Making ethics accessible and applicable to media practice, this highly acclaimed book explains key ethical principles and their application in print and broadcast journalism, public relations, advertising, marketing, and digital media.

Unlike application-oriented casebooks, this text sets forth the philosophical underpinnings of key principles and explains how each should guide responsible media behavior. Plaisance synthesizes classical and contemporary ethics in an accessible way to help students ask the right questions and develop their critical reasoning skills, both as media consumers and media professionals of the future.

The Second Edition includes new examples and case studies, expanded coverage of digital media, and two new chapters that distinguish the three major frameworks of media ethics and explore media ethics across new media platforms, including blogs, new forms of digital journalism, and social networking sites.