact oriented research. Mass media research further provides exploration, examination and application in the field of mass media. There isn’t any area in Mass media that doesn’t conduct or use research. Research is the only area in mass media that relates it to everything. Every time we raise a “who, what, when, where, why, how questions we have developed an investigative question. For example why do people choose to watch one television program over another, how internet affected readership of newspapers, what type of articles are most popular in magazines, when is the best time to broadcast a youth related program. Research helps provide answer to these questions.
Research is an integral part of mass media because it results in better and accurate reporting, also evaluating and examining past and present to make better decisions for future.
Development in Development Journalism
Development can be seen in two ways; Infrastructural development like constructions of road, health post, electricity, etc and Freedom, which is related with human rights protection, human development, economic development, etc. Development must be talked of in concrete and measurable terms. And Development journalism should focus on the needs of the poor, the deprived, the marginalized and emphasis their effective participation in development planning. Development is about ‘highlighting what people are doing to help transform their lives. It is seen as humanity’s common objective and a means to eradicate poverty and protect the environment.
At the talk program in Martin Chautari on “Development Journalism: Necessity and Challenges”, Laxman Dutta Pant gave in depth analysis over the situation of Development Communication in Nepal. He mentioned that Nepal still lacks in the professionalism of journalist as a whole. Journalism has become a hobby rather than job. He added people from other profession can join journalism and this is creating some sort of snag for Journalism to grow as a profession. Journalism practice isn’t applied, because we can’t criticize. They can’t criticize in the next level of the issue because they aren’t prepared for that. The task of Journalism is to decrease issues by enforcing better solutions, but the same issues have been only reported and not investigated resulting to its repetition. Though we have an educated mass, they aren’t well informed. Press council doesn’t self check the violation of the rules and ethics by journalist or media, but prefer for the public to bring in complains to act. As a tool for social justice, development journalism can be very valuable. By speaking for those who cannot, a development journalist can inform the rest of the world about important issues within developing nations. Looking at the strengths and weaknesses of a country may also help identify ways in which the nation can be helped. This style of development journalism is a tool for empowerment.
When development journalism is used as a propaganda tool, however, it can become very dangerous. Many citizens are taught that the news is a reliable and useful source of information. For example, within a developing nation which has a corrupt government, journalistic exposes of the government are extremely important for reform. If journalists are not allowed to write about what is actually going on, the citizens are not well served. Several international press organizations release reviews every year which look at the freedom of press in individual nations in an attempt to bring freedom of the press to all countries for this very reason.
