Ethical Effects Of Sensationalism

Sensationalism in the news stories and journalistic content mostly available in terms of content regarding crime, violence, natural disaster, fires and accidents (Adams, 1978; Slattery & Hakanen, 1994). There are number of scholarly definitions and explanations about sensationalism which further stresses upon the various effects on the human sensory system. The sensationalism and its concept have a notable potential to be attention grabbing and emotionally arousing. When using sensationalism there are many aims and goals which vary from person to person and from one situation to another. However certain type of message content is expected to automatically bring out the desired responses from every human and a result may be considered sensational

The advancement in technological and communication sources had a great impact on the notion of privacy (Fairfield & Shtein, 2014), this discussion has sparked new discussions on the ethical perspectives of the media sectors. Many individual events happened over the past year such as the “News of the World phone hacking scandal” have raised many questions and concerns regarding the power of corporate media houses (Wring, 2012). Several other newer media have been confronted with ethical dilemmas such as the decision of Google to censor serves in China (O’Rourke, Harris, & Ogilvy, 2007). Today’s media domain is characterized by the over concentration of media ownership and market driven media production (Adams-Bloom & Cleary, 2009; Stern, 2008; SustainAbility, UNEP, & Ketchum, 2002). The performance and the quality of media houses have been discussed by the media practitioners, critics and students for many decades (McQuail, 1992). The main concern of these discussions are the effects and impact of market driven and sensationalized journalism on the value and worthiness of the news

There should be a continuous balance between the economic necessities and editorial independence is of vital importance, the rift between the economic and ethical concerns in a new and content production are obstinate for the research concerning journalistic ethics (Adams-Bloom & Cleary, 2009; Martin & Souder, 2009). The major question about the social responsibility is that who can and who should bear it, the individual journalist or the larger institutions and cultures (Wyatt, 2014). The media industry is very different from other sectors in the social domain, the press not only has to serve the role of watchdog but also have to operate the businesses under the economic imperative (Grayson, 2009; Napoli, 1997). The media sector is very unique and the organizational structure of media has to engage into the production of journalistic content production with includes both managerial and editorial management (Demers & Merskin, 2000). The media sector has mainly two functions in the societal domain it’s a business as well as an institution, there is a need to find a balance between serving the public and generating the profit for the organization (Jaehnig & Onyebadi,