Journalism: Critical issues in media ethics. Barcelona July 12, 2019 · Universitat Ramon Llull

The digital turn in our societies brings about significant changes that are reshaping the practice of journalism and threatening some of its core principles. This new environment poses new challenges for both scholars and practitioners. The principle of “objectivity”, which is paramount to good journalism in western societies, is being increasingly questioned, as well as the imbalance between news and opinions.

The capacity of the news media to correctly interpret social trends and movements is at stake, and alternative models are now being tested outside mainstream coverage. Doubts arise about the capacity of the mainstream media to present a point of view that reflects the reality in all of its complexity. Other concerns relate to the preservation of local media specificities in various parts of the world.

Technologies are progressing very rapidly in every sphere of society, creating, for example, unprecedented conditions for the propagation of fake news, bringing other ethical dilemmas for journalism.

These issues, and many others as well, such as news production and reception, are of the highest importance to journalists and scholars. The Conference aims to address these and other issues from an ethical perspective, including but not limited to deontological norms and how they apply in journalism.

Thus, this IAMCR Post-conference proposes “Journalism: Critical issues in media ethics” as the main theme and invites proposals that address, but are not limited to, ethical issues related to journalism, such as:

• Journalism and the narratives of Otherness
• Journalism and human rights
• Ethical journalism education
• Journalists cultures and ideologies
• Journalism, hate speech and intolerance
• Journalism, fake news and disinformation
• Journalism and censorship
• Journalism and political/ economic pressure