The “Holy” Triad in Media Ethics: A Conceptual Model for Understanding Global Media Ethics

Media ethics is an area of inquiry that has been of great concern among journalists and public relations professionals as well as scholars across the world. Empirical research on media ethics of comparative nature has increased, providing a descriptive account on the current situations across different countries. Yet, theoretical efforts to explain global media ethics are so far inexistent. The scope of this paper is to provide a conceptual model for explaining media ethics decision-making processes that takes into account personal, professional and environment values as main influencing forces. The proposed model suggests that besides considering personal factors, such as education, background, experience, gender, etc., and country specific factors, such as political, economic, socio-cultural conditions, one should first and foremost understand the degree to which personal, professional, and environment values influence one's judgment. This model is the first of its kind in providing an explanation of differences in global media ethics by considering the interconnectedness of different values at micro, meso, and macro levels.