SOSC118 Week 4-5P: Combined Projects on Social Media - Agenda Setting Theory & Reflection

Portfolio Project - Combined

SOSC118: Privacy Policy and Ethical Issues

Student: Egbert Batchelor

Instructor: Megan Boone

Date: 08/03/2019

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INTRODUCTORY ABSTRACT

This is a conflation of 2 projects – entitled “Privacy Policy and Ethical Issues” (4P), and the 2nd as “Appropriate

Social Media Use, Agenda Setting Theory and Reflection” (5P) – also sub-topic as “The elephant in the room”.

They are not exhaustive works but sufficient enough to make conclusive constructs or a succinct on their

themes or sub-themes. Owing to the fact that this is a plagiarism checker-scrutiny by “Safe Assign”, I have

preserved the projects as submitted - their cover and reference pages, for the purpose of originality. Please take

note of such references and endnote, per each project? In the first project (4P), the author takes a keen look into

the privacy policy and social media issues that are proximal to the workplace. These actionable concerns are

privacy policy and ethical concerns of weighted importance to the workplace, in context to relevance and

currency, plagiarism, client confidentiality, workplace employability and discriminations, informed consent and

[Social] worker-client limitations. These are embedded values that speak to the abyss of morality – making the

quality of life worthwhile for social media experience, the workplace and other communities. In the second

project (5P), the sub-theme – the elephant in the room is coined to capture the Agenda Setting theory and the

dominant influence rendered via mass media, over its consumers. In this paper, the room is categorized as the

employer-to-employee inter-relationships and their proximal dynamics, which respect compliance with proper

ethical values. Its value is by preponderance over mass media per Agenda Setting Theory, a question to the fact

that social media usage rises while the public distrust for privacy issues takes front stage, among other factors.

The conclusions are to fix the elephant because it is recoverable, and to rearrange the room by honing people-

skills for social media usage, and full social media socialization, and to improve the autonomy for access to and

securement of data. This motivates folks to transition from a subjective autonomy to a dominant skilled

execution – away from sole dependency on third-party evaluation - to that of the facts.

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SOSC118 Week 4P

Privacy Policy and Ethical Issues

Student: Egbert Batchelor

Instructor: Megan Boone

Date: 08/03/2019

4

INTRODUCTION

Explain and evaluate the privacy policy of social media websites.

Social media has quickly become the humane elixir of communal life in most areas of the world. With this

experience comes an innovative conflation of smart-devices [being used] on those platforms, while automation

and prosthetic motion hone our communication. Simply said, social media and smart devices are the universal

hands and feet of contemporary communication. Mary Hartney, director of audience engagement at the

Baltimore Sun, wrote explicitly on this matter. She stated that, “reporters, editors, managers and others will

help shape the new guidelines.” Furthermore, "The technology is changing, so I hope the ethics policy is a

living document," says Podger, P. J. (2009). Podger estimates that 50% of Sun's newsroom actively uses social

networks." This is about rapid change and accountability under ethical policy or best practice and a liability

change." Podger, P. J. (2009). Therefore, ethical initiative that governs social media websites (or workplaces) is

enough to impact our professional and personal worlds, and to build within those worlds, the material

enhancements to an ongoing fruition of ethical goal-setting.

Ethical issues and privacy concerns

These ethical issues and privacy concerns are evidentiary within parameters of governance and operational

safety. There is significance the adherence to ethical standardizations as we inform our readers of the part we

play and whom we are. Kelly McBride writes that, “On social networks, you should identify yourself as a

journalist, tell recipients if you're using social networks in a professional capacity and remain mindful that

people will regard you as a representative of your newsroom”, says Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the

Poynter Institute. Also, Allan Edward Barsky (2017) in his succinct on Social Work Practice and Technology

concludes that amidst increased use of technology in social work practice, social workers and their agencies

need to update and enhance the rules by which they promote the highest standards of and manage the associated

risk, technologically. So, how we use technology at work elicits a degree of efficacy when ethical compliance

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rules or unmask the relative quirks of technological usage and the problematics. (Allan Edward Barsky, 2017).

Here are some actionable ethical and privacy concerns in the workplace.

1) Maintaining relevance and currency in regard to varying technological platforms and their uses

2) Vulnerability to civil liabilities as in slander, and libel from material publications.

