Role of Media in promoting Ethics in Business

Media-ting Ethics: Role of Media in promoting Ethics in Business

The world of media as well as of business should know for certain: What to do? – Why to do? – and How to do? What one does depends on one’s creativity and capacity; why one should do anything depends on the need of the time and people; and how one ought to do depends on ethical principles. Confucius said, “The superior man seeks what is right; the inferior one, what is profitable.” Both media and business have mutual dependence – Media makes the business known; and business makes media to survive and flourish. It is not doing the right thing but doing everything right is what matters. And it is not mere the goal to achieve but the process or system we put in place to reach the goal that makes one noble and effective. Life is not mere events that happen but our perception, understanding, and interpretation to what happens to us. And all these depend on our attitude. Hence, both media and business world should have attitude adjustment and both should complement in making the world a better place to live – profitable for the business to gain more and for the people to be enriched more with media as the via media.

Business World: The business world has this critical question to face: profit or people? This comes from the question whether monopoly or collaboration. The choice is between unethically amassing wealth and power or honestly earning credibility among the people. In this process, media plays a role in making the mindset of the people. Bringing in monopoly sometimes leads to ambitious greediness. In order to keep the people-component in mind the business world has to practice CSR. It is the responsibility of the MNCs to help the society for betterment or improvement. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a form of international private business self-regulation, now made mandatory. This aims at contributing to societal goals of social initiatives to empower the people, or people’s movement to self-help, or charitable nature by engaging in or supporting volunteering or ethically-oriented practices. The media should play a role of guiding the MNCs where the needs are most, because the tendency today seems to be that each company starts its own branch of CSR beneficiary activities, whether educational institutions or charitable organizations.

Media role in times of crisis is important. Nestle accepted, as an internal document from the company leaked out to the public, that 60% of Nestle’s mainstream food product portfolio is ‘unhealthy’, the company not only admitted that the products fail to meet a ‘recognized definition of health’ and nutrition but also removed the products from the shelves in the market.[1] This is ethics in practice owning responsibility. In contrast, an RTI query revealed that Patanjali’s Divya Amla Juice and Shivlingi Beej failed to meet the quality standard. The lab report indicated that 31.68% of foreign matter was found in them which was less than the prescribed limit of pH value. But Ramdev’s associate and Patanjali’s managing director denied the lab report.[2]

Any company’s product should be meaningful and useful to the people and should stand not only the lab test but also the test of time. Often company’s board of directors ask themselves two questions: i. What do others say?; and ii. What do we know for sure? The former is people’s perception, approval or disapproval rate, sometimes tutored by the media projection in creating impression or illusion; the latter is an internal audit. The business world should have not only internal honesty but also external transparency with regard to their products and service.

Media Empire: Media bring the world to your doorstep or to your palm. Media can make a business or break a business. Many a company has come up or fallen because of media coverage –  by promotional or hostile attitude or presentation. Media do impression building, impact wielding, and influence planting. Media serves as an effective means of opinion making – through instigation vs inspiration.

The advertisement is so enticing that you could easily become a target or victim. For example, the enticing advertisement or the attractive offer of dolls of Mc Donald is so impulsive, you could rarely pass by a McDonald without entering it when accompanied by a Child. Or think of ‘Complan Boy or Complan Girl’! The corporate companies spend enormous amount in advertisement. Social media advertising budget have doubled worldwide from USD 16 billion in 2014 to USD 31 billion in 2016. By now it might have tripled. An average advertising costs for small business operations that use Google Ads as part of their online advertising strategy are between USD 9,000 and USD 10,000 per month. Media influence is unimaginable: As soon as chewing gum ads started showing people chewing two pieces of gum at once, sales doubled instantly. That’s because people also started to chew two pieces at a time, just like they’d seen on TV. Google and Facebook still hold the largest share of total US digital ad spending, with 37.2 and 19.6% respectively.[3] Many  businesses devote between 20 and 30% of their total annual budget to advertising and marketing during the first and second years. Once the business is well established 7 to 10% of total budget should be adequate.[4]

