[Air-L] Ethical decision-making framework for communications

[Jill Farrar]

Hi everyone,

The Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) recently
published guidance on how to create an ethical decision-making framework
(EDMF) for communications. While it's written for the development sector,
it's equally useful for other types of comms. It was specifically designed
for digital communications.

I researched/wrote the guidance and thought this group might find it
interesting:
https://acfid.asn.au/ethical-decision-making-framework-communications

The AoIR's ethics guidelines were a particularly useful resource and I've
included a link to them in section 6
<https://acfid.asn.au/content/section-6-useful-information-edmfs>(Useful
information on EDMFs), along with a selection of other relevant guidelines,
codes and papers.

Here's a little more background on the need for more ethical guidance for
digital communications:

"Recent (and rapid) developments in smartphone technology, mobile internet
and social media publishing have provided Australian iNGOs with many new
opportunities and challenges when sharing stories about their work. Nearly
90% of Australians now own a smartphone and nearly 80% use social media,
which has spurred massive change in the marketing and publishing
industries. In the last five years alone, smartphone cameras have improved
enormously and the newest smartphones can now capture publishing-quality
images.

"For iNGOs, these changes have fuelled both a desire to create new content for
digital platforms, and an increase in the number stories able to be
created using
smartphones that are privately owned by their staff/members/supporters.

"While the benefits are great, publishing more stories also creates more
risk. Emily Moreton’s report for ACFID, Images in online fundraising and
marketing (2018), highlighted that while the Code of Conduct was updated to
include an ethical decision-making framework (EDMF) in 2017 (Compliance
Indicator 6.2.1), 63% of ACFID Members responding to the ACFID Images
Survey stated that more guidance on how to create an EDMF was a high
priority. The report also noted, “Members themselves also identified
gaining informed consent as the second-most challenging issue, and it was
the only issue marked as ‘extremely challenging’ by survey respondents.”"

I'd be interested to hear AoIR members' thoughts on these guidelines and
would appreciate any links other relevant literature/resources.

Best,

Jill
*Jill Farrar*
Communications Consultant
+61 403 963 577 | farrar.jill at gmail.com
www.jill-farrar.com | Melbourne, Australia