Journalism ethics in a digital environment: How journalistic codes of ethics have been adapted to the Internet and ICTs in countries around the world

: Journalism is facing new ethical issues because of the emergence of the Internet and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). In this article, we examine how journalistic codes of ethics have been updated to address this new reality. Three research questions are explored through a systematic analysis of 99 codes from around the world. Results show that, of the 99 codes analyzed, only 9 include references to the Internet and ICTs. We conclude with proposals for changes in the codes that would help journalists resolve these new moral issues.


Introduction
ICTs, in general, and the Internet, in particular, have created a fourth kind of journalism in addition to print, radio, and television journalism-the so-called cyber journalism, digital journalism, or online journalism. This new digital environment sets up a number of ethical dilemmas for journalists. While digital journalists still have the same dilemmas that journalists-and the journalism profession-have always faced, they now have some new dilemmas, as well.
The journalism process itself has changed radically, in fact, and we are in the middle of a changing media landscape (White, 2008). We speak of a bidirectional process in which everyone may take part in producing and presenting the news. In another words, every individual becomes a potential publisher. This is only one of the several-and major-transformations that have taken place in journalism in recent years. Interactivity, hypertextuality, the use of multimedia, and immediacy are some of the main features of digital journalism, and each of these, of course, raises its own new ethical issues. As Evers (2001: 38) asks, -To what extent is a site owner legally or morally responsible for what is being posted?‖ (including anonymous comments). Is the site also responsible for links leading to offensive content? There are other new moral issues, as well, related to intellectual property, digital manipulation, and the process of gathering news and contrasting sources, for example, that stem from the use of multimedia and the need for immediacy.
So, the main question could be formulated as follows: are the current codes of ethics in journalism valid for the Internet, too? While there is agreement that the Internet has changed journalism, there is no consensus on the impact such changes have had (Friend and Singer, 2007). Consequently, responses to this question reveal two opposing points of view.
On the one hand, those who remember Belsey and Chadwick's statement (1994) that ethics and journalism are inseparable would argue that the existing ethical guidelines are equally effective for the new media. In other words, ethics is ethics-whether it is the new journalism or the old.
On the other hand, although the essence of journalism remains basically unchanged, it is obvious that the Internet "shapes and redefines a number of moral and ethical issues confronting journalists when operating online or making use of online resources," as Deuze and Yeshua (2001: 276) have stated.
There seems to be consensus that Deuze and Yeshua's statement is the most accurate; as many authors have pointed out (Cooper, 1998;Ess, 2008;Evers, 2001;Demir, 2011;García Capilla, 2012;Pavlik, 2001, Ward andWasserman, 2010;Whitehouse, 2010, among others), new media calls for new ethics because the issues online journalists are confronting are different from those that traditional journalists face. So, as Hayes, Singer, and Ceppos (2007, 275)  Journalists have met these challenges through self-regulation which, according to Evers (2001, 46), is -the only way to create online standards and to control the observation of moral rules.‖ According to Aznar (2005, pp. 13-14), the characteristics of this modality of regulation are 1) that its objective is to make effective use of or contribute to a particular activity's deontology, and 2) that it is created and sustained by the same agents who engage in that activity.
This second characteristic distinguishes self-regulation from legal regulation and, according to Mijatovic (2013, 5), represents one of its advantages in establishing rules of conduct for digital journalism: -self-regulation appears to be a solution to increase online accountability while offering more flexibility than state regulation.‖ Self-regulation is evidenced through a number of mechanisms, among which are deontological codes-documents that define the minimal expectations of moral activity, the ideal standards of conduct, and the accepted conventions of behavior (Elliott-Boyle, 1985).
The codes set forth the principles that journalists, in keeping with their ethical conscience, must abide by as they carry out their work. As Bertrand (2000) 4 remarks, journalists around the world have found that, because the codes evidence a willingness to engage in self-regulation, they are an effective weapon against the threat of state intervention.
Even though the codes have sparked controversy on some occasions, a majority of academics and communications professionals still clamor for them because they are so effective (Heinonen, 2004).
Twenty years ago, Tina Laitila (1995) analyzed 30 journalistic codes of conduct in Europe, observing that most of them (21) had been adopted or revised in the 1990s. Laitila claims that the introduction of new information technologies-in addition to political changes, such as the fall of the Berlin wall and the European integration process-was one of the main reasons the journalism ethics debate was rekindled during those years.
So, given the huge impact the Internet has had on the work of journalists, it would be interesting to know whether a similar debate has again surfaced and whether the emergence of digital journalism has translated to new ethical guidelines. Let us remember that, in terms of ethics, journalism has been among the most dubious professions in recent years. According to Mamonova (2013), most European press councils are actively involved with the Internet as well as print, radio, and television journalism.
So it was that, in an attempt to adapt self-regulation mechanisms and, more specifically, journalistic codes of ethics to that new reality, a working group This is a question that has been explored extensively with a focus on certain scenarios-for example, in the United States (Whitehouse, 2010), the Netherlands (Deuze and Yeshua, 2001), and Spain (Ruiz, Masip, Micó, 2007)-as well as in comparative studies of two countries (Micó et al, 2008). Until now, however, there has been no research of a global nature on this question. In contrast, in-depth studies on the current status and transformation of press councils have increased since the appearance of the Internet (Eberwein et al, 2011;Hulin & Stone, 2013).
Of all the research done on codes so far, probably the most ambitious is that of González Esteban et al (2011), which was conducted in Austria, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, France, and Poland; it examined other mechanisms, as well, such as press councils and the role of the ombudsman. These studies concluded that most of these countries lack any type of self-regulation mechanism for online journalism, in general, and all the initiatives that have appeared were spurred by individual media outlets.
No study to date, however, has systematically analyzed the degree to which journalistic codes around the world have been adapted to the new digital journalism reality. This study, therefore, seeks to determine the extent to which national journalistic codes of ethics have been adapted to the new online environment. To achieve this objective, we focused on three research questions: RQ 1. Are the codes most recently created and/or updated the ones that have the most Internet-related content in their articles?
As Laitila (1995) has pointed out, introduction of the new technologies was one of the driving forces behind an updating or reformulation of the codes of ethics in Europe during the 1990s. One objective of this study is to determine whether the continued development of these ICTs has been a driving force or a consideration in the updating of codes over the past decade, as well.
6 RQ 2. What countries have modified their codes to the greatest extent in adapting them to the Internet's arrival?
Traditionally, countries in the West have been those most likely and among the first to develop the various self-regulation mechanisms, as several comparative studies have shown (in chronological order, Jones, 1980;Barroso, 1980;Villanueva, 1999;Bertrand, 2000;Himelboim and Limor, 2008). So, another objective of this study is to examine whether this same pattern has been seen in the adaptation to digital journalism. RQ 3. What aspects of digital journalism and communications per se have the different countries incorporated into their codes?
The point of this question is to determine the extent to which elements specific to digital journalism have been integrated into their rules. What type of digital journalism-related content appears most frequently in the codes analyzed?

