The Representation of Black Culture in Beloved by Toni Morrison - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 7 Words: 1960 Downloads: 9 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Literature Essay Type Analytical essay Level High school Did you like this example? THE REPRESENTATION OF BLACK CULTURE IN BELOVED BY TONI MORRISON African-American author Toni Morrisons book, Beloved, describes a black culture born out of a dehumanising period of slavery just after the Civil War. Culture is a means of how a group collectively believe, act, and interact on a daily basis. Those who have studied her work refer to Morrisons narrative tales as â€Å"literature†¦that addresses the sacred and as an allegorical representation of black experience† (Baker-Fletcher 1993: 2). Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Representation of Black Culture in Beloved by Toni Morrison" essay for you Create order Although African Americans had a difficult time establishing their own culture during the period of slavery when they were considered less than human, Morrison believes that black culture has been built on the horrors of the past and it is this history that has shaped contemporary black culture in a positive way. Through the use of linguistic devices, her representation of black women, imagery and symbolic features, and the theme of interracial relations, Morrison illustrates that black culture that is resilient, vibrant, independent, and determined. Published in 1987, Beloved is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel that recounts how those who survived slavery healed themselves and reflects on the period of slavery in â€Å"a manner in which it can be digested, in a manner in which the memory is not destructive† (Morey 1988: 2). It is this rememory as Morrison calls it that helps those considered â€Å"others† become individuals. Set in Ohio, the book focuses on Sethe; Set hes surviving daughter, Denver; Sethes mother-in-law, Baby Suggs; and the ghost of Sethes dead daughter, Beloved. Throughout the book, â€Å"Morrison communicates an unforgettable sense of the strength, terror and devastation that is part of the black community, whilst skilfully portraying the unalterable connections between spiritual and physical life† (Morey 1988: 1093). One linguistic device used throughout the novel is the use of songs. Slaves use songs as a way to pass down stories but also to help them maintain a sense of inner strength. Morrison â€Å"shows how song defines and affirms slave personhood in a world where slave humanity is constantly challenged and denied† (Capuano 2003: 1). Rather than thinking of song in a negative fashion, â€Å"it chronicles her characters endurance and ability to survive during and after these periods of physical brutality and psychological abuse† that they experienced during slavery (Capuano 2003: 2). This illustrat es how black culture has resilience and an ability to overcome hardship. Singing is an essential aspect of the characters lives alongside food, sleep, and shelter. As the novel related, if Paul D could walk, eat, sleep, [and] sing, he could survive and asked for no more (Morrison 1987: 41). While others may not understand the jargon used in the songs, those singing it and other slaves hearing those songs know what it means, and this is a way to strike some independence and distinct culture for themselves during a period where it is uncommon to think of blacks as even human (Capuano 2003: 4). This community of song enables those within black culture to become stronger. It is â€Å"the collective sharing of that information heals the individual and the collective† (Morey 1988: 1039). In revisiting Morrisons overall theme of turning traumatic memories into a positive force, the songs are a cathartic process used to take this memory, which is â€Å"vital for revisioning communa l and social transformation that is healing† (Baker-Fletch 1993: 4). It is the singing of the women that help exorcise the ghost of Beloved and enable Sethe to break free as if she has been baptized (Morrison 1987: 308). The novel describes Sethe as â€Å"running into the faces of the people out there, joining them and leaving Beloved behind† (Morrison 1987: 309). In addition to songs as a linguistic device, Morrison constantly returns to the word, â€Å"rememory† and â€Å"disremember† rather than using words, such as â€Å"remember† or â€Å"forget.† Morrison uses rememory to show how Sethe constantly keeps the past in her present existence because she cannot forget what happened and lives with the ghost of her guilty conscience and moral dilemma for murdering her daughter and living through slavery. For example, Sethe explains how she struggles with the past: Its so hard for me to believe in [time]. Some things go. Pass on. Some thin gs just stay. I used to think it was my rememory. . . . But its not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, its gone, but the place-the picture of it-stays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world† (Morrison 1987: 36). Morrisons creation of her own terms related to how the black culture has to continually deal with its past as though it is a metal neck chain that they