Digital citizenship

Digital citizenship is an important, yet apparently foreign topic to me. That is, until I read Ribble (2017), who called it “digital ethics.” Upon reading that, everything “clicked” for me and I realized I have studied this topic before, less than a decade ago. As an undergrad in the Mass Communication major program trough my college, we studied ethics heavily. The perspective we studied, though, was media ethics. At the time, smartphones were jut gaining popularity and the Internet, while strong, did not have the widespread reach it has today. In today’s age, the media are no longer the only entities publishing content for the masses. With a blog, YouTube video, or the like, any ordinary person can become a “media outlet.” As such, it just make sense to apply the lessons taught for media ethics to every person who explores and posts online - a significant portion of the U.S., undoubtedly.

Although my media ethics course was several years ago, several of the principles I learned have persisted with me all this time. The first principle is the responsibility or weight an individual has in media or online posting. Words have the power to destroy or to give life and the Internet is no different. This weight comes with the territory of having an audience and can be used to share your ideas but is often fraught with hidden agendas. This leads me into the second principle - shoot straight. By this, I mean tell the story as honestly as possible and allow the public to make up their own minds. Too many media outlets give stories a spin based on their political views or hidden agendas. This trickles down to bloggers and podcasters alike, with a high number of them pushing their own perspectives. Going hand-in-hand with the responsibility discussed above, those who hold an audience have a duty to report and/or publish honestly. Finally, the media has a duty to report accurately. This is often an unspoken rule but is absolutely real for straight-up media organizations (tabloids and TMZ excluded). A newspaper that misstates a fact or later learns of an inaccuracy will print a correction or retraction. Other media outlets have similar policies. If reporting a statistic, it must be stated or paraphrased accurately. Rounding up or exaggerating leads to false conclusions and can wreak havoc on individuals and organizations alike.

Digital citizenship (or ethics)for the common man, woman, and child is as important as media ethics have been in the past. With publication being relatively easy, each person actively engaged in online posting now inherits a heavy responsibility to publish appropriately.