ETHICAL ISSUES IN THE

MEDIA INDUSTRY

One of the ethical issues In the media industry is the way someone looks or dresses

is portrayed. Different subcultures such as Goths, emos, punks etc, have been portrayed

in the media as being bad, rebellious people who dress like this to go against what other

people decide to do, and that they are all being made to do this by the devil.

GOTHS

A lot of bad things have been said over the years in the media about Goths and this is mostly

because people are afraid or don’t understand what the gothic subculture is about. Being part of the

gothic subculture myself, people around you expect you too do certain things, they think that you sit in

your room all day in the dark being depressed, listening to music and wear black everyday, but that isn’t

what it is about, goths have different reasons for being part of the subculture, my reason is I like the

music and the clothing, this doesn’t make me or any other Goth or anyone who is part of a subculture

less of a person than you are, we just dress differently and have other interested than you might do. The

goth scene first came about in the late 1970’s early 1980’s when punk was about and bands like, joy

division, Bauhaus, the cure, sisters of mercy, Christian death, and other bands came about starting the

gothic music scene. This is a link to a video on youtube explaining to people what goth is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIrkXyIGFyw

COLUMBINE SHOOTING

The columbine high school massacre happened on April 20th 1999.

Eric harris and dylan klebold killed 12 students and one teacher, the

media portraid them as bully victims and that they had a reason to do

this. The goth subculture were blamed for this , because the shooters

were dressed in all black so the media had blamed the music and the

films they listened to.

MARILYN MANSON

Shortly after the columbine shooting marilyn manson got a lot of blame for the

shooting because the media had blamed his controversial music and because of the

way he dresses so they pointed the blame to him. He was then threatened daily by

people calling him a devil worshipper and saying they were going to kill him because

those two boys killed there fellow students, it was later discovered that the boys

weren’t goths or fans of his music, causing the media to stop harrasing him.

WEST MEMPHIS THREE

Another case that caused a lot of controversy is the west memphis

three case, on may 5 1993 three 8 years old boys went missing, Stevie

branch, Michael moore, and Christopher byers . The next day the

police found them dead in the woods. After investigating for a month

and not being able to find leads, 3 teenage boys were arrested for the

murders.

WEST MEMPHIS THREE

Damien echols, jessie misskelley and jason baldwin were arrested

in 1993 for the murders of three eight year old boys, but after serving

were released after taking an Alford plea because they were

wrongfully convicted of the murders.