Media ethics may seem like an oxymoron, admits Timothy Aitken, president of the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation. But he hopes McGill's new Beaverbrook Chair in Ethics, Media and Communications will help address the public's disillusionment with media and a host of ethical issues brought on by the rising popularity of the Internet.
Information is more open and also abused more than it has ever been.
They include law, religious studies, communications studies and library and information studies. Censorship, copyright matters, privacy on the Internet and how technology affects access to information are some of the areas the chair may examine. While the study of ethics is more commonly known in areas like medicine, very little work is being done in media, Aitken says. It's time to form an opinion at the highest level, in a university environment that then begins to feed itself out in the real world. He also sees a connection between democracy and the media.