Business Ethics Chapter 5 Homework Find ethically appropriate strategies that help them determine to whom they owe loyalty as they “do ethics” in a moral dilemma

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Chapter 5

Loyalty and Diversity

hapter 5’s consideration of loyalties flows from Chapter 4’s discussion of moral

development, because a person’s moral development in many ways can be defined by

that person’s awareness of and empathy toward others. Loyalty demands a certain level

of empathy—whether it be for pre-conventional concerns of punishment, conventional

concerns about group conformity, or post-conventional concerns about broader

principles.

Learning Objectives

A successful discussion of Chapter 5 will lead students to:

Differentiate loyalty as a value that is separate from other values, and deserves

its own consideration.

Identify the various stakeholders—the obvious and the not-so-obvious—in a

moral dilemma.

On Teaching Diversity

Teaching on the topic of diversity may come as easy as breathing to you–or leave you

breathless with fears that you may say the wrong thing in a classroom where diversity

is either nonexistent or a simmering issue. This manual is not the place for a full

Teaching Suggestions

We suggest these activities:

1. At the start of class, find some arbitrary distinction between students such as

eye or shirt color. The students you “pick on” cannot speak unless they raise their hand,

2. Work through a case study. The “When Loyalties Collide in Freedonia” offers a

step-by-step look at loyalties from the Chapter 1 case studies. Or choose a new case

media exploitation of unsuspecting people. Or choose a case driven from current events

that focuses on loyalties.

3. Work through the chapter’s key points in a lecture/discussion. If using the

accompanying PowerPoint, the points include:

a. Placing loyalty in the context of the “Ws and H” list’s third question (“Who

wins, who loses?”) and in the context of Chapter 4’s discussion of moral development.

c. Reminding students of the history of loyalty, in the context of “to whom.”

d. Considering to whom mass communicators owe loyalties. (The list might

include: Yourself. Your family. Your boss. Your fellow workers. Your discipline’s peers.

Your company. Its owners. Your sources. The government (freedom of speech, and/or

regulators). Your clients. Your customers. The general public. To people who cannot

speak for themselves, etc.)

g. Comparing sentimental and unsentimental loyalties.

h. Showing how loyalty expands in a widening arc as moral development grows.

(Figure 5.1 from the textbook. Ask: How can mass communicators be loyal to people

whom they have never met?)

4. Segue into the discussion on diversity by asking the group “discriminated

against” how they felt. Expand more widely by asking students to discuss times in

which they felt discriminated against, how they felt about it, and how they reacted to it.

(Work to “go where they are,” which may lead to discussions of serious

a. Box 5.3—how do media tend to cover race? Find examples of such coverage.

1. Exclusionary—simply don’t cover ethnic minorities. Ignore people who aren’t

like you.

4. Stereotypical. Fear of the majority is neutralized by focusing on themes that

conform to what the majority thinks about the minority.

5. Integrated. News is covered from a perspective that included all citizens.

b. Discuss the issues related to diversity in mass media: efforts to promote social

5. Work through a case study. Chapter 5’s “When Loyalties Collide in Freedonia”

returns to the case studies from Chapter 1, but it does not spell out all the conflicting

6. Practical Applications No. 2 and 3 ask students to consider their own lives. Ask

for responses, whether they be related to mass communication or not.

7. For Chapter 6: Ask students to take the Rokeach values inventory, in

preparation for the next chapter discussion. (If you’re in a hurry, ask them to rank the

top six and bottom six each for terminal and instrumental values.) The Routledge

Case Study Notes

Case 5.1) Journalism: The Harsh Out-Of-Town Story

Many recent journalism graduates may find themselves working at a small newspaper

or station where “parachute journalism” delivers a story that the small-town paper

Loyalties often are at play here at multiple levels; obvious ones include the journalist,

Smythe, the family, the children, the paper, your boss, etc. At another level of loyalties

might be the community itself, given that small towns often feel bound together or

“picked on” when it or a citizen receives big-city attention.

ignoring the story would be the least useful choice, given the reality that the story

already exists and is online. The real conflict may involve the news value (see Chapter

Case 5.2) New Media: Is the Nominee Gay?

You would have found very little in print during the summer of 2010 that raised the

question about sexual orientation of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. On the

internet, however, you could have read plenty—sometimes directly about that topic,

but more often “backing into” the issue by headlines that end with question marks and

“meta” stories about media coverage of the issue.

The ultimate question: Is the issue relevant? Again, well-meaning people can reach

different conclusions. What matters here is the level of thinking that your students do.

Case 5.3) Public Relations: Wrestling with Your Conscience and a Friend Bound to

Fail

Ultimately, the loyalties in question include the loyalty to the addled friend vs. yourself

and your employer. It would not be surprising to see students take a middle ground, by

signing the client and then doing what is needed to protect the client from

himself/herself (note, again, that the name is gender neutral.) But some perceptive

students may argue that it’s wrong to take any money from the client who is not able to

Case 5.4) Advertising: Using Stereotypes to Sell Soda

This case raises plenty of diversity issues, as well as loyalty issues related to higher-

level moral development. A post-conventional thinker might recognize the obligation

not to stereotype others, especially for a commercial purpose–especially when there are

reject the idea, but also make it a learning experience for the Sylvanian—but at the

expense of hurting yourself and your company if your advice against the ad is rejected.

Case 5.5) Entertainment: Misdirection for Fun and Profit

The case is designed for students to consider what loyalty, if any, is owed to the

unsuspecting people. Listing the other stakeholders seems simple enough; it also would

be interesting to note what students say, if anything, about an audience’s loyalty to the

unsuspecting people in such movies. It’s easy to laugh at others’ misfortune and

mistakes, but is it right?