cannot unlock. Throughout the book, it seems as though this struggle with rememory is constant for Sethe rather than looking forward to a more opportunistic future: But [Sethes] brain was not interested in the future. Loaded with the past and hungry for more, it left her no room to imagine, let alone plan for, the next day (Morrison 1987: 70). The other characters in the novel attempt to help Sethe loosen the binds of the past. One of the women in town wants to help Sethe exorcise the ghost of Beloved because she â€Å"didnt like the idea of past errors taking possession of th e present† because â€Å"the past was something to leave behind† (Morrison 1987: 302). As part of the black culture, black women represent the pillars of strength within that community as protectors and healers. They are the glue that holds everything together when the world is falling apart around them. Many of the characters have been torn from their families because of the slave traders splitting up families and selling them as slaves to various white masters. Together, they share a history of suffering and an urge to heal and become whole people again. In isolation, black women formed bonds to survive and empower each other to withstand the atrocities of slavery. There is also a sense of the sisterhood still found in African American culture today as the women in the community band together to exercise the ghost of Beloved from Sethes house. It is this camaraderie that helps Sethe heal as an individual and strengthens the black community. In contrast, Paul D and Beloved clash because Beloved sees this male presence as a threat as does her sister, Denver. Both Beloved and Denver want their mother to themselves, furthering the idea that black women stick together while black men are seen as untrustworthy. Paul D does not like Beloved either because he feels isolated from the bond that the women share. However, he lets Beloved seduce him, thereby proving to Sethe and Denver that men cannot be trusted. In terms of imagery, the ghost of Beloved represents the idea that both Sethe and black culture are haunted by a horrible past but being able to live with that spectre in a positive way instead of dreading and fearing their slavery past. As one character states: â€Å"Anything dead coming back to life hurts (Morrison 1987: 35). Beloved also is what is known in African American literatures as the â€Å"trickster.† According to one writer, â€Å"the trickster, whose fluidity and rule breaking define and maintain culture, embodies a cent ral paradox in Morrisons work: that of balancing the urge to maintain and foster cultural tradition and the equally powerful urge to rebel† (Smith 1997: 112). Beloved, as a trickster, is playing with Sethe by stirring up the past rather than continuing to repress it. In some ways, Sethe is still enslaved because she cannot remove the shackles of what happened in the past, including her decision to murder her daughter. Beloved works her magic by getting Sethe to re-examine how the past should be dealt with in the present. Beloveds presence is like a re-birth for Sethe to acknowledge the past while moving forward a stronger, wiser woman for what happened to her and the rest of the black community. The ghost of Beloved really becomes an outward representation of the inward retrospective Sethe is taking of her life so far. While other characters in the novel experience a situation of an alternative self that helps them recover from the past, it is only Sethe that goes through t he process under the most extreme conditions. In positioning the black culture as part of society as a whole, Morrison also explores interracial relations in the novel. During and after slavery, relations between black and white cultures are â€Å"harsh† (Angelo 1989: 1). The relationship between the two cultures is based on the idea of exclusion and lack of tolerance for others. All the black characters have suffered horrific experiences at the hands of white people. Sethe had been raped while Paul D was imprisoned and Stamp Paid lost his wife. Sethe kills her own daughter, Beloved, because she does not want her to have to be treated to the harshness of life that whites have brought on black people. Between the whites and blacks, it is a relationship of take until there was nothing left of the black person: That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldnt like your self anymore. Dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldnt think it up. . . . The best thing [Sethe] was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing (Morrison 1987: 251) For Sethe, it is easier to lose her daughter to death than it is for her to see Beloved suffer in this world. It did not seem right to live in a world where they were nameless and faceless to white society. Morrison describes this state as being â€Å"dismembered and unaccounted for†(Morrison 1987: 323). In writing about the black culture rising from the ashes of a horrific period in history, Morrison makes the point that individuality and community are what bind African Americans together. In an interview about her novel, she said: â€Å"The book was not about the institution Slavery with a capital S. It