AUTHOR
Dave Robson and Maggie Robson

ABSTRACT

The widespread availability of electronic mail, bulletin boards and other services available on the Internet have generated an important communications medium. It has enabled the construction of communities and intimate exchanges between people who have never physically met.

The question arises as to whether these Internet services can used to support counselling. By counselling we mean a contracted arrangement where two people meet with the intention of facilitating the emotional well-being of one of the participants. This paper explores some of the ethical considerations surrounding counselling via the Internet. In particular, it addresses the following ethical areas:

• Autonomy: Autonomy is an ethical principle which includes the right of the client to act as an autonomous agent as long as their choices do not infringe on the rights of other. However, autonomy does not necessarily imply unlimited freedom. Many codes of practice would support the breaking of confidentiality in the case where a client is threatening to kill somebody or themselves. With the isolation of an internet relationship, both client and counsellor may be separated from normal support networks and contacts. In such circumstances, how would the counsellor resolve the issue of assaulting autonomy and breaking confidentiality ? If the client and counsellor are on separate geographical or metaphoric continents who does the counsellor contact in such circumstances?
• Beneficence: acting to enhance client well-being. Is it possible to enhance a client’s well-being when the communication between the two participants is only at a textual level? It is estimated that more than 50% of communication is communicated unconsciously by paralinguistics such as tone of voice and body language. Although, methods of communicating emotions over the Internet have evolved, they are very basic and are currently no replacement for face to face contact.
• Nonmalefience: avoiding harm to clients. This may be difficult if not impossible to avoid when the client may be in another part of the world or isolated from the usual support networks. The client may also be communicating with the counsellor anonymously, using email services which hide the sender’s identity. What are the ethical considerations for providers of such anonymous email services?

Fidelity:
keeping faith with clients. Is it possible to trust a counsellor who may be in another geographic location and when the client may not have access to any formal complaints procedures ? Is it possibe for a client to trust a counsellor who they have never met?

Counselling requires a confidential environment, within agreed limits. It is not clear that the Internet can currently offer the necessary standards for confidentiality. Can the client be certain that the counsellor is maintaining the boundaries of the contract?

Face to face counselling sessions have agreed boundaries. For instance clients may see their counsellor once a week for an hour. If the client and the counsellor are communicating via email, how often should the counsellor respond ? Clients can send electronic mail when they choose. In a more conventional setting, meetings may be limited by the service being closed. Contractural arrangements are much more difficult to agree when the communication is via the Internet.

All professional counsellor organisations require counsellors to be supervised. As has been described above there are real difficulties regarding client counsellor communications via the Internet. Similar difficulties are likely if the counsellor and supervisor are also only communicating via the Internet.

AUTHOR
Diego Rispoli

ABSTRACT

In Italy advertising have a prominent role in the mass communication sector. During the year 1996, advertising investments concerning “classical” mass-media (press, radio, TV, movies and billposting) was ItL. 11.000 mlds. These investments are allocated as follow: 45% of the profits to the press; 40% of the public TV licensee proceeds; 100% of the private TV and Radio broadcast. For the 1997 is expected a positive trend amounting to 8%.

Nevertheless, this hundred-year old advertising communication paradigm is declining. Now advertising is trying to adjust itself to the new media and then to the Information Society, without abandoning old media where it is deep-roothed.

Advertising is actually changing its nature and shape also because it look at the growing ‘ipermedial’ environment. The very complex communicative process which involves simultaneously both medium, message, utterer and hearer is the highest level in the media system merging and also their convergence in the Information Society.

Therefore advertising seems addressed in carry out an important role not only with traditional media but also with new media, although it is not clear what will be its role and its economic impact. Moreover, in Italy is expected a 6-7 years coexistence among these old and new media.

The merging between telecommunication and electronic firms, on the one hand, and telecommunication firms and TV and Radio broadcasts, on the other hand, will bring about both advertisment subject matter changes and about new multimedia economical concentration.

The Information Society growth and the telecommunication technologies huge development is making the advertising market without frontiers. Therefore advertisment have to be regulate no longer into the specific national frame but into the wide international framework.

In this way, the persuasion phenomenon become interactive and transnational. For this we need to valuate not only advertisment technique but especially the value patterns expressed with (and by means of) the advertisment. This last point raise ethical questions also in connection with the pictures omnipresence which eliminate people’s critical analysis and give emphasis to the superficial aspects of the reality. Advertisment structural qualitative changes are carrying a new ethical dimension.