3) Acts of plagiarisms against improper citation or omission to cite on such related sources

4) Client confidentiality or incidences of HIPPA (means and citing?), ethical and privacy treatments and

how to preserve confidential data and mitigate hacking or intrusion. (Allan Edward Barsky, 2017). How

Can I Control What Potential Employers Can Find About Me on Facebook?

5) Informed Consent; sufficiency in decision-making capacity, duly informed on services and risks, and

volitional choice for services. (Allan Edward Barsky, 2017).

6) Racial profiling and prejudice, especially in a multi-cultural environment

7) Workplace employability and discriminations like sex and sexual orientation, gender bashing and

other acts of belligerence.

8) [Social] worker-client limitations; Liebler & Chaney (2014) writes on freedom of speech on various

media platforms. However, we ought not to violate the legal codes, cultures and proper workplace

settings. (Allan Edward Barsky, 2017).

9) Client Safety; Harris & Birnbaum (2014) endorses remote client crisis management. Also, data and

identity concealment per publicly infamous cases or domestic violence survivor or sex-offender or rape

victims or pertaining to the court of public opinion. (Allan Edward Barsky, 2017).

10) Respect and Social honor; Maia & Rezende (2016) - prohibition from and exercising due control over

the use of foul and derogatory language or sexually explicit or violent advances. (Allan Edward Barsky,

2017).

The facts about ethical and privacy issues are that they dictate the moral obligations by which we engage or to

deter cravings for or against any social divide. What are these standards and is there any commonsense about

their implementation? How can we synch with such demands when systematical culture and social defiance

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violate our idealistic models of citizenship? It is the need to practice a livable consensus to social standards will

veer us into taking conscionable deeds – and visibly so.

 Explain and evaluate the privacy policy of social media websites.

Specifically, on privacy policy and ethical concerns, it is purported that, “social media and networking Web

sites like Facebook and MySpace are making it difficult for journalists to keep their personal and professional

lives separate and have also created ethics and etiquette issues”, Pamela J. Podger (2009). The embedded

concern is no doubt about the ethical rules to guide our actionable correctness. Meanwhile, on social and mass

media, sex sells, and many are incarcerated by it. We see the emotional, sensual and sexual responsiveness to

sex appeal - from mating to marketing, according to Why Sex Sells…More Than Ever is - Stephey M. J. (2009,

May). Refer to Sex Sells. Here's Why We Buy.

Consequentially, the underline morality of this abyss goes deep beneath these social platforms as privacy policy

and ethical issues – even for social workers. When properly addressed, the ensuing rules breathe equitable

treatment unto predetermined outcomesi. Pamela J. Podger (2009), in her abstract writes that “News

corporations employing journalists are developing documents which institute malleable guidelines for the use

of social media in order to prevent the creation of any information which could be used to discredit the integrity

of their employees. INSET: Social Networking Etiquette”. Hence, economic gains are some intrinsic values we

learn from properly executed privacy-ethical rules. There are no ends to the litigative spin-offs from a lack in

ethical rules, but everyone must be on board in these matters, for best practices.

Explain and evaluate the privacy policy of social media websites.

Clearly, there are concerns that populate to all those who work in newsrooms, for example, and are engage

on the internet, at the same time. To realize social value is to go beyond the mantra “sex sells”. How will the

newsroom deal with younger staffers twitting tidbits or snippets of ‘hot’ decisions into their digital footprints,

from important meeting at their workplaces? Who would have ignored the proprietary nature of important

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information, as this is? “In recent months, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Associated Press, Roanoke

Times and others have hammered out ethics guidelines for social networking. These range from restrictive uses

to common sense approaches”, according to Pamela J. Podger (2009). Mass media has come to grips with the

intrinsic value of ethical workplace rules and they are ready to treat this as a contemporaneous matter – honing

the rules on an almost weekly basis. "You should never assume you can control anything you put online -

Monica Guzman, 26, a news gatherer at seattlepi.com, says. Pamela J. Podger (2009). Whereas, it’s not

practical to embolden social reticence among newsrooms journalists or their staff, it is equally costly to ignore it

– by which we could underwrite our own demise!