was about these anonymous people called slaves. What they do to keep on, how they make a life, what theyre willing to risk, however long it lasts, in order to relate to one another† (Angelo 1989: 3). While Morrison shows that black people are the same as white people because they are all human beings, the black culture has struggled with an identity and a purpose after white people had taken that away during slavery. Beloved is about an awakening to the ability to be individuals again and feel empowered after shaking the ghost of a dehumanizing history. Each character – man and woman – within the black community of Beloved go through a process of denial and then self-awareness. A sense of community and sisterhood along with the tight bonds of family that cannot be broken even by physical distance are what help Sethe and the black culture overcome the trauma and sorrow of the past. REFERENCES Angelo, B. (22 May 1989). â€Å"The Pain of Being Black.† Time. Available at: https://www.time.com/time/community/pulitzerinterview.html. Baker-Fletcher, K. (April 1993). â€Å"Tar Baby and Womanist Theology.† Theology Today. Available at: https://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/apr1993/v50-1-article3.htm. Capuano, P.J. (2003). â€Å"Truth in Timbre: Morrisons Extension of Slave Narrative Songs in Beloved.† African American Review. Morey, A.J. (16 November 1988). â€Å"Toni Morrison and the Color of Life.† Christian Century, 1039. Morrison, T. (1987). Beloved. New York: Vintage Books. Smith, Jeanne Rosier. (1997). â€Å"Chapter Four—Tar and Feathers: Community and the Outcast in Toni Morrisons Trickster Novels.† Writing Tricksters: Mythic Gambols in American Ethnic Fiction. Berkeley: University of California Press. Fraud Order 201306 This essay/coursework/dissertation was stolen from UK Essays, call 0115 966 7955 to speak to a Fraud Officer now for more details. We have made it available for use as a study resource. Date Of Order: 12/11/07 Date Paid: 15/11/07 Email Address Used: [email  protected]/* */ Likely Course: English Literature Level Of Study: University Level

Comparing The Bhagavad Gita And The Upanishads - 1805 Words

As any other society, India and Greece underwent changes that transformed their thoughts, beliefs, social order, and their idea about this world. Most of these changes were experienced during the Axial Age and the Age of Iron. These periods in history made people question themselves about topics such as life, the world, death, the soul, etc. People attempted to answer these questions through ideas, philosophies, and myths. India gave birth to Hinduism which expanded quickly. This spiritual tradition focused on finding peace and eternal tranquility rather than temporary satisfaction from the worldly pleasures. In order to transmit the idea to other people and guide them through it, they came up with different writings to illustrate this. The Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads are popular writings that exemplify the beliefs and thoughts of Hinduism. The Bhagavad Gita addresses the question about how a person can be one with Brahman, the universal soul or god, while living in this world. This document is set as a dialogue between the warrior Arjuna and his guide and charioteer Krishna. Arjuna is being encouraged by Krishna to fulfill his duty as a warrior and part of the Kshatriyas, one of the higher divisions in the caste system. Arjuna has to enter this battle and fight in order to live up to his duty and consequently live free from attachments and walk in the path of finding himself as one with Brahman. On the other hand, the Upanishads guided all kinds of people regardless ofShow MoreRelatedChristianity And Hinduism : A Theological Perspective1391 Words   |  6 PagesWhen looking at Christianity and Hinduism there are many ways to look at each religion from a theological perspective. This is why the best way to look at the broad view of these religions would be to analyze each by comparing and contrasting what each religion is about. The first point to look at would be at how Hinduism and Christianity are very similar in how they view the world. This can be seen in how they both strive to achieve a state of higher being whether it be with the eternal stateRead MoreSimilarities Between Buddhism And Hinduism1404 Words   |  6 Pagesrelated when comparing the two. Buddhism was created based on the ideologies of Hinduism. There differences on their views with the idea of self and transmigration. They compare with one another with the problems of having senses, desires and anger . Hinduism believes in everything being unified together as one ultimate reality, which is Brahman. Brahman is the truth of all. Atman is considered as the true and pure self. Atman and Brahman are identical with one another. In the Chandogya Upanishad, it statesRead MoreSimilarities Between Hinduism And Christianity1763 Words   |  8 Pagesreviewing the history and foundation of these religions are their: paths to enlightenment/salvation, the religions treatment of women, and the afterlife. This paper will give a thorough and concise analysis through discussion with the inclusion of comparing and contrasting embedded throughout this paper. One of the most important elements of both religions is their history. The Hindu religion disputably began around 2500 years before the Common Era (B.C.E.) in India. It was geographically based alongRead MoreThe Swadeshi Movement and the Boycott of Imported Items in 1907 in India5612 Words   |  23 Pages intimidate, touch innocent people, shov e them, enter any place without justification, pocket valuable items, etc..