COM 380: Communication Ethics

Davis Foulger

Groups and the Group Assignment

The assignment:

As a group, Pick an event which has Ethical Implications relative to the media. Note that each group already has a collection of headline index card assignments from which they can start.
As a group, fully describe the event in a why that documents the ethical issues involved from all perspectives
As a group, expose the specific ethical questions/issues associated with the event
As individuals, after the first three steps are completed, give your answer/conclusions to the ethical questions raised. Your answer is yours, and can be cast in personal terms, but must be justified from one or more ethical perspectives.

You will document these elements in writing and present the ethical case to the class.

The group case should be at least three pages long. I have supplied a somewhat longer case from "Teaching Ethics" (about 7 pages) which is a good example of the kind of case presentation you should be building.
The individual answers/conclusions should be about one page long.
Group presentations should be given by the group. Split it up however you like.
Group presentations can be no longer than 12 minutes in length. Spend no more than six minutes on presenting the case itself. Reserve the remaining time for individually talking about your answers to the ethical case questions taking questions.
The grade for the group project will depend mostly on the group's written case study and its presentation, but individual grades can be raised or lowered from the group graded based on the quality of the answer (not the specific opinion, but the reasoning that got you there).

Right now, groups should be selecting a specific event that has ethical implications and starting to think about where they can find information that can be used to document the case.

If you have any questions or corrections, especially to the e-mail address group contact information, send me e-mail. I will be happy to answer questions and to meet with groups.

The groups:

Note that there are seven groups. These groups have already met once and will meet again before Thursday, September 20, when the group should have selected a specific event that can be documented into a case study. That documented event is the subject of a group index card assignment. If you were not in class on Thursday, September 13, you should find the group you are assigned to and contact your e-mail contact ASAP so you can join in.

Note that the topics documented below are tentative and represent namings that catch commonalities in the headline assignment. Groups are not restricted to these topics or to the specific headline assignments they used. Other topics/events are fine, so long as I sign off on them.

Tentative topic area	Membership	E-mail contact in group
Sex in the media	Elizabeth Beauregard Megan Kuziara Travis Durfee Kory Costello Robert Olmos Ashley Lipsky	beaurega@oswego.edu
Political sensationalism	Cedric Drayton Mary Beth Cassidy Josh Hurwit Bonnie Watson Tania Hidalgo	bwatson573@aol.com
Invasion of Privacy	Sagine Pierre Riley Johnson Renee Lucas Nicole Fox	foxgrl17@aol.com
Ethical Reporting and Stem Cell Research	Cherie Dunsmoor Tiffany Chiaritli Chet Lastowski Tricia Slywka	tricias@localnet.com
Crime and the Media	Samantha Rovin Alicia Soper Stephanie Golino Dulely Delgado	leeshie1@yahoo.com sgolino@oswego.edu rovin@oswego.edu
Violence in the Media	Trina Zolik Tommy Kehoskie Erin Cummings Nicole Godfrey Shannon Lawless	ShannonLawless@yahoo.com
Negotiating the Rules	Adrian Burns Jen Longley Robert Adams Jill Cotter	aburns@oswego.edu

I am working on the presumption, based on attendence information and assignment data, but without having yet seen up to date class roles, that the following students have dropped this course:

Elizabeth Francis
Sera Hovanecz
Mary Noonan

I have not, therefore, assigned them to groups. If this is incorrect, get in touch with me.

COM 380: Communication Ethics

Davis Foulger

Groups and the Group Assignment

The assignment:

The groups:

Tentative topic area

Membership

E-mail contact in group