ABSTRACT
It was the decade 1978 to 1988 that saw an explosion of academic writing on global media ethics (Righter 1978; Smith 1980; Fenby 1986; Nordenstreng, González Manet et al. 1986). However, the 20th century ended and the new century started with relatively little to show for such activity (Christians, Ferré et al. 1993; Rao & Lee 2005). This futility was the result of at least six factors. First, ethics codes are other means by which individuals and groups (as large as nation-states and international organizations) engage in subjectivity: they are declaring who they are, and so assertions of rights, obligations and prohibitions must be seen as more than mere professional practice and training guidelines. Second, mass media is an especially diffi cult area in which to establish universals because all the key themes of human primordialism-such as race, ethnicity, nationalism, ideology, and gender-depend on mass media to pursue the tasks of social and identity construction, recruitment, indoctrination and fi xing cultural meaning. Third media institutions became a key dimension of the changed nature of international confl ict, making the media more of a strategic tool than ever before and making media ethics less likely to be left unaffected by those waging armed confl ict. Fourth, the industrialization of media organizations had profound implications for the conceptualization of media ethics. And fi fth and sixth are two factors related to the international political system: the tarnished reputation of the United Nations system and the resulting subordination of media ethics discourses to wider discussions on the nature of the international system. This chapter is a critical analysis of these six points in turn.
