Bland 1

Brandon Bland
Fred Lamer
Senior Seminar
8 November 2015
Ethics in Media
The news interrupts a scheduled television show to report that two reporters have been
gunned down live during their newscast. They explain that in a few moments they will show the
disturbing video of what happened and that all children should leave the room right now before
they run the clip. As they run the clip, you hear the screams of Alison Parker, 24, and the
interviewee as the gunmen fires at them and as he then turns his attention to the cameraman,
Adam Ward, 27. Mr. Ward falls to the ground only before he catches a glimpse of a man in a
hoodie.
Shocking how this has become the forefront of our society; a society where we crave to
see death and acts of violence on television. Ethics in media has changed only because the
viewpoint of the audience has changed. We no longer live in a world where graphic images are
shunned and encouraged not to be ran; we live in a time where we crave to see what happened
because we are curious of how the incident or accident happened. We want to now physically put
ourselves in the victims last moments in hopes to feel that scare before they took their last
breath. Along with the viewpoint shift, comes the audience that has the attention span of gold
fish; this attention span makes us want the information now and if we dont receive it within a
short amount of time then we will leave to the competition. Simply put, if you dont have the
information then someone else will.

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In addition, the demographics of the website, television show etc control what is seen and
what is censored. The demographics for CNN are different from ABC, and in order to appeal to
their target audience they will show more or withhold from showing the images. In the past, the
FCC (Federal Communications Commission) would have regulated what was shown if enough
people complained that it was inappropriate for television. Since no one is outraged or
complaining as heavily as they would have before, that shows a shift in what the consumer wants
and expects out of their media outlets. All in all, what we show on television has made a
dramatic change over time; with the shift in the way the audience is attracted to news and
information, the media tends to adjust to the mindset of their audience. In the future, this will
continue; the audience wants to see more graphic images because they want to be able to put
themselves in that position of the car wreck, or the last moments of a persons life. As we
continue to grow older, the desire will not decrease but only increase to where people will want
more and more.