Social Responsibility
Yang Wu ID: 11203215
COM 440 Media Ethics - Reaction paper #4 –
4. Explain how Social Responsibility’s conceptions of freedom, morality and duty differ from those of libertarian theory. Which theory fits your understanding better and why? Firstly, social responsibility gives enough freedom to the media. However, expect it to act responsibly in its news report, act as watchdog to the society. Secondly, social responsibility theory mainly leads itself in a free circumstance of media area but there is a limitation to show its duty. Social responsibility requires the media in duty to be honest and standard of the profession in a free circumstance. Libertarianism holds that the basic moral opinions are individual rights for human. The only limit to rights is individual’s duty to respect the same rights of others. The libertarian theory believed strongly power of unlimited public dispute and discussion to create more natural ways of building society. The libertarian theory describes that all individuals have natural rights and no government, community or group can destroy them. The most different between social responsibility and libertarian theory is libertarian theory allows the media to operate in a total free environment, which means media under the libertarian theory can publish everything and are not restricted by any law. The libertarian theory has freedom to access any information, and not disputed by political or social regulations. There is a law of press that protects privacy and moral development of individual or groups. The libertarian theory gives an open opinion of the public but the social responsibility doesn’t allow it. In my opinion, social responsibility fits my understanding better. Because in this day and age, people live in a legal society and we need a law to restrict our behavior and social life. Social responsibility gives enough freedom to the media but there is a limitation to perform its
COM 440 Media Ethics - Reaction paper #4 –
4. Explain how Social Responsibility’s conceptions of freedom, morality and duty differ from those of libertarian theory. Which theory fits your understanding better and why? Firstly, social responsibility gives enough freedom to the media. However, expect it to act responsibly in its news report, act as watchdog to the society. Secondly, social responsibility theory mainly leads itself in a free circumstance of media area but there is a limitation to show its duty. Social responsibility requires the media in duty to be honest and standard of the profession in a free circumstance. Libertarianism holds that the basic moral opinions are individual rights for human. The only limit to rights is individual’s duty to respect the same rights of others. The libertarian theory believed strongly power of unlimited public dispute and discussion to create more natural ways of building society. The libertarian theory describes that all individuals have natural rights and no government, community or group can destroy them. The most different between social responsibility and libertarian theory is libertarian theory allows the media to operate in a total free environment, which means media under the libertarian theory can publish everything and are not restricted by any law. The libertarian theory has freedom to access any information, and not disputed by political or social regulations. There is a law of press that protects privacy and moral development of individual or groups. The libertarian theory gives an open opinion of the public but the social responsibility doesn’t allow it. In my opinion, social responsibility fits my understanding better. Because in this day and age, people live in a legal society and we need a law to restrict our behavior and social life. Social responsibility gives enough freedom to the media but there is a limitation to perform its