Ethics of media

An introduction

Nick Couldry

Mirca Madianou

Amit Pinchevski

pp. 1-18

in: Nick Couldry, Mirca Madianou, Amit Pinchevski (eds), Ethics of media, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Abstract

In September 2012 a series of violent protests erupted in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia in response to a YouTube film that caricatured Islam's Prophet Muhammad. The protests, which were directed primarily towards the US where the short film was made, echoed the similar violent reactions to the publications of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten in 2005. Were the protesters right to express their anger at what were evidently provocative and offensive media representations of their faith? Were the filmmakers and cartoonists entitled to freedom of speech and is this freedom limitless? Or was this a clear case of media harm? And what, if any, is the responsibility of the audiences who not only watch and read but also produce, circulate and "like", potentially harmful content?