Turbulent relationship between societies basic values, typical in the advanced one, have gave life to a permanent conflict amongst opposed axiologies. These find in the advertisment the most important field where stand out communcation and communication values crisis.

Some people think advertising have immoral connotations, others think it is a warped use of advertising do it an amoral means. This last is the Pontificial Council for Social Communication side, issued in a 1997 paper on the ethics in advertising.

Some solicitations to advertising and media workers for a better care in the social-ethical aspects are the result of the information society placing again of the communication ‘third subject’, namely the citizen-user. Now in the advertising communicative channel the citizen-user is seen as the one’s own needs holder.

Notwithstanding the presence of a code of advertising practice and deontological codes in Italy, a large stress have the ‘guarantee offices’ carried out by high level administrative-independent authorities.

In this way, the Italian Law has issued a renewed and widened Authority for Communication from the old Authority for Press, Radio and Tv. The new Authority is an agency for fair and moderate warranty from media operators, and also that Authority has the power in harmonize between people’s free opinion rights and private economic enterprise rights.

This new Italian Authority is able not only in using coercive means but also in functioning as intermediary amongst different or opponent interests; in this way the Authority undertake to do the ‘moral suasion’ for offer a quick and opportune solutions to the very important person’s fundamental values safeguarding. English Translation by Antonio Marturano

AUTHOR
Harjinder Rahanu, Jennifer Davies and Simon Rogerson

ABSTRACT

The operation of computer systems and their associated communications systems is central to the economies of the developed world. Yet, failures in such computer systems and their development are more than commonplace. In the last few years there has been increasing concern in the computer industry about a neglect of professional ethics which has become manifest in various computer systems failures which have been much hyped in the media. From the study of failed computer systems development and implementation cases like RISP, TAURUS and LASCAD an understanding of the concept of such failures can be determined.

The key conclusion to be drawn from the study of failed computer systems development and implementation cases is that the idea of failure can rarely be understood satisfactorily solely from a technical perspective. This is because a definition of the success or failure of a given case of computer systems development and implementation is as much reliant on the social, economic, political and ethical setting within which it is developed as it is on the technical quality of its construction. Case histories are a particularly valuable means of helping to understand the success or failure of computer systems development and implementation in terms of professional ethics.

In case-based reasoning, when faced with a situation, individuals typically use “case histories”, similar to the present one, to guide their actions. Case histories are stored in long term memory and are recalled into short term memory when triggered by the current situation. Moreover, the current situation need not be identical to the previous situation but may simply be perceived by the individual to have important similarities. In attempting to understand a current failed computer systems development and implementation project, a past case history can be recalled to ascertain why the case failed. Reasons for failure can shape future actions so that events are not repeated.

Case-based reasoning is also a technique used in computer science to incorporate intelligent reasoning into a system. This project involves developing a case-based reasoner (CBR) computer system which can offer ethical advice with reference to cases of failed computer systems development and implementation. This is accomplished by ethically analysing cases of failed computer systems projects to determine whether a neglect of professional ethics contributed towards their failure. The conclusions drawn from the ethical analysis will serve towards the understanding of computer systems development and implementation failure in terms of professional ethics, serving as a tool to facilitate understanding of professional ethics in both academia and industry. The schematic logic of the case-based reasoner is presented in figure 1.

A case-based reasoner needs to understand new cases in terms of old experiences held in a library. This implies the processes of recalling and interpreting are required. To recall the suitable and closest matching case involves indexing the cases according to a set of features. We have indexed the library of cases in terms of cultural factors and critical success factors. The cultural factors determine a profile of the organisation’s culture: how things are done around the organisation. The critical success factors determine a profile of the failed computer project implemented in the organisation. Once the new experience has been itself defined in terms of cultural and critical success factors, it is interpreted in terms of the recalled experiences, by compare and contrast. The closest case is retrieved by the search engine and the ethical, legal and professional lessons of the case are adapted to the new case.

There has been an attempt by academia to make computer science curricula address these professional ethics issues in their “courses, laboratories, and other undergraduate experiences”. The computer industry has developed and implemented professional codes of conduct to address professional ethics. It is intended that the case-based reasoner developed will be used as a teaching tool in both academia and industry so as to address these issues of highlighting the importance of professionalism in an industry that often fails to demonstrate it.