Material and methods
To conduct this study and achieve the stated objectives, codes that include standards pertaining to the Internet and to journalists' activity on the Internet were identified. In addition, the aspects of digital journalism governed by those codes were determined.
To be specific, 99 journalistic codes of ethics currently in force around the world were studied (see complete list in Appendix I). Two main sources were used: Only generic codes used nationwide were included in the sample; regional or supranational codes were excluded. The sample also excluded thematic codes and self-regulation rules applicable only to certain topics or areas of journalism. So, codes like the Deontological Code from Catalonia (Spain), the Guidelines for News Embargoes from Belgium, and the Media and Sports Code from Italy, all of which can be found on the EthicNet website, were not included in the sample.
To find the codes that address digital journalism issues, a set list of terms (Table 1) was drawn up, and the entire text of the codes was searched for these terms. They were chosen on the basis of previous studies of a similar nature (Deuze and Yeshua, 2001;Hulin and Stone, 2013;Ruiz, Masip, and Micó, 2007) because they are terms used as synonyms for digital journalism (online, digital, or cyber journalism) or in referring to popular web features (site, website, email, social media, social networking sites) and services (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). At the same time, only Canada's and Luxembourg's code-two of those nine codes-include a section on journalism and digital media, specifically. The remaining codes include different aspects of journalism and online activity in sections devoted to the key principles of professional deontology, such as the respect for privacy and the commitment to accuracy.
The considerations related to digital journalism that appear in the codes analyzed are primarily the management of user-generated content, the use of social media as vehicle and as source, and links to other websites.
The main trends found in these codes are discussed below.

General principles applicable to the online environment
Of the nine codes that make reference to these new forms of communication, The code does acknowledge, however, that these services are useful not only as a source of information but also as a tool for establishing new contacts: -We encourage the use of social networks as it is one way to make connections, which is part of our core work as journalists.‖

Other aspects
The Internet affords the option to modify or delete content after it has been published. The Canadian code views these options as unlawful, however-even when it is at the request of the public or when the source of the information has requested it.

