In Chapter 3, Arnett et al talk about democratic communication ethics. They define this approach to communication ethics as "a public process for contention about ideas, customs, and rights, protecting and promoting the good of decision making" (page 46). I think that this approach is interesting because it seems to require democracy as a common valued good. Would it be possible to take this approach in a non-democratic society? If we did try, how successful would it be? When decision making is not a valued good in a society, what sort of good might this approach be replaced by?
The democratic approach to communication ethics is clearly a very narrative-based approach. The authors speak about the democratic approach as stemming from early Greece, where "rhetoric provided a foundation for public participation" (page 46); I feel that since this time there has been a multiplicity of shifting goods within the sphere of democracy that are important to note in our interpretation of this approach.
While public participation is still a valued good in American society today as it was in ancient Greece, the desired participating publics have very much so changed. In ancient Greece the participation of wealthy white men who were educated was valued more than the participation of anyone else. Today I feel that as our society increasingly relies upon capitalism, it is the participation of consumers in the public forum that is important, more specifically wealthy consumers. Do you think that my interpretation of the who the valued public participant is is accurate? If so, is this choice ethical in the context of other American values? Or is it limiting and therefore unethical? Whose voices should we be hearing that perhaps we are not?
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