Seafort: Recent Episodes
Nathanael Bassett
Created during social distancing in 2020, Nathanael Bassett's podcast describes media ethics and other topics to listeners and students.
Introduction
What special circumstances are raised when we think through technology as media and vice versa? How does technology impact our sense of what is moral or ethical in the world? In thinking through issues of surveillance by the IoT, we can consider how our sense of privacy is impinged, and we can also consider the ethical dimensions of technology by reading theorists like Latour.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this module you will be able to:
- understand the unique dilemmas posed by technologies
- know how technologies mediate our relationship with the world
- discuss technologies as not ethically neutral but having ethical prescriptions for use and participation in society.
Week 10
Introduction
Now that we understand technologies and media have a moral role to play in our world, what about other things? Robots and machines? Is this stretching it to far? We'll explore those ideas in the final week of discussion.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this module you will be able to:
- Understand non-humans as moral actors
- Think about the moral dimensions of machines
Introduction
In this module, we will examine some of the special circumstances face by media practitioners in a public health crisis.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this module you will be able to:
- Reconcile the principle of "freedom of speech" with importance of accurate information in a pandemic
- Think through the responsibilities face by media producers in emergency circumstances.
In this module, we will finish our discussion of applied ethics to media and communication professions by talking about fake news & the issue of transparency.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this module you will be able to:
- understand the threat of disinformation
- acknowledge the importance of transparency in media production
- be able to articulate an individual position on how to reconcile your own subjectivity to others and the "truth"
Introduction
In this module, we will continue our discussion of how ethical frameworks apply to professional practices in media by considering advertising and entertainment.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this module you will be able to:
- think through ethical dilemmas faced by advertisers and entertainers in creating products for a mass audience.
In this module, we will discuss some of the basics of rule based deontology and consequence based teleology. These are some of the basic ways for thinking through what is ethical in a western context.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this module you will be able to:
- define deontology
- define teleology or utilitarianism
- discuss the relative merits and weaknesses of each framework
"Isn't it all relative?"In this module we will lay this question to rest. We will also discuss why it is that most studies of ethics have a "western" lens and what alternatives "global" ethics can offer.
This episode covers some basic ethical frameworks and prompts us to think about Foucault's histories of ideas as how we can interrogate existing ethical subjectification.
A brief review of Judith Boss's Ethics for Life Chapter One, discussing ethics and its relevance to philosophy and our lives.
Some notes and thoughts on teaching in a time of Coronavirus, the classes we'll be having, and general introductions.