Conclusions
As this article has shown, the fact that a journalistic code of ethics has recently been adopted or updated is no guarantee that it will include rules for digital activity.
Since 2001, 31 codes have been written or revised, but only 9 of them have added specific references to the Internet and ICTs. In other words, in 22 instances of codes that were written or adapted in the twenty-first century, digital journalism was deemed not worth mentioning.
The 9 countries that do include references to it in their codes are in the West; so, as this type of document has been adapted to the new Internet reality, the historical pattern has continued, to some extent: in terms of journalistic selfregulation, countries in the West have always been the most advanced. Then again, there was one unexpected reality: many of the countries where the tradition of self-regulation is strongest-the United States and France, to name two-have not made the decision to modify their codes to adapt them to the Internet and ICTs.
Notable among the countries that have the most references to the Internet in their codes are Canada, the United Kingdom, and Norway.
The codes of ethics analyzed reflect an attitude toward the Internet and digital journalism that may be characterized, in short, as a widespread lack of interest and a lack of consistency. As pointed out earlier, in most of the 9 codes that do include references to ICTs, there is nothing more than a statement that online journalism is subject to the same principles as traditional journalism. There are no uniform trends as to how aspects specific to digital journalism are incorporated into the codes of ethics. Each country incorporates recommendations and isolated rules, stemming from the particularities of their national context, and there are hardly any themes or references that are common to all these codes. The only detectable trend is a concern about the website's and the journalist's responsibility with regard to creating links to other websites-an issue that, even so, is addressed in only 3 of the codes analyzed.
It seems reasonable, therefore, to suggest that an in-depth revision of the content of many of these codes is needed-like the revision accomplished 20 years ago (Laitila, 1995) and like the task undertaken by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism a few years ago (Kovach y Rosenstiel, 2003). Based on the testimony of more than 300 professionals and input from several public forums, that project attempted to redefine the existing basic principles upon which the practice of ethical and high-quality journalism should be founded. At that time, concentration of media ownership and sensationalism in content were the two primary incentives for reformulating the basic lines of consensus.
The point is that, even though many of these countries have written specific documents or guidelines to address digital journalism or some particular aspect of it (blogging, social media, etc.), the codes themselves also should be reformulated-for they are, after all, self-regulation's benchmark documents. This is exactly what happened back in the 1990s. Associations and/or press councils formulated a large number of recommendations to regulate very specific issues, such as publication of sensationalist content and news coverage on children, to mention two such issues-but that did not preclude a reformulation of the corresponding codes (Laitila, 1995). In view of the advancement and consolidation of the Internet and ICTs, it only makes sense that something similar would happen now and the text of the codes would be revised in connection with tackling issues such as privacy, for example-an issue that, apart from the new technologies, is still handled in an archaic manner.
With reference to the ASNE and Poynter Institute criteria (Mann, 1998) mentioned at the beginning of this article, the conclusion is that the organizations responsible for adapting journalistic codes of ethics have not applied these criteria consistently. There are references, even though in a minority of cases, to four of the key established principles-reliability of online content, linking, editorial control of potentially hurtful or harmful content, and the uses of database information-and virtually no reference to the fifth-journalistic integrity and commercial pressure.
So, professional journalist organizations and associations around the world could work along these two lines when proceeding to update, as needed, the content of their codes of ethics. As we have seen, it is these very documents that set forth the standard moral criteria for all journalists. At the same time, however, they clearly define, for the public, the ground rules of the profession-a profession that will have a difficult time maintaining credibility, if those basic norms are obviously out-of-date and belong to a bygone reality.
Even though the ASNE and Poynter Institute criteria have not been applied consistently, it should be pointed out that, in the more than 15 years since those recommendations were made, the journalistic codes of ethics that did get updated have incorporated other aspects of ICTs not addressed by the Poynter Institutefor instance, to mention only two examples, the use of information that users gather when accessing services on the web, and the function of social networks as a source for journalists. The pace at which new services and features are launched means that the Internet is a shifting reality that alters even the basic principles of traditional ethics, such as the respect for privacy: to what extent is a social network a public realm or a private realm?
Journalist organizations around the world should try to keep pace with these changes, as best they can, and fine-tune the content and functioning of their selfregulation mechanisms to the new reality. One step in this direction that might be very useful would be to start revising some of the major supranational codes that were last updated many years ago now. The latest version of the International