A Philosopher Looks at Digital Communication

Explores how digital technologies have raised new ethical issues for communication.

Onora O'Neill (Author)

9781108986816, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 10 February 2022

150 pages
19.7 x 13 x 1.4 cm, 0.2 kg

'This book tackles one of the most crucial ethical issues facing us in the age of online communication and digital information. It is clear, concise and yet deep and insightful.' Maria Baghramian, University College Dublin

Communication is complicated, and so is the ethics of communication. We communicate about innumerable topics, to varied audiences, using a gamut of technologies. The ethics of communication, therefore, has to address a wide range of technical, ethical and epistemic requirements. In this book, Onora O'Neill shows how digital technologies have made communication more demanding: they can support communication with huge numbers of distant and dispersed recipients; they can amplify or suppress selected content; and they can target or ignore selected audiences. Often this is done anonymously, making it harder for readers and listeners, viewers and browsers, to assess which claims are true or false, reliable or misleading, flaky or fake. So how can we empower users to assess and evaluate digital communication, so that they can tell which standards it meets and which it flouts? That is the challenge which this book explores.

Part I. Complex Communication: 1. Presuppositions of Communication
2. Acts and Content, Norms and Harms
3. Communication and New Technologies
4. Digital Hopes
Part II. Norms and Standards in a Connected World: 5. Duties and Rights 1: Freedom of Expression
6. Duties and Rights 2: Rights to Privacy
Part III. Politics and Connectivity: 7. Power and Anonymity.

Subject Areas: IT & Communications law [LNQ], Popular philosophy [HPX], Social & political philosophy [HPS], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], Communication studies [GTC]