Further perspective: when and where social media emanates offense, the conscionable thing is to show

absolution. Stephen J. A Wardii (2011) surmises that ethics ought to premise on deep, normative, contemporary

questions and cannot be a static set of rules – to deal with ever-changing human activities. Professor Ward

continues, that ours is a time of communicative altering of human socializations – and ethics and media are the

collective entry point to meaningful discourse about this moot issue. When one considers the origin of the word

“ethics” that it is from a Greek word “ethos” meaning “character,” “nature,” or “disposition”– understandably,

the human autonomy may or may not be under duress, in terms of varying ethical scenarios. Why! Reflective

ethical application mixed with conscionable actions could produce pristine character while such an outcome

may not be the consensus for acceptance into a societal sphere. Proper ethical behavior assumes one’s actions

are not innocuous to others - Stephen J. A Ward (2011). Yet it is not to be implicitly bias, but clear, distinctive

rules, ought to carry that embedded clarity and relevance to every people-moment.

/s/ E. Barry Batchelor

08/03/2019

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Reference:

Barsky, Allan Edward (2017, Mar), Social Work Practice and Technology: Ethical Issues and Policy

Responses, Journal of Technology in Human Services. Jan-Mar2017, Vol. 35 Issue 1, p8-19. 12p.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15228835.2017.1277906

Podger, P. J., (2009, Sept). The Limits of Control. American Journalism Review, 10678654, Vol. 31, Issue 4,

American Journalism Review; Volume. 31 Issue 4, p32-37, 6p

Stephey M. J. (2009, May), Sex Sells. Here's Why We Buy, Spent: Sex, Evolution and Consumer Behavior,

retrieved from; content.time.com

Ward, S. J. A. (2011). Ethics and the Media: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN

978-0-521-88964-3

Endnotes

Sex sells? It can make you forget what is being advertised, say scientists

Stephen J. A. Ward is the James E. Burgess Professor and Director of the Center for Journalism Ethics

at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of The Invention of Journalism Ethics: The

Path to Objectivity and Beyond (2006) and Global Journalism Ethics (2010), and the co-editor of Media

Ethics Beyond Borders: A Global Perspective (2010).

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SOSC118 Week 5P

Appropriate Social Media Use, Agenda Setting Theory, and Reflection

Student: Egbert Batchelor

Instructor: Megan Boone

Date: 08/03/2019

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INTRODUCTION:

Appropriate Social Media Use, Agenda Setting Theory, and Reflection

TOPIC:

The elephant in the room

According to Dictionary.Cambridge.orgiii, The elephant in the room is an English metaphorical

expression representing a conspicuous problem, perhaps a challenge, which everyone would just about avoid

attempting to bring any resolution to it. To avert this situation or ignoring something of this magnitude is

tantamount to leaving an unsolved challenge - the very elephant in the room. The conflating essential questions

to this issue, when resolved, could unnerve the root of that universal problem - leading to an ensuing solution.

Howbeit, the ability to influence such decisions is graded in accordance with weighted importance to a topical

matter for public agenda – even on agenda-setting theory. Where is the emphasis of mass media, today? Mass

media by an Agenda Setting Theory (the elephant) uses social media to affect interpersonal relationships as an

employer use information on potential and current employees (the room), in degrees of uncomfortable or clear

mooted themes - to that moment.

Speak to the elephant

How much is a proper effect is the use of social media on personal and professional individuals

amidst an Agenda Setting Theory (Agenda) of mass media?

The deliverance from an inundated elephant is central to this issue. Its enormity contests the trading of its

dominance for duty-of-care to mass-media consumers. How to properly use media is of paramount importance.

Specifically, Mass Media – by an Agenda Setting Theory, purports by craft to influence its consumers by its

persuasive skill. The irony about Agenda is that Toshio Takeshita (2019) believes there is virtue in keeping the

elephant and that we do not to dispense of it - at least not so early. Obviously, the inherent problems here are

fixable and his approach makes a well-tailored outcome. He purports that Agenda-Setting Research has the

problems of process, identity, and environment, and that fixing these would turns this scenario around for the

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good of all. By research challenge, the question of value (added) is thrown at this Agenda-theory while this

process is automatic and unthinking. So, “the environment problem asks if the development of communication

technology and the subsequent growth in the number and variety of news outlets will minimize the impact

of media agenda setting at the social level,” said Toshio Takeshita (2019). In other words, we can tame this

elephant for the good of consumers as long as in our approach, we manipulate number of news outlets.

