Communication ethics and the receiver: Contribution to an ethic of strategic mass communication

Abstract

The author wants to contribute to an ethic of strategic communication by proposing a general ethical norm for all strategic communication. The author wants to outline the focal point of the norm, the ethical basis of the norm, a precise definition of the norm and to show how it works. This norm focuses exclusively on the persuasive means used to get the sender’s message across. The question is whether the rhetorical means mislead the receiver. In order to answer this question, a norm of “fairness”, defined from the viewpoint of the receiver, is proposed. It is shown how “fairness” allows us to identify misleading means and to evaluate them on a common ethical ground.