Ethical values and technological change in audiovisual communication: From science to technology

Abstract

The fact that science involves values, including ethical values, is clearly accepted in the current context. Audiovisual communication has ethical values as a scientific activity (both as an applied science and as application of this science) and technological work. Both facets involve free human actions. This article reflects on the ethical values of communication as an applied science and as application of science in order to reach deontological codes. If communication is understood as a science, professional practice cannot be reduced to cumulative and consensual knowledge alone, but it is necessary to identify the ethical values that validity it and allow to use general criteria in specific cases. In short, we must contemplate the framework of ethical values in audiovisual communication as applied science and as application of this science, which must be reflected in university education and the preparation of deontological codes, because ethical values influence future communicative problems and the action guidelines to face them in professional practice. Moreover, technological changes in audiovisual communication are based on creative transformations of the real, thus giving rise to new realities that need to be ethically considered in terms of objectives, processes and results.