Ethical issues raised by educational and business uses of social media

On reflection this topic was the most challenging so far. The reason for this is because it is such a vast topic with many points which could be discussed, but I feel like focusing on a small number of topics was best. A lot of my peers talked about different topics which was beneficial to gain more insight to a broader range of topics. On the other hand I think I would focus a bit more on educational issues, as on reflection I may have neglected this aspect, although I got to voice my opinions when Eveline asked me specifically on my views on education ethical issues.

I particularly enjoyed reading Becca’s post (available here), and her reply which talked about how the ethics between pupils and teachers were different compared to students and lecturers. I agree totally with her, but although you are an adult at this stage in life, there should still be ethical guidelines for personal relationships at university between students and lecturers. However I would also argue it is much harder to enforce and should be based more upon trust.

Kimberly & Anna’s conversation on Twitter (available here) was interesting, it was concluded that “Diff industry = diff organisational culture”. This sums it all up in my opinion as every industry, every company and every individual is different. What might be ethical to one may not be ethical in the eyes of another. So how can companies and educational institutions establish a set of guidelines or policies which everyone agrees too, or sees as ‘ethical’? Another question to consider is also who is qualified to set these standards?

My personal opinion is that the web may be used by some individuals where they can defer all responsibility due to partial anonymity on the web. This is easy compared to face-to-face actions where individuals are more easily confronted, therefore many may use social media to express what they actually think but hold back on saying/doing in real life. Ethics comes from the individual and is made up of the morals the person holds! Although guidelines and policies should be established to guide conduct on social media in both business and educational institutions, it is important to ensure that the individuals understand why the actions are immoral offline as well as online on social media.

Filed under: Topic 4 Tagged: Businesses, Education, Ethics, Reflection, Social Media, UOSM2008