In India, as per research published in Feb2019, newspapers play a major role as an effective medium of communication as newspapers could reach every corner of the country with over 330 million daily news paper circulation.  TV advertisement spend in India is about 44.7% and print advertisement spend is about 29.8%, while it is 15.5% for digital advertisement. And there are magazine and internet advertisements.[5]

The reason why advertisement is very effective is that its target is vision: The most powerful of all human sensory abilities is vision. The human body has about eleven million sensory receptors. Approximately ten million of those are dedicated to sight. Some experts estimate that half of the brain’s resources are used on vision.[6] Added to the vision, feeling of pleasure in infused – even minor habit like washing your hands with soap that smells nice and lathers well – are signals that tell the brain: “This feels good. Do this again, next time.” Pleasure teaches your brain that a behavior is worth remembering and repeating.[7] And thus a habit is built in and once you are hooked in, it is very difficult to come out of its grip or claws. An advertisement captures vision; triggers imagination; ignites thinking; motivates action; and builds up a habit. You need to take much effort to break one habit or you have to replace a bad habit with a good habit.

The effect of presentation in media leads one, as J. Clear points out in Atomic Habits, through four stages, namely Cue, Craving, Response, and Reward. For example, when you are already saturated with and impressed by ad about Donut, when you walk down the street you see a sign board with donut. This is the cue, this turns up the innate craving donuts in you. Your response is getting into the shop and buy a couple of donuts. And the reward is enjoying the donuts.

Often media is used as an arm of politics. The political parties too have their own TV channels mainly to impress people about their achievements, especially during the election time. Sometimes the administration at the local or national level could control the media. For example, as the Ukraine war is in going on there seems to be black out in Russia about the war and there is threat if anyone reports about the military. This could induce fear of panic, at present, about the possible nuclear war or World War III. And often, we have seen, false and fake news spreads faster and wider, for example, in the case of WhatsApp messages, which could induce social and political conflict situation.

Media also could bring in good. Take so many movies on social reformation, movies taken from subaltern or entrepreneurship perspective. Media could educate people or mislead people – The former is based on critical thinking and the latter is due to ambition of profit. Media could offer information based on critical thinking and investigative research or it could knowingly or unwittingly instigate people. The former is constructive and the latter is destructive. It is up to each one to decide for oneself. Media should make one, especially the business world, learn: First review of the past experience, then reflect on the present need, so that one could respond to the future expectation from the customers or form the vision of the corporate or industry. From the media world we learn as Hari and Swamy mention in their book Sailing through a Storm: History isn’t told as it happens, it’s told by the winner. It doesn’t matter who fires the first bullet. What matters is that who does fire the last bullet.[8]

Influence of Ethics in Business: Media is the catalyst for infusing ethics into the veins of business and corporates. And media should play the role of mediators with ethical guidelines:[9]

  1. Media should make sure that all are informed impartially. The situation should be presented as it is without prejudice to any parties in the game.
  2. Media should protect the rights and privileges of each business partners with all fairness.
  3. Media should be competent enough to mediate any issue either in the interest of the business partners or with the society at large.
  4. In all mediated process confidentiality of all involved should be guaranteed and safeguarded.
  5. The process should be totally transparent and impartial – Otherwise corruption would creep in and credibility would be questioned.
  6. Media as mediator is not a legal authority and hence does not become legal consultant or adviser.
  7. When any operation is an ethical violation, mediation should be withdrawn or suspended.
  8. Media, as mediator, should avoid marketing which would mislead and should not guarantee results.

Media ethics promote and defend universal values such as fairness and justice. Media ethics further defines and deals with business matters and industrial products as well as with news and views by the citizens based on ethics. The basis is honesty without any hidden agenda. Thus, ethics is the responsibility of everyone. Media should promote and monitor is and industries/corporates should practice it.