[6] Tilak took up the peoples cause by publishing inflammatory articles in his paper Kesari, quoting the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, to say that no blame could be attached to anyone who killed an oppressor without any thought of reward. Following this, on 22 June, Rand and another British officer Lt. Ayerst were shot and killed by the Chapekar brothers and their other associatesRead MoreAp World History Units 1-3 Study Guide Essay4374 Words   |  18 Pagesconcepts, essential for positional notation and the manipulation of large numbers, was invented by Mayan mathematicians? * Zero 33. The ultimate source of wealth in any agricultural society is * Land 34. This passage from the Upanishads explain what Hindu concept? â€Å"According as a man acts and walks in the path of life, so he becomes. He that does good becomes good; he that does evil becomes evil.† * Karma 35. Which early Mesopotamian ruler believed that the gods had

Animal Cloning It Must Be Stopped free essay sample

It seems that ever since the movie Jurassic Park came out into theaters, scientists have been on a cloning frenzy. In Jurassic Park, the lead scientist, Dr. John Hammond, combined DNA from dinosaurs with amphibian DNA to give life to a dinosaur species. He then took that DNA and cloned it to produce more dinosaurs. This movie led scientists to believe they could clone animals just as Dr. John Hammond did in the movie. Scientists have been trying to clone nearly everything from house pets to cows for beef production, with thoughts of cloning humans in the future. Scientists have also been trying to bring back extinct animals into current environments. However, cloning is not as grand as it is hyped up to be. The methods scientists use to clone an animal have a very high failure rate. If the clone is what scientists call successful, then the clone will have a very high chance of having many different abnormalities after birth. We will write a custom essay sample on Animal Cloning: It Must Be Stopped or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Due to the many problems associated with cloning, cloning must be forbidden. Researchers have been trying to successfully clone for many decades. The first time the idea of cloning became real was in 1885 when a German Biologist, Hans Adolf Edward Dreisch, cloned a sea urchin. According to the Health Sciences Department at the University of Utah, Dreisch separated the two-celled embryo in a process called artificial embryo twinning, which allowed each cell to form into two sea urchins (â€Å"The History of Cloning†). In 1902, another German scientist, Hans Spemann, tried Dreisch’s process with a more complex embryo, a salamander. Using Dreisch’s experiment, Spemann found that the process could succeed only up to a certain stage of development depending on which species’ eggs were used. Many years later, in 1952, two American Biologists, Thomas King and Robert Briggs, performed a new process called nuclear transfer with a frog embryo. The Health Sciences Department of the University of Utah states that â€Å"Briggs and King transf erred the nucleus from an early tadpole embryo into an enucleated frog egg† (â€Å"The History of Cloning†). This allowed for the nucleus to form in the new cell, however, this was one of the only successful tries they had completed. Thirty-two years later, Steen Willadsen, a scientist from Denmark, created the first successful mammal from a nuclear transfer. Using a lamb embryo, he sent an electrical shock to a separated cell to fuse to an enucleated egg – an egg that has had the nucleus removed. He then planted the new embryo into the womb of a different mother sheep, which gave birth to new lambs (â€Å"The History of Cloning†). In 1996, after countless tries, Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell produced Dolly, another sheep cloned from an adult somatic cell, which is a cell that has already been formed for a specific function in an animal. After Dolly, scientists wanted to move to bigger organisms, which led to a group of scientists from Oregon in 1997 to take a primate embryo cell and fuse it to an enucleate primate cell. Following Dolly’s and the primate’s birth, questions began forming about human cloning, and controversies began to arise with people wondering if science would contin ue with human cloning. Once Jurassic Park aired, it brought ideas and thoughts to scientists about bringing back extinct animals and endangered animals. So in 2001, a group of scientists cloned an endangered species, a gaur – a species of wild cattle. Unfortunately, it died three days after birth. The scientists still consider the experiment successful since the gaur survived past birth. After the cloning of the gaur, a different