AUTHOR
Charles D. Raab

ABSTRACT

Trust is an important theme of government, involving trust in the networks of administration, citizens’ trust in public authorities and the trustworthiness of the latter. This paper explores the meaning of trust, but the main focus is on relations between citizens and the state, include information flows, in a climate of public skepticism about government. People exchange their personal details for benefits and services, and the state gives information to citizens as part of accountability. ICT developments intensify personal data processing, raising questions of surveillance, privacy protection and public access to information. As some examples show, they may also facilitate service delivery, democracy and the provision of information as tools for accountability and transparency. However, it is questionable whether ICT itself provides trustworthy and sufficient instruments for achieving administrative objectives as well as public benefits and privacy protection.

AUTHOR
Gerrit du Preez

ABSTRACT

The rise of the computer industry and the role played by information technology in everyday life will significantly change the way we see, understand and relate to the physical world. It is also giving rise to new and specific kinds of power and communication relations in society. In this paper I will identify and explore some of the new trends that result from these developments. I will first deal with a number of theoretical perspectives and then underscore these perspectives by means of practical examples from the South African context. In the last section I will address some of the challenges posed to us by these exiting developments and suggest some ways of dealing with our social responsibility in an educational context.

The paper follows a multi-discliplinary approach with specific focus on information systems, social sciences and philosophy. The example areas of interest that will be addressed are:

• Privacy and monitoring
• Effects of computing on the global distribution of wealth and power
• Value and accuracy of data and information
• Access to computing

The paper will reflect the following structure:

1. The World through Windows: a new understanding and way of seeing the world

Due to the influence of information technology, new ways of understanding and relating to the physical world are emerging. These developments will be addressed in an introductory level that will lead up to the following sections focussing on communication and domination relations. Aspects that will be addressed in this section are:

• Cultural change: the influence of the emerging visual and aural culture on the new generation
• Changes in attitudes towards language and text due to computing and hypertext
• The way the computer is reflecting the physical world by means of icons and images as well as possible influences of the virtual on the physical world.
2. Aspects of communication relations

Information technology opens up powerful communication opportunities and relatively new ways of interaction are fast becoming standard practice. World wide use of e.g. the Internet is having a significant effect on business and government (to name only two areas). Virtual communities are emerging that will have a radical influence on society, culture and the notion of the public sphere. These developments however are also resulting in new kinds of domination relations. A closer look at these relations will form the main part of this paper.

3. Aspects of domination relations

In his study of ideology and modern culture, sociologist John Thompson looks at the mediazation of modern culture. In his reformulation of the concept of ideology he is focussing on problems concerning the interrelations of meaning and power. He uses the term ideology to refer to the ways in which meaning serves to establish and sustain relations of power which are systematically asymmetrical and are called relations of domination. Ideology according to him, is meaning in service of power. Thompson is of the opinion that “the study of ideology requires us to investigate the ways in which meaning is constructed and conveyed by symbolic forms of various kinds, from everyday linguistic utterances to complex images and texts; it requires us to investigate the social contexts within which symbolic forms are employed and deployed; and it calls upon us to ask whether, and if so how, the meaning mobilized by symbolic forms serves, in specific contexts, to establish and sustain relations of domination.” *

Thompson’s approach will be applied to information technology. Aspects of domination relations in some of the following fields will be noted:

• Age
• Gender
• Education
• Language
• Economic ability
• Market forces
• Information overload and pollution
• Access to computers and information technology
4. Challenges

The paper will close with an evaluation and practical guidelines for dealing with information technology within an educational context.

• Some of the philosophers that will be cited are: Juergen Habermas, Michel Foucault, Mark Poster, George Lakoff, J Hillis Miller, George Landow and John Thompson.
• Thompson, J B 1990 Ideology and Modern Culture: Critical Social Theory in the Era of Mass Communication. Stanford University Press, Stanford. Page 7.

AUTHOR
Lester J. Pourciau

ABSTRACT

Rarely does a day go by in the journalistic literature of education in the western hemisphere without some article promoting and encouraging or announcing enhanced utilization of the Internet and the World Wide Web into the teaching duties and responsibilities of educators. The vast majority of this literature addresses neither questions or permanency of digitally recorded information, nor the topic of information literacy. This paper will provide a definition of information literacy, an outline for an information literacy program, and will offer the argument that educational institutions of all kinds, no matter where located, are under an ethical obligation to ensure that graduates of their programs are indeed information literate human beings.