(1). The humongous elephant - Agenda Setting Theory, has far-reaching effects on mass media outputs and

influences those media platforms. Paraphrased from social psychology, persuasion is about the influence of a

person's feelings, beliefs, and behaviors by means of the spoken or written words. In this way of persuasion,

attempts are made to influence or change the minds of others. This is done through imposing reasons,

arguments, or appeals – requiring communicative interchanges between people in one side over another, and

through a mass audience - Toshio Takeshita (2019). There is a need to culture self-diligence and teach every

user the autonomy to ensure access to virgin information - from their media consumption. A properly informed

user does easily become an educated media executor. Hence, though the big elephant is conspicuous by its own

predominance and persuasive influences, the emoting challenges of others may not be, in of itself a bad thing.

(2). The preponderance of media over its consumers is ludicrous to well-intentioned American, if the persuasion

is a negative or inaccurate one while they remain reticent to the destructive work of this elephant, in the room.

(3). This prevailing inequity of elephant-challenges versus employee - to muscle through ways and means of

relationship, is one to carefully, mitigate.

Rearrange the room

How can the effects of interpersonal relationships between employers and employees, thrive

amidst this predominance? 

(1). Conclusively, humans are communal and sexual beings – wanting for all kinds of relationships. Hence, our

social nervous system is the coagulation of this network of interpersonal relationships. The running question is

– “do people want honesty? Yes and no! People actually want the illusion of honesty. They want to think they

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are being told the truth, and do not want to be blatantly lied to.” (Paul Suggett, 2017). The crucial consideration

is; if we attend to the elephant, what is the expense for our action, and will there be a trade-off to the expense of

the room? It is very clear that our relationship can be honed to respectable calibrations of our societal ideals.

Also, we are called to emote our initiate by our strength very best behaviors.

Americans for the most part distrust the government, media and others for different reasons, according

to Director, Internet and Technology Research - Lee Rainie, et al. (2019). Industry research shows by Pew

Research Center, that “Many Americans think declining trust in the government and in each other makes it

harder to solve key problems.” Lee Rainie, et al. (2019). Reflecting on those reasons and pertaining to the use

of social media, makes me believe that distrusting folks are likely to have general socialization issues;

difficulties solving problems, they will not be great team leaders or show excellence at internet or on social

media platforms. Those individuals will depend on likes, reviews, commentaries, White Papers, and personal

referrals – at the expense of crucial social autonomy. They run the risk of placing trust in a subjective view of a

product/service – with or without meritorious worthwhile.

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(Concerning this graph: you may peruse the tables or click on this link to copy and paste: https://www.people-

press.org/2019/07/22/trust-and-distrust-in-america/prc_2019-07-22_trust-distrust-in-america_0-02/)

America’s use on social media - amidst distrust

According to Pew Research center fact-Sheet; When Pew Research Center began tracking social media

adoption in 2005, just 5% of American adults used at least one of these platforms. By 2011 that share had risen

to half of all Americans, and today 72% of the public uses some type of social media.

(2). Please refer to these 3 initiatives - to this scenario, below.

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People redemptive peculiarities

- People worry about privacy and the use of their personal information -

Pew Research Center (2018, Mar) continues, “A 2014 survey found that 91% of Americans “agree” or “strongly

agree” that people have lost control over how personal information is collected and used by all kinds of entities.

Some 80% of social media users said they were concerned about advertisers and businesses accessing the data

they share on social media platforms, and 64% said the government should do more to regulate advertisers”.

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The people-matrix we work with is a great thing but need to be understood. Illustration: deterioration in

relationships comes when integrity is destroyed, communication ceases, and the telling of lies persists. People

should be known by the heralded truth they stand for – they should be. Regardless, the predominance of a

barrage of lies populate the airways; lies of commission (opposite of truth), of omission (misconceptions from

truth with missing parts), of influence (using a factual statement to sway opinion from a deed). The narrative

about lies of influence; further divides into fabrications (to create an untruthful statement), about white lies (a

polite but innocuous lie) of dissembling, of half-truths (partial truth), and about exaggerations (magnify or

over-simplify a situation) – all will never hold up to a great character. (Paul Suggett, 2017). The fact is, that

folks crave for truth, but they want the co-mingle sizzle with truth. Whereas, we might be able to fix the people

relationships by calibrating those relationships to the societal commonsense ideals, it remains a fact that the

room is of an evolving construct.