group used a goat’s enucleate egg cell as surrogates for a bucardo – a Spanish mountain goat, which died shortly after birth as well. Cloning animals was just the first step scientists needed to start cloning humans. Although scientists have not been successful with human cloning, there have been many who have tried, and who are currently trying to clone humans. With minimal change in the process of cloning over time, it can lead to many problems. One reason cloning should be forbidden is because there is a very high failure rate. The high failure rate is caused by the processes that cell biologists and other scientists use to clone an animal. A process they can follow is called artificial embryo twinning. The Health Sciences Department of Utah University states that in artificial embryo twinning, an embryo is divided into separate cells (â€Å"The Risks of Cloning†). One way an embryo can be separated is by a single strand of hair separating the cytoplasm, a similar procedure Hans Spemann performed when separating salamander cells. The separated cells are then inserted into the uterus of a mother, where they finish developing. When separating the cells, the main reason why cloning fails is because the entire nucleus is not collected or it was not separated correctly by the scientist during the process. Another process that can occur is that scientists first obtain an egg cell from an animal, and then remove its nucleus with a sharp pipette. The scientists will hold the egg cell by using a blunt pipette to keep it in place. They then collect a nucleus from a different animal – the one they want to clone – and place that nucleus into the enucleated egg cell, as shown in Image 1, by using a different sharp pipette. According to an article in Science News, scientists then use a â€Å"jolt of electricity or other stimulus to trick an egg into dividing as if it had been fertilized by a sperm† (Travis 250). After the egg starts dividing, it grows until it’s ready to be inserted into the uterus of a mother animal (Travis 250). For this process, the electricity or other stimulus used to trick the egg to start dividing may cause irregular division, which causes the high failure rate. At an interview, Rudolph Jaenisch, a biology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, stated â€Å"with cloning, you are asking an egg to reprogram in minutes or, at most, in hours† (Kolata). With these eggs reprograming that fast many problems can occur, causing the rate of success to range between 0.1 to 5 percent (â€Å"What Are the Risks of Cloning?†). This means for every 500 tries, zero to twenty-five clones could be made. When scientists cloned a sheep to produce Dolly, they had tried 277 times, only to produce one clone (Park 56). When the scientists cloned the gaur, out of the 692 egg cells, 81 grew and divided into groups of around 100 cells. Out of those 100, 44 were placed through the process of in vitro into 32 surrogate mothers. Out of those 44, only one, which they named Noah, had survived (Begley 56). Because cloning has such a high failure rate, cloning must be outlawed. When dealing with endangered and extinct species, cloning should not be used to reintroduce the species. First, when cloning endangered or extinct animals, most of the population would lack genetic diversity because there are not that many preserved or live animals to take the DNA from (â€Å"Why Cloning Won’t Save Endangered Animals†). With the lack of diversity, it would be very hard for the species to evolve with the changing environment, so if a disease would arise and one animal contracted the disease, the rest of the population would most likely become infected with the disease as well. Along with the lack of diversity, the lack of space is also a problem with cloning for de-extinction and endangered species to reintroduce these animals to the environment. De-extinction is the process of bringing back to life extinct animals. For example in 2003 scientists tried to clone a Pyrenean ibex, commonly known as a bucardo, which is a type of Spanish mountain goat. The l ast one of the species had died from a tree falling on it (Begley 56). Scientists had predicted and assumed that cloning the bucardo would be faster and easier because of the shorter gestation period compared to the endangered gaur. Although one bucardo survived to birth, the goat died shortly after death (Vogel 2). If there are multiple cloning successes of extinct or endangered animals, there would need to be space in the animal’s natural habitat to re-introduce these animals so they can reproduce and continue living. This is a problem because most of the space where these animals used to live has been either damaged or taken over by humans. Also, if humans truly want to re-introduce these extinct or endangered animals to the wild through cloning, they will have to spend the money and energy to make new space. However, if space and habitats are made, there’s no promise that the environment will be maintained until the animals can thrive on their own. A main reason animals had become endangered or extinct was because of humans hunting the animals or natural disasters. For example, the mammoth was hunted for its fur and its tusks, the dodo bird was hunted for food, and so was the bucardo. If these animals are reintroduced into the wild, back where their habitats are, there is no guarantee humans will not hunt them again, driving the animals back into extinction. Stuart Pimm, who wrote an article for National Geographic about the hunting of re-introduced animals that stated, â€Å"Reintroduce a resurrected ibex to the area where it belongs, and it will become the most expensive cabrito ever eaten.