Media Ethics and my thesis topic by Qifeng Huang

My thesis is mainly a content analysis focusing on Chinese magazine advertisements, so it won’t involve much ethical problems such as issues of IRB approval or human subject issues. But still, the topic of my thesis will have a very close relationship with today’s media research issue and ethics.

The content analysis will be conducted on Chinese magazine advertisements, which includes not only the coding of major variables suggested by Goffman, but also those demographic variables. In the process of coding, those variables together will form a unique understanding of each piece of advertisement, and indicate the relationship between men and women in each era.

This involves two kinds of ethical issues- the ethical issue when dealing with gender portrayal in the media: such as the stereotyping of women appeared in advertisements. Gender study has been a research area which is relevant to gender ethic issues for a long time. People are always concerning if the media has been stereotyping women or men in the media content, or if the image of women or men are distorted through the mirror of media. My study topic will cover this area of ethical issue; will discuss the implication of gender portrayal based on the findings of the study. If the gender portrayal in Chinese media world also reflects the unfair social status of men and women in Chinese society would be a big ethical concern in my study.

The second ethical concern which would be embedded in my study will be the advertising ethic issue. This is also a very controversial issue in advertising world. The content in advertisements, the way ads inflate some portion of the truth, all the commitment ads advocate are all concerned with ethical issues. In today’s media world, people are more and more concerned with advertising ethics to prevent false advertising or deceptive advertising. My study will analyze the content of advertisements in different era and examine the status of Chinese advertising ethics simultaneously. I will explore if the ethical standard changed during this time period, and what kind of ethical problems are hidden in those advertisements.

Ethical issues in the media have always been the most important and significant area covered by both academic scholars and practitioners. My thesis will further explore the ethical problems in Chinese advertising world, and continue contribute more gender related ethical issues to the existing literature.