How do employers ethically use information on potential and current employees in mass media -

Why or why not is this ethical?

(1). Solutions with sustaining tenets can form a deeper sense of fertility to seed the soils of must-have recovery

and sustainable outcomes. For that reason, employers are fitted with a mandate to dismantle their everyday

challenge of culture and ethnic diversity. A multi-varied culture, for example, poses a challenge but a feasible

one. Ethical rules and social issues are feasible entry points through which they can introduce working

resolutions. This is a change of dynamics from the earlier days when globalizations never extended beyond so

many social barriers. Yet, it is a meritorious one.

(2). The matter for abandonment of both the elephant and the room is analogous to the baby and the bath water -

per idioms.the freedictionary.com. Simply, we do not throw out the baby [elephant] and the bath water –

creating a problem to solve another. Rather, we use constructive conspiracy to get the elephant out of the room

or to get the elephant to acquiesce to a different set of rules.

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(3). The executive initiatives for change will change the agents for change as much as the objects of change.

Any preconceive notion works against timelines for changes and results that emanate into change.

(4). The ethical use of social media can facilitate qualitative research

(5). The ethical use of social media can facilitate investigative clinical conclusions - recommendations for

several ethical issues central to the systematic ethical analysis of the effects of social media on clinical practice,

health services research, and public health, according to NCBI.NLM.GOV (C. M. Hammack, 2019) refer:

Ethical Use of Social Media Data: Beyond the Clinical Context.

Takeaways that inspire a new trajectory

1. The predominance of a problem is not the legitimization of it

2. The presence of a problem is not the longevity of it

3. The fact that the problem affects you is reason enough that you can be an agent for change to change

normative behavior and complacency of complicit folks

4. There is no reverse osmosis resolution - we engage change by executive authority to act.

5. The ethical use of social media can facilitate qualitative research

6. The ethical use of social media can facilitate investigative clinical conclusions - recommendations for

several ethical issues central to the systematic ethical analysis of the effects of social media on clinical

practice, health services research, and public health.

7. Deteriorating inter-personal relationships, distrust in social media and political entities - compromise our

critical thinking applicability

8. The Agenda Setting Theory is fixable

9. We can arise from a subjective autonomy to an affirmative mandate – to execute authoritative better

work finish

/s/ E. Barry Batchelor

08/08/2019

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Reference:

Lunnay B, Borlagdan J, McNaughton D, Ward P. (2015), Ethical use of social media can facilitate qualitative

research, retrieved from; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Lunnay%20B%5BAuthor

%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=25212856

Rainie, L. et al., (2019, Jul 22), Trust and Distrust in America, Pew Research Center, retrieved from;

https://www.people-press.org/2019/07/22/trust-and-distrust-in-america/

Rainie, L. (2018) Americans’ complicated feelings about social media in an era of privacy concerns,

FACTTANK – news in numbers, retrieved from;

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/27/americans-complicated-feelings-about-social-

media-in-an-era-of-privacy-concerns/

Suggett, P (2017) What if Advertising Told the Whole Truth? Would People Prefer Complete Honesty?

The Balanced Careers, retrieved from; https://www.thebalancecareers.com/what-if-advertising-

told-the-whole-truth-39240

Takeshita, T. (2006), CURRENT CRITICAL PROBLEMS IN AGENDA-SETTING RESEARCH.

Retrieved from; International Journal of Public Opinion Research; Autumn2006, Vol. 18 Issue 3, p11-

32, 22p, 1 Graph ISSN: 09542892

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/35177548/Takeshita1997From_issue-

agenda_setting_to_attribute-agenda_setting.pdf?]

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Endnotes

i Sex sells? It can make you forget what is being advertised, say scientists

ii Stephen J. A. Ward is the James E. Burgess Professor and Director of the Center for

Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of The Invention of

Journalism Ethics: The Path to Objectivity and Beyond (2006) and Global Journalism Ethics

(2010), and the co-editor of Media Ethics Beyond Borders: A Global Perspective (2010).

Dictionary.Cambridge.org; Definition of “The elephant in the room”

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/an-elephant-in-the-room

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