† A cabrito is roasted goat, and because the reason the ibex became extinct was that humans hunted it for food, if they bring the animal back, Pimm states that it would just be eaten again. If these animals became extinct again, it would have been a waste of resources to try to have the animals thriving in the wild by cloning. With hunting, loss of resources, and space, cloning should not be continued especially with endangered and extinct animals. Finally, cloning should be forbidden because if an animal is successfully cloned, there are many abnormalities associated with it that have a high chance to occur. Before birth, pregnancy failure is very common with cloned embryos. A cause of pregnancy failure can be connected to chromosomal abnormalities because of the unnatural division of the embryo through cloning. With chromosomal abnormalities, the missing or damaged genes cause irregular division, which damages the embryo (Schmidt 2). Also with cloning, the embryo may form irregularly, causing the fetus to become extremely large and develop abnormally in the placenta (Schmidt 2). This enlargement is termed large offspring syndrome, or LOS for short. According to Mette Schmidt, an Associate Professor with a PhD in Veterinary Reproduction and Obstetrics at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, individuals that have LOS develop â€Å"extremely large umbilical veins and arteries and abnormal, asynchronous growth of organs wit h musculoskeletal deformities† (2). These abnormalities result in large internal organs such as the lungs, heart, and liver. With larger organs, the likelihood of a miscarriage is very high and puts the mother at risk while giving birth. If the animal does not have a miscarriage, the likelihood of weak labor, extended gestation, or dystocia, which is disordered or ineffective contractions of the uterus, is also increased with cloning. If a clone does survive and has LOS, the animal will be born much larger than normal or have skeletal abnormalities. Newborns may also have oxygen-depravity, which leads into respiratory problems or death (Travis 250). The cloned animal’s bones and muscles also may be abnormally weak after birth, which prevents them from moving. Even if the newborn seems normal, problems may arise later in life. For example, Dr. Ryuzo Yanagimachi at the University of Hawaii cloned mice, and when they were born, they seemed normal; however, they become massively obese even when receiving the same amount of food as other identical mice that were not born by cloning (Kolata). Clones can also develop diseases and other infections more rapidly than normal births. An example of this is when the baby gaur was born, he seemed normal, started to walk and act like a gaur, however, overnight, the guar developed a bacteria called clostridium, which causes diarrhea in newborns, resulting in death the next day even with antibiotics (Vogel 2). With cloning, the embryo can develop incorrectly, which causes many abnormalities, and even death to individuals, which is why cloning should be forbidden because of its unpredictability. Even with these problems, there are scientists who want to continue from animals on to humans. These scientists want to move forward to use human cloning to treat illnesses. The process scientists would be using is the nuclear transfer process they have been using for many years with cloning animals. Scientists arguing for cloning humans â€Å"every species is different, and it remains possible that it will be easier and safer to clone humans than it is to clone other species† (Kolata). However, the same problems are just as likely in humans as they are in any other species. To argue against scientists who want to continue to cloning humans, Rudolf Jaenisch states, â€Å"Our experience with animal cloning allows us to predict with a high degree of confidence that few cloned humans will survive to birth and of those the majority will be abnormal† (â€Å"Goodbye Dolly†¦and Friends?† 711). Cloning needs to stop because if it continues, there’s a greater chance human cloning will occur and fail, causing a backlash against science by the public. Cloning needs to be prevented from occurring because of the many issues associated with the process. Throughout the history of cloning, abnormalities from incomplete division cause a high failure rate. However, even if it successfully births an animal, there is not enough space for the animals to thrive in the wild. People should not look forward to dinosaurs in the future, because there comes a point in science where the energy spent researching and trying to come up with a solution is too great, which is why cloning needs to be stopped now, not later.

