New Media Ethics: What Rationality – Which Values?

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by AG. Eka Wenats Wuryanta

This paper departs from the research literature especially relating to new media phenomenon. The paper also departs from the empirical fact that contemporary of media communication experience dramatic growth. New media with a packaging technology that continues to move dynamically opens possibilities far beyond the boundaries of space and time.

Constructive influence is no doubt, but also the negative implications - even destructive still widely open. Dramatic changes and developments in new media also affect the social order, the value of cultural, economic motivations and political systems that exist in a society. What effect changes in society's values of systematic rationality itself? Are there ethics in new media? There was a change from traditional media into new media. Is it really an ethical issue? The extent to which the context of technology, media and globalization gives a new order of values that form the different values in ethical beliefs, especially in the information society? Dynamic efficiency and specific objectives inevitably presupposes the progress (progress linearly) in technology. Industrialization and its variety of media content production to proceed to further communications: convergence in terms of existing media technologies, digital, and FO technology to optimize network technology on both nodes of modern communications technology. Media Convergence and content will also be heavily influenced by changes that occur over on the device and means of medium itself. High mobility in the distribution of modern media has become a reasonable demand in the information society. What about ethics, particularly relating to new media, has a dimension of rationality in the mobility of information? If there is an ethical rationality, whose rationality and why?

Perspectives in Motion

Technological Perspectives in new media: the changes, second nature, human beings. Theoretical assumption that I use in this paper is Social Construction Of Technology theory proposed by Pinch and Bijker (1987) and stated that the technology does not determine human action, but more likely the actions of human that form the technology. The ways the use of technology will not be able to understand if they do not understand how these technologies are embedded in social contexts. SCOT also stated that people who want to understand the reasons why a technology that can be rejected or accepted must look to the social world.

SCOT has several key elements that must be considered by the investigators. The following elements are:

Interpretive Flexibility. People use technology in different ways, and technology should not be considered to have only one meaning, purpose or interpretation. Design Flexibility. There are a variety of ways to design a technological artifact. Design is only a point in the field of technical possibilities, and reflects the interpretation of certain groups that are relevant. Relevant Social Group. It is all the groups that turned on, the affected and relevant to the artifacts of technology or a system. The group's most important and fundamental is the producers and users of technology artifacts. But there are subgroups that can be described as a user with different socioeconomic status, and competition from producers. Sometimes there are also relevant to the open group of users, such as journalists, politicians, civic groups and others. These groups can be distinguished on the basis of interpretation between them with the technologies concerned. Problems and Conflicts. Interpretation of the different between the different relevant social groups associated with a technological artifact often conflicting. Different groups in society to build a different problem and lead to different designs. Closure and Stabilization. The controversy that occurred due to differences of interpretation over time will experience a closure mechanism. Interpretation and design of the technology will be stabilized with solved the problems faced by social groups. Group - a new social groups can be formed and introduce interpretive flexibility, then cause a new round of debate or conflict about the technology.

Technology as a human activity aimed at a clear meaning of human activity was carried out to meet needs, solve problems, or to overcome certain difficulties. But even so, we still acknowledged that technology is an extension of the human hand (McLuhan, 1996; Naisbitt, 2001). Technology is basically an offer of value, namely that human work even more helped by the presence of technology. It could be argued that the technology at some point a human effort to shape the world according to the perception and understanding. Thus, technology is part of human culture. Culture technique is more a cultural system that made "second nature" after the neighborhood where the man was thrown.

Ethics in Perspectives Ethics in Perspectives

Ethics in its classical meaning describes the rules and standards regulate which an individual's behavior towards others. For sure, most of the "golden rules" have remained the same also in the Internet Age - but at the same time, a number of totally new ethical questions have arrived. And this resulted in that the level of ethics can be located in new domains: virtual ethics. How do we define ethics in a virtual state in nature. The extent to which ethics can remain a post factum data, where existing data is a virtual data. When all the banal reality is reality and hyper-reality? When ethics are no longer as linear rule but seen from the accumulation or overlapping cross - cross between reality (political, social, law, culture, sexuality, media, mysticism and religion). Would not it be ethical to ethics or the ethics of mutant hybrid, in which new media can make no clear demarcation of boundaries of social, political and so forth.

That is why there are some new discourse about the ethical dimensions of new media. Ethical dimensions of new media: the media action - good will to be responsible in production and distribution system of new media messages. Polity - critical awareness of access patterns, and power relations in the new media. Policy - related to values, return to the basic principles of communication actions.

Potential problems in ethics – new media: new rationality

Rationality based on speed, space, scope (3 S):

• Truth, Accuracy — what is truth standard in new media? What is truth in virtual world
• Transparency — how can we define transparency? In what foundations?
• Respect — what respect? In what interpretation?
• Privacy — for how far privacy can be shaped? In what way it cans measured?
• Confidentiality — in what foundation, this can be compromised?
• Responsibility — what is the foundation of human responsibility?
• Conflict of Interests — what conflicts ? Whose interest? Public or Personal? How do we can define it?
• Accountability — why it can be accounted? What is it based on?

How can we consider the rationality of ethics when: Making ethical decisions is never easy. The new technology adds to the difficulty because of the little time we have, or rather we think we have. We should always take time to do the right thing, remembering that fixing a problem once an error has been made is time consuming as well.

Further Potential Problems in New Media Ethics: Which Values

• The idea of virtual community is indeed a "powerful myth" playing on people's genuine desire to control their lives and to be a part of a larger social totality that provides emotional and intellectual support

• New Media ethics is a dynamic and evolving field, flowing from various disciplines and perspectives and cultures, critical in these times of intercultural exchange and dialog.

• The matter of determining the concept of communicative technologies and what kind of society would be built. The question is not too late to answer questions today. Our society needs to adopt communication technology without leaving the local cultural values.

• Technological developments affect social transformation. Social transformation that is balanced and in accordance with the social forces of society.

• That transformation includes the integration of industry optimism and communications technology, empowering public participation - the authority of state and private forces to act more socially responsible, transformation necessary regulations, especially in terms of industrial development and technology media, aspects of the transformation of leadership in finding and creating new economy as the expansion of employment and access to wider information.

• Changes in communication technology, the image itself. Changes in communications technology images can be encouraged to create innovation adoption. The adoption of technological innovations include the use of comparative practice of living, value compatibility with community needs, simplicity of use, available any time, prove useful.

Hyper-reality-the reality and De hyper-reality of reality

Ideological media, symbolic violence and hyper-reality of the media that have colored the development of contemporary media, has created a socio cultural issues concerning the objectivity of media, communication functions, the political credibility of information and certainty of meaning. New media has been instrumental in creating what is called the impossibility of information and interpretation, language randomness and uncertainty of meaning. To prevent the development of unethical media toward the extreme then dehiper-reality conditions are required by regulation, to strengthen civic education in the most critical audience and create counter media. Ethics in this case a post factum but polity data that helps us predict the tendency of artificial simulation developed by the systematic nature of mind and mythic although the name of modernity.