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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
weapons
Announcements
of spontaneous
actions or illegal
demonstrations
X
Only if there is a guarantee of a minimum of logic and coherence and of the
cooperative search for truth will one be in a position to seek and reach an agreement
based on the best argument. The essential requisite is that all can participate, that is,
all those who believe that dialogue is a procedure for reaching a mutual understanding.
To this end, what is necessary is an attitude of respect towards the other speakers, an
attitude open to the pluralism of ideas, to weighing them up and, if they are considered
valid, to accepting them, modifying the initial point of view. That attitude cannot be
imposed by norms, but the conditions for it to be possible can be created.
Conclusions
The participation of audiences introduces a new moral subject that alters the concept of
responsibility in Communication and affects the communicative undertaking. If, up until
now, responsibility was centred on the content that the company itself emitted, now the
company also has a moral responsibility for user generated contents, since, as we
have seen, it attempts to make juridical responsibility fall on the user.
The norms analysed promote the defence of the fundamental rights and the moral
values shared in democracies. In doing so, the media understand that Conversation
2.0 must contribute to the formation of Public Opinion. To attain this, the newspapers
rely on moderation teams that attempt to ensure that the norms are respected.
Nonetheless, as we have been able to verify in the case of Elpais.com, the control
mechanisms are not very satisfactory. There are indications that moderation poses
problems of human resources, which make it impossible to cover all time slots, every
day of the week.
Fulfilment of the norms constitutes the principal moral responsibility of the media, given
that to enunciate but not fulfil them would denote that participation has a clear
economic aim above all. There is, therefore, a tension between the volume of
comments (economic interest) and the quality of conversation (public interest). If the
teams are not sufficient for monitoring the volume, the media should reflect in order to
reduce it. One of the issues that the media should tackle without delay is that of
anonymity because it dilutes responsibility.
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