Marketing And The Media Essays - Business Ethics, Codes Of Conduct

Marketing And The Media Matthew Courtney May 2000 Media Ethics and Their Relation to Business In this world, there is an obvious connection between the media and its involvement in business ethics. No matter what the form of media looked at, they all have the ability of being either an aid to businesss success or a detriment. The press and the media are responsible for reporting news, issues and events as clearly as possible. Any distortions can cause the message being sent to be misinterpreted or completely wrong. News organizations are given a responsibility of representing the public interest. In order to gain the publics trust, such broadcasters are required to work within the parameters of ethical and responsible new casting. No matter what the issue, company or news being reported on, every media organization works off of a Code of Ethics. This is a sort of safeguard to the honesty of the organization. It demands truth telling, privacy of individuals being documented, and avoids the many conflicts that could possibly arise as a result of misinforming the public. Stylebooks are also used in order to form a generalized style of writing to allow for easy read through, from one writer to the next. There are many different kinds of businesses in this world. The successes of these businesses are primarily as a result of their reputation. The media winds up being a medium that forms many of the reputations. The way a news broadcast, print, radio and even Internet presents a company has a great effect on the resulting emotion or feeling one associates with a business or company. This is why the media ethics are so important to the introduction, growth, and development of a company. Large companies rely on their name in the media and are always ready to respond to any situation with a quick answer or rebuttal. In addition to the reputation of a company being important, so is the reputation of the organization doing the broadcast. Names in the business world that are known to be accurate and reliable include CNN, CSPAN, local news stations such as CBS, NBC, ABC etc. Those who watch the business world closely are more inclined to go to reliable sources for their information. What is reported on these stations are considered as true based mainly on their past records. But when the occasion does arise, where the media goes about treating a business, or situation in an unethical manner many problems arise. In order to understand this type of situation clearly, it is good to look at actual examples where the media ethics become involved in communicating or the miscommunication of a business. Many recent problems in the media world are being attributed to the advances in technology. Although these advances are great and making life easier, things are being done so quickly that many important steps are being forgotten. In the rush to present a story first, many journalists are forgetting to be accurate and balanced in their covered stories. The pressures of live broadcast are requiring journalists to focus on a new set of questions in order to check and be sure the position and format in which they present their story is clear of any unethical issues. A committee known as SPJ is focused on the ethics of journalism in all forms of media and claims The SPJ Code of Ethics encourages journalists to minimize harm by recognizing that our coverage can hurt, cause discomfort or be insensitive. During an event we must remember to show good task. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity. Being aware is the most important thing. As long as the media is aware of the impact they will have on their audience, they will be better able to communicate the core of what is at hand. In the business world there is so much competition, that failure is a common thing. In order to be secure in the business world ethics becomes unavoidable. The press and media are attracted to ethical issues on both sides of the matters. A business that is ethical will be regarded and presented almost always in an ethical manner. These are the ones who succeed and are able to make a reputation