What needs to be done: As Abraham Lincoln expressed to the teacher of his son, the media should also follow his advice: It is to listen to all sources but to filter all the media hears on a screen of truth and take only the good that comes through.[10] When anything is presented either to the people or to the corporate, media should reflect on the matter as well as on the pros and cons from the perspective of consequences and then respond appropriately. When needed, there is need to consult the real experts not the self-proclaimed pandits either from the political circle or from the business world. Media is to educate both ends – the giver and the receiver.

The Jesuit pedagogy offers a five-stage process: It is – Context, Experience, Reflection, Action – Evaluation. In a given situation or event, based on the past cumulative or experiential experience, media should reflect what is good for all in the game, and then propose effective, practical, and meaningful action plan. What is more important is to evaluate the outcome of action taken, which would enrich experience and the cycle continues. This helps not to follow the moneyed or the power-centered world but to stand by conviction on the legs of ethics and fairness.

Media could also educate the business world as well with regard to what to do and how to do based on the components of equity and justice. Ethical values should be the principle and foundation of media to bring in:

  1. Liberty and freedom to the ignored and the marginalized;
  2. Equality leading further to equity;
  3. Listening to the affected in order to lead them on the right track and not to derail the common good;
  4. Reading the signs of the times;
  5. Striving for the poor to become powerful;
  6. Becoming voice of the vulnerable; and
  7. Being the conscience of the society.

People in the media should ask themselves two questions a day: In the morning – what good am I am going to do today? And at the end of the day, what good have I done today? This would put one on the path of wellness. Media could educate the people and accompany them: Media should present not only what is good for people but also what they could love and do for their fulness of life. Media influences their feeling but it could also enlighten and accelerate their critical thinking. What is needed is to examine the presentation – Presentation of pros and cons without taking sides and brainwashing the people.

Conclusion: Media tells us what to do and the business asks media what is to be done. In this context there is need for tripartite dialogue:

  1. Media portrays what is the reality and what is needed as well as what is lacking in the world;
  2. Business world needs to project what is needed and not what people want; &
  3. Media becoming a bridge between people and business and corporate world standing on the pillars of ethics.

Media should function as the conscience of the people and should reflect the same to the industries in forming their conscience leading to conscious efforts to make a better social order based on fairness and justice. Media should be a reflector of people’s concern and need to the business world and should be a bridge of getting across from the business world the expected benefits, instead of functioning as paid-servant of the corporate and business world. Media could often do self-examination whether the services offered make the industries and corporates rich or enriches the people. All the best for your deliberations.

Francis P Xavier SJ

12Mar2022

[1] https://www.cnbctv18.com/business/companies/explained-whats-the-latest-controversy-around-nestl-food-products-9513161.htm

[2] https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/baba-ramdev-s-patanjali-products-fail-uttarakhand-quality-test/story-bXo4XySEajw7ZDby4GISML.html

[3] https://www.smallbizgenius.net/by-the-numbers/advertising-statistics/#gref

[4] https://smallbusiness.chron.com/average-marketing-advertising-budget-company-30993.html

[5] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0973258618822624

[6] J. Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to build good Habits and break bad Ones, Random House, London, 2018, p.84.

[7] J. Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to build good Habits and break bad Ones, Random House, London, 2018, p.185.

[8] T.N. Hari and S. Swamy, Sailing Through a Storm: Making a Crisis Work for You, Bloomsbury, New Delhi, 2021, p.49.

[9] https://www.jamsadr.com/mediators-ethics/#:~:text=A%20MEDIATOR%20SHOULD%20PROTECT%20THE,ways%20that%20maximize%20its%20voluntariness.

[10] https://portal.clubrunner.ca/5595/stories/abraham-lincoln-39-s-letter-to-his-son-39-s-teacher#:~:text=Teach%20him%20to%20be%20gentle,the%20good